Thread: Dream time V.S. Real time ( is it the same )

Originally Posted by prometheuspan

why would it be the same?
No. Apparently you did not study your REM sleep. The mind builds the primary ingredients of a dream for a short time in an alpha sleep. This then loads in under 2 or 3 seconds for the vast majority of dreams. The exterior interface with the matrix is limited in time experience to the sampling rate of the senses
and the processing rate of the brain. No such limitations exist in brodmann brain area communications. 60 Year long Lucid dreams are really not that hard to come by for expert lucid dreamers, and in real time, that probably happens in well under 10 minutes.
I'm scandalously floored at some of the answers. You people really should get more research done and quit chattering in circles, pretending knowledge you don't have and thus giving each other false ideas.

Could you cite your sources for these conclusions? I'd be very interested in reading them.

How do you explain the LaBerge study that concluded that lucid time perception is equal to wakeful time perception? They tested this by having a skilled lucid dreamer make a series of predetermined eye movements to facilitate communication while lucid dreaming. Any thoughts on that?

In my personal experience, time perception while LD'ing is equal to that of being awake. But how do you define time perception? I can think of three types of ways to think about time:

(a) By your observations of events, such as distance travelled or the observance of nightfall, etc.

(b) By the rate at which you consciously process thoughts.

(c) We seem to have an internal clock that keeps us unconsciously aware of the passage of time.


I don't think that (a) is a reliable measure since it's based on observance of the dream imagery. Observing nightfall or quickly flying 10 miles is all part of the flexible and outrageous nature of dreams.

I think that (b) and (c) are related somehow. Judging by these two methods, my perception of time has always been consistent. Years may go by, or days may go by, or I may travel around the world, but it still only feels like a few minutes or few seconds of real-life awake time. I've never had more than several minutes' worth of conscious thoughts in one LD.

I will say that all of my lucid dreams feel like they are in a "different time and place", as if in a parallel dimension.

Could you cite your sources for these conclusions? I'd be very interested in reading them.
---------
ppan. No, can't do that. Not prepared to be lucid dreaming expert, its not
anything i keep files for.
---------

How do you explain the LaBerge study that concluded that lucid time perception is equal to wakeful time perception? They tested this by having a skilled lucid dreamer make a series of predetermined eye movements to facilitate communication while lucid dreaming. Any thoughts on that?
--------
Sure, i have heard of lots of such things. Its still true that the dominant
understanding of psychology is that dreams occur while in a REM condition
and that REM conditions peak for only a few seconds. Pseudoscience
can generate all sorts of interesting proofs for its assumptions. Give me the specifics of the test and i'll tell you where its making the mistake.

Something else to consider is that the more lucid a dream is, the more likely
you are to have beta brain waves, which slows things down considerably.
Never mind sleep. The beta level mind samples reality at about 16 clicks per second. The alpha level mind at between that and as high as say 60 clicks per second. The reptile mind or delta level samples at up to a few hundred clicks
per second. Think about it in terms of pure biochemical messaging.
Why would the brain be limited by real time in a brain to brain communication?

-------------

In my personal experience, time perception while LD'ing is equal to that of being awake. But how do you define time perception? I can think of three types of ways to think about time:
------------
ppan

I'm sorry, but modern science understands that and says everybody is fooled.
---------

(a) By your observations of events, such as distance travelled or the observance of nightfall, etc.

(b) By the rate at which you consciously process thoughts.
----------
ppan
Which is determined by what state of consciousness we are in.
----------

(c) We seem to have an internal clock that keeps us unconsciously aware of the passage of time.
---------
ppan; yes, very accurate time if this is the reptile brain we are talking about
since its counting heartbeats and other such biological patterns and etc.
----------


I don't think that (a) is a reliable measure since it's based on observance of the dream imagery. Observing nightfall or quickly flying 10 miles is all part of the flexible and outrageous nature of dreams.

I think that (b) and (c) are related somehow. Judging by these two methods, my perception of time has always been consistent. Years may go by, or days may go by, or I may travel around the world, but it still only feels like a few minutes or few seconds of real-life awake time. I've never had more than several minutes' worth of conscious thoughts in one LD.
-----------
ppan
I have had numerous LD events where subjective time lasted at least several weeks.
-----------

I will say that all of my lucid dreams feel like they are in a "different time and place", as if in a parallel dimension.
--------
ppan
Qaballists call that dimension Tiferet.

erm my first lucid it felt really slow time was reallly really slow but yeah i think every experiences time differently also i heard higher uup u are the faster time goes by but i dont know if thats true

Originally Posted by Mini Man56

Sorry to burst your bubble, but autosuggestion is already known by most of us...

Edit: But it DOES work! n_n

Haha yeah, just making sure the OP knew.

Sometimes I can doze off and have an entire dream, eventho 1 minute has passed. Especially during WILD attempts, time perception goes crazy.

Guys, the Laberge study didn't 'prove' that dream time always conincided with real time, but did evidentially support the conclusion that dreams normally do. None of the subjects were attempting to 'extend' the dreamtime during the test (or claimed to be able to, as far as I know).

Originally Posted by prometheuspan

Could you cite your sources for these conclusions? I'd be very interested in reading them.
---------
ppan. No, can't do that. Not prepared to be lucid dreaming expert, its not
anything i keep files for.
---------

How do you explain the LaBerge study that concluded that lucid time perception is equal to wakeful time perception? They tested this by having a skilled lucid dreamer make a series of predetermined eye movements to facilitate communication while lucid dreaming. Any thoughts on that?
--------
Sure, i have heard of lots of such things. Its still true that the dominant
understanding of psychology is that dreams occur while in a REM condition
and that REM conditions peak for only a few seconds. Pseudoscience
can generate all sorts of interesting proofs for its assumptions. Give me the specifics of the test and i'll tell you where its making the mistake.

Something else to consider is that the more lucid a dream is, the more likely
you are to have beta brain waves, which slows things down considerably.
Never mind sleep. The beta level mind samples reality at about 16 clicks per second. The alpha level mind at between that and as high as say 60 clicks per second. The reptile mind or delta level samples at up to a few hundred clicks
per second. Think about it in terms of pure biochemical messaging.
Why would the brain be limited by real time in a brain to brain communication?

-------------

In my personal experience, time perception while LD'ing is equal to that of being awake. But how do you define time perception? I can think of three types of ways to think about time:
------------
ppan

I'm sorry, but modern science understands that and says everybody is fooled.
---------

(a) By your observations of events, such as distance travelled or the observance of nightfall, etc.

(b) By the rate at which you consciously process thoughts.
----------
ppan
Which is determined by what state of consciousness we are in.
----------

(c) We seem to have an internal clock that keeps us unconsciously aware of the passage of time.
---------
ppan; yes, very accurate time if this is the reptile brain we are talking about
since its counting heartbeats and other such biological patterns and etc.
----------


I don't think that (a) is a reliable measure since it's based on observance of the dream imagery. Observing nightfall or quickly flying 10 miles is all part of the flexible and outrageous nature of dreams.

I think that (b) and (c) are related somehow. Judging by these two methods, my perception of time has always been consistent. Years may go by, or days may go by, or I may travel around the world, but it still only feels like a few minutes or few seconds of real-life awake time. I've never had more than several minutes' worth of conscious thoughts in one LD.
-----------
ppan
I have had numerous LD events where subjective time lasted at least several weeks.
-----------

I will say that all of my lucid dreams feel like they are in a "different time and place", as if in a parallel dimension.
--------
ppan
Qaballists call that dimension Tiferet.

LOL , I read all that shit before... You just wasted your time... I wanted to hear personal views on the subject , not scientific research ….

I personally feel as though my dreams last much longer than the RL time. It doesn't matter if I'm standing still, talking to DCs, or whatever, and I generally view my dreams as only lasting seconds or minutes as I am asleep but lasting MUCH longer while I am in the dream. Dream time is much slower, imo. Which is awesome, you get to do more

It also makes me wonder if the passing speed of dream time is correlated to what you are thinking of it and how you are expecting it to pass. For example, once LaBerge's people knew they should be counting at their RL speeds, did they actually count at RL speeds? When you are in a lucid going "I've only got a few seconds left before I wake up! I'm going to wake up in a few seconds!" (You know it's happened to you!) do you inadvertently speed up the time of the dream so that you wake up right as you are thinking that? Just because LaBerge did a study saying that his subjects could regulate dream time to pass as real time does, I don't think necessarily means that dream times are exclusively identical to real time. I'd like to see more scientific studies, and the actual write-ups, before I take even a scientific study to be 100% truth.

prometheuspan, you ought to use the quote function. I love to read your responses on here but those huge blocks of text... I can't bring myself to read that lol

not sure if anyone's said anything about this yet, or even if it could be helpful, but two or three times, i've been laying in bed, trying to sleep, i close my eyes for a second, and when i open them, it's morning!
But that's only happened a couple of times.

If you want to impress your professor, use the LaBerge study. Then integrate the testimonies, and make a hypothesis as to why individuals' experiences deviate from the study.

Some dreams feel pretty real, going through all actions. Others skip parts, so it seems much longer than what it was.

Originally Posted by Abra

If you want to impress your professor, use the LaBerge study. Then integrate the testimonies, and make a hypothesis as to why individuals' experiences deviate from the study.

Some dreams feel pretty real, going through all actions. Others skip parts, so it seems much longer than what it was.

I have.... I just wanted to hear personal views about the subject...

You can't compare DT to RT.

In dreams, time will pass the same as it does IRL in the dream, but the amount of time the dream takes up in reality ranges from a second to a minute, usually.

Originally Posted by Mini Man56

It differs for me.

I might dream for 2 minutes, and when I wake up 2 hours have passed.
Or
I might dream for 2 hours, and when I wake up 2 minutes have passed. o.O
Or
I might dream for 2 hours, and when I wake up 2 hours really have passed.

Most of the time my dreams last for half the time I'm really asleep. Like 4 hours of dreams in 8 hours of sleep.

Exactly! 1 minute can be 1 hour, 1 hour can be 1 minute. I am not sure how this works but it seems that in dreams you control the time, or at least that's how it looks like.

Originally Posted by Mini Man56

It differs for me.

I might dream for 2 minutes, and when I wake up 2 hours have passed.
Or
I might dream for 2 hours, and when I wake up 2 minutes have passed. o.O
Or
I might dream for 2 hours, and when I wake up 2 hours really have passed.

Most of the time my dreams last for half the time I'm really asleep. Like 4 hours of dreams in 8 hours of sleep.

Its all a matter of perception, I don't think you can accurately know how much "time" if there is such a thing in dreams, has passed. Its just what it felt like.

I guess if you are connected to an EEG and your REM time is measured, then you are awakened and asked how long you think you've been dreaming, you could compare the two and see if there is a correlation. I doubt if it feels the same way, twice, though. I'm sure the results would be all over the place, like the person I quoted described.

Regarding the LaBerge study, it did offer some evidence that dream time is generally consistent with waking time, however as archdreamer correctly pointed out, it doesn't "prove" anything. Researchers are trained to be conservative in drawing conclusions from their research, and we should be as well. Anyway, here is a brief summary by LaBerge that I found on the Lucidity Institute website, as well as references for the full articles for anyone who cares to peruse them.

...
How long do dreams take? This question has intrigued humanity for many centuries. A traditional answer was that dreams take very little or no time at all, as in the case of Maury's famous dream in which he had somehow gotten mixed up in a long series of adventures during the French Revolution, finally losing his head on the guillotine, at which point he awoke to find the headboard had fallen on his neck. He supposed, therefore that the lengthy dream had been produced in a flash by the painful stimulus. The idea that dreams occur in the moment of awakening has found supporters over the years (e.g., Hall,1981).

We have straightforwardly approached the problem of dream time by asking subjects to estimate ten second intervals (by counting, "one thousand and one, one thousand and two, etc.") during their lucid dreams. Signals marking the beginning and end of the subjective intervals allowed comparison with objective time. In all cases, time estimates during the lucid dreams were very close to the actual time between signals (LaBerge, 1980a, 1985). However, this finding does not rule out the possibility of time distortion effects under some circumstances.
...
References
LaBerge, S. (1980a). Lucid dreaming: An exploratory study of consciousness during sleep. (Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 1980). (University Microfilms International No. 80-24,691).

LaBerge, S. (1985). Lucid dreaming. Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher.

Of course, the subjective and highly personal nature of experiencing dreams makes it hard to draw any definitive conclusions about dream time. After all, if someone claims to have experienced 60 years of experience in a 10 minute dream, who are we to tell them that they didn't? Obviously we should approach these claims with a healthy dose of skepticism, but in the end we really just don't have the technology or techniques to refute or validate them.

Originally Posted by prometheuspan

Apparently you did not study your REM sleep.
...
You people really should get more research done

Originally Posted by prometheuspan

Could you cite your sources for these conclusions? I'd be very interested in reading them.
---------
ppan. No, can't do that. Not prepared to be lucid dreaming expert, its not
anything i keep files for.

Your tactics of treating your conclusions as "common knowledge" and of rejecting the burden of proof are, of course, fallacious. If you refuse to provide any support for your claims and cannot offer any credentials that might allow us to take you at your word, then we really have no choice but to disregard your claims.

Originally Posted by prometheuspan

The exterior interface with the matrix is limited in time experience to the sampling rate of the senses and the processing rate of the brain. No such limitations exist in brodmann brain area communications.

Originally Posted by prometheuspan

Think about it in terms of pure biochemical messaging.
Why would the brain be limited by real time in a brain to brain communication?

Why is my PC limited by real time in processing information without accessing the internet? Because it still has to communicate within itself (i.e. between components) in order to process information, which is a fast process, but not infinitely fast.

Similarly: why would the brain be limited by real time in brain to brain communication? Because it still has to communicate within itself (i.e. between different regions of the brain, including but not limited to the Brodmann brain areas, as you refer to them) in order to process information, which is a fast process, but not infinitely fast. Your assertion that "no such limitations exist in brodmann brain area communications" is entirely at odds with modern brain science. Information processing in your brain is achieved through the involvement of and communication between multiple, distinct brain areas. You seem to be stating that information processing in your brain is not limited by your brain processing speed - which, unless I am misunderstanding you, defies common sense. You instruct us to think of the issue in terms of biochemical messaging, which you apparently believe to be an instantaneous process. This is not the case.

Furthermore, while it's certainly true that experienced waking time is limited by the "sampling rate" of the senses, it's not necessarily true that dreaming time is not. It's certainly possible, however there is also evidence that dreaming senses are limited by waking senses. For example, people who are born blind will have dreams without vision, and it is documented that people who lose their sense of sight will gradually begin having sightless dreams. Given these limitations on dream sight, it is not hard to imagine that our dreaming sense of time is similarly restricted by the waking "sampling rate" of the senses.

By the way, referring to sensing the outside world as "interfacing with the matrix" isn't helping your credibility any.

Originally Posted by prometheuspan

Give me the specifics of the test and i'll tell you where its making the mistake.

So you've condemned the research without even looking at it? And you don't see any problem with this approach?

As I mentioned earlier in my post, I am reserved in my opinions about time dilation in dreams, since we are ill equipped to offer conclusive evidence for or against these claims. You mentioned that you have had some experiences with dream time dilation. I have no problem with your beliefs - who am I to tell you what you did or did not experience? - however, I am "scandalously floored" by your fallacious reasoning and by the contemptuous tone of your initial post.

Very well written , DuB.

DuB... A true scientist lol

Originally Posted by prometheuspan

Sure, i have heard of lots of such things. Its still true that the dominant understanding of psychology is that dreams occur while in a REM condition and that REM conditions peak for only a few seconds. Pseudoscience
can generate all sorts of interesting proofs for its assumptions. Give me the specifics of the test and i'll tell you where its making the mistake.

Uhh, you are aware that we dont only dream in the REM stage right?
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/library/index.htm

The four stages outside of REM sleep are called non-REM sleep (NREM). Although most dreams do take place during REM sleep, more recent research has shown that dreams can occur during any of the sleep stages. Tore A. Nielsen, Ph.D., of the Dream and Nightmare Laboratory in Montreal, refers to this as "covert REM sleep" making an appearance during NREM sleep. Most NREM dreams, however, don't have the intensity of REM dreams.

Lots of times I fall asleep in the car (not driving) and time seems to go by super fast. Yesterday I was in the car and we were going to drop off my brother at his friends house. I fell asleep on the way there and woke up for a few seconds when we got there, I fell asleep for what seemed like a few seconds, but when I woke up we were back at my house. It was weird lol

First off, Prometheuspan, get off your high horse.

All of your posts that I have read are hostile and condescending to other LD'ers, and there's no reason for it. You're welcome to your opinions, but don't preach to everyone here like you're the only one with a grain of sense, and then not back up your claims on the excuse that "you can't be bothered". It's hypocritical and idiotic.

/End Rant

Back to the subject, I would start by asking why your dreams would run on a constant timescale in the first place. In reality, you perceive things at a more or less constant rate because it is dictated by the universe that you exist in.

However, in a world that exists only in your mind, I would think that you perceive events there as quickly as your brain is capable of processing them.

Think of a computer, and how it can process and analyze data. The speed at which it processes data isn't decided by any outside universal speed limit. It can process information as fast as it is capable of, because the world it acts in is strictly virtual.

Long post short, yes, I would guess that your dreams can go slower or faster than time in reality.

Yeah, there's been some hostility in this thread for no apparent reason, but I'll post anyway.

Normally, I couldn't honestly tell you. I don't wake up and check the time between dreams. When I'm in that half-awake haze I've noticed time dilate and contract quite a lot. It's as if ten minutes go by without notice, 30 sec maybe, then I drift off and spend another ten minutes half awake, just to find out less than 60 sec just passed.

I was under the impression that it was generally agreed that the brain can slow time down quite a lot, although it doesn't normally do this due to it being a waste in general life. I'm sure one can work this like any skill, just as one can LD. How this connects with dream time, I'm not sure. I guess when "time" becomes a matter of subconscious fiction, your memory can get written with all sorts of "time".

Personally, I'd really like to see a study (akin to the LaBerge study) using subjects who claim to be able to consistently extend time in their dreams, if enough of these people exist.