Thread: Dreams that last a lifetime

This is not exactly an account of a single dream.. it is more of an account on the way my old dreams were.

I had pretty much mastered dream recall and control. Something I did not like, was the fact, I could not LD as long as a wanted.. even though i had multiple LD's a night they were short..

Ok, this pisssed me off, now... many of you may or may not believe what I could do, but I did it. I basically willed myself to dream longer, and well in real time i was sleeping just as long every night. However the LD's would sometimes last for many hours, and a couple times they lasted for many days or weeks.

Keep in mind, i am talking dream time.. i still slept a night at a time.

Ok, now I've heard this is not the first time someone has done this, i once heard about a man who said he had a dream that lasted a century... my last great LD lasted 2 weeks.

Now, as this was over 5 years ago.. my recall of it is not as sharp, but however its there.. i will only mention a slim outline of it..

The dream was in a city, a HUGE city, now it was in a country where there were many wars and each city fought each other.. my dream was truly an epic , and started with the city being normal, then the war hit...

Anyways, I died in this dream, and well, so did my dreaming after that.. I finally have been able to reclaim partial lucidity. I just wanna know, has anyone had extremley long, realistic, epic LD's.

I woke up after mine, and couldn't believe what I had experianced... i cannot explain it in words. I may try to write a book on it, as it was long and detailed enough to record.

My goal, is to reach my old level again, because if you have ever had ones this long, you will truly be amazed

That is all.

I completely believe you. Really odd that your ability to recall and control dreams died when you died in that dream. Maybe you subconsciously shut yourself out from getting in too deep for a while. Or something. Anyway, you should try getting a hold of Serinanth. I don't see him post much anymore, but he's around. Not to kiss his ass anymore than we all already have but he is the most powerful dreamer I've ever heard of. He used to report on dreams this long. Another guy we had on here a while back claimed he learned how to consciously control time in his dreams. I fiddled about with both these ideas when I was doing better with dreaming several months back. I reached the point of a lucid dream that lasted several hours. Seemingly a whole day, but I could really remember only 3 or 4 hours passing. I also messed with the slowing down time thing. I'm not sure if I did for sure, but I did once watch water from a drinking fountain and focus on slowing time down and the water slowed down, practically to a stand still. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that was the same dream. Man that was a cool dream house. Anyway much luck with the dream resurgance. Onward to victory, my good man. Keep us posted of course.

As you may already know, I had a dream that lasted approximately (using the dream measure of time) 40 years, and that was very vivid, and oddly the dream started with me dying.

That is absolutely incredible! Imagine having several lucid dreams a night, and in each one you experience a century. If, hypothetically, you pulled that off, you could have hundreds of thousands worth of "years" added to your life. I am going to check as far into this as I can. If it works for me, I am going to teach it to everybody who is willing to listen. Thank you so much for this idea!

That is inspirational... I would definitely read that book!

Time compression is real, and not only does it happen in dreams. My longest lucid dream lasted 3 or 4 days. This happened after a night's worth of sleep deprivation cause I couldn't sleep on the bus and when I reached my destination I feel asleep and somehow just found myself in a lucid dream (I don't remember how). After the third day in the dream I got scarred that I would never wake up so I asked my dad and he just laughed at me and told me not to worry (or something to that extent) and then I woke up. I haven't had one since then (almost a year now).

The last few trips I've had (LSD or psilocybes) time almost came to a screeching halt. I looked at my watch, sat down for what I though was 20-30mins, looked at my watch again, and it was still the same time. Although I don't take hallucinogens anymore.

I thought obsessively about this idea yesterday and last night, and I tried very hard to will myself to have a lucid dream that lasted a time longer than the "real" world time. What I had was a dream where I was really messed up on drugs and on the beach. I wouldn't necessarily say that I knew I was dreaming, but I knew I was in a very altered state that was a good bit dream like. I was so messed up that what altered state I was in wasn't really a concern of mine, so I guess it was at least like a lucid dream. Even though the dream couldn't have been very long in real life time, I spent an entire afternoon on the beach and swimming in the ocean. I even spent some time earlier in the day getting ready to go to the beach and riding there with some people. When I got to the beach, I hung out on the beach, and then went out on a raft with my "friends" (people I have never seen in my life), and then went out on my own on the raft. I spent a lot of "time" looking at the water and thinking. However, disappointingly in this case, I'm not sure that I actually experienced an entire afternoon. I think I had a bunch of short images, and in each image I thought back on the other images and had the illusion that they happened minutes or hours earlier. That presented the illusion that I had a whole afternoon of experience. Maybe that isn't what happened, but I can't account for enough events to conclude that I experienced that much time in the dream world. Then again, I was on a bunch of drugs in the dream.

I ask those of you who say that you've experienced days, weeks, and years in the dream world in one night of sleep if you are positive that what I illustrated above isn't what really happened. Are you sure that you didn't just experience a multitude of images where the other images presented the illusion of long time lapse? I really want the experience of years in a single lucid dream to be a reality, but I have to be skeptical for now. Please tell me what you know. Thanks.

whoa! thats the coolest thing ive heard in a long time. but as universal mind im kinda skeptical too. do you actually experience every day of that 40 or 100 years?

" I think I had a bunch of short images, and in each image I thought back on the other images and had the illusion that they happened minutes or hours earlier. That presented the illusion that I had a whole afternoon of experience."

The same can be said for whatever happened 2 days or 2 weeks ago in waking life. How do you know that last thursday lasted 12 or 14 waking hours if you only have a few short disconnected memories of what you did last thursday??? You can't quantify time with a few short isolated memories. If I had a full account in my episodic memory of what happened last thursday, then I can be sure that last thursday lasted over 10 waking hours. In that 3-4 day dream I had, I remember doing soo many things, it was totally unlike any lucid dream I had before because it just kept on going (unfortunately I don't have a full account of that dream, just like I don't have a full account of any other day in my waking life) I spent soo much time in that dream that I started getting worried that I wouldn't wake up. Usually if I have a lucid dream it lasts around 5 mins. So there must have been something qualitatively different about that 3-4 day LD that enabled me to distinguish it from all my other LDs.

We could get into a discussion about how we know that we don't black out throughout the day and only experience a few hours of a 16 hour period, but I think that such an idea is less reasonable than the lucid dream idea I brought up. A day IS 24 hours. Every second of it happens. A "day" in a lucid dream is much more difficult to keep up with because in that world, unlike the waking world, time jumps are very possible and often happen. However, I don't rule out what you are saying about your long experiences in a few minutes of real world time. What you said at the bottom of your post cleared things up well, and I really hope that it is possible to experience years and years in a few minutes. If I can get it to work, it will be possibly the greatest activity I have every come across.

This whole idea is truly amazing. Imagine if you could spend those 40 years *learning* something, like you would in real life. And then wake up in a few hours of "real" time and have gained 40 years of knowledge in one night. Of course, at this point I don't see how that could happen.. I mean, in real life you could spend 40 years learning 20 languages or something, but I really don't think the same could be achieved in a dream. But STILL. It'd be great if it worked like that.

I think you'd have to be really powerfull to spend 40 years- let alone a month- in a lucid dream. But I have no reason to believe that this is impossible. I do believe that time compression is real because the perception of time is afterall a psychological construct; therefore we can probably learn how to manipulate it.

I met a man online long ago.. who spent a century in a dream.. my longest was 2 weeks... every minute, every day, it was clear as I am typing this now.

By the way, i'm sorta reverting to the mindset i used to be in.. its working.. I hope to be able to have time compression back soon

I am about to get way into this idea. I think my afternoon on the beach was my mind's attempt at a first baby step. Strangely, this morning, I had a lucid dream that seemed like a few minutes of dream world time, but an hour of real world time passed. Perhaps this is part of my subconscious time manipulation training.

I've never thought of doing this before. I'm probably far too rusty at this point (I've only actively brought upon a lucid dream a few times in the past year - mostly I take control of what's already there), but I do have the ability to slow or stop time in a dream if things get too hairy, then I can walk around with everything frozen in time. Do you think what you guys are talking about would be a natural extension of this?

My LDs used to be much longer when I was younger and had nothing better to do than LD every night (sleeping with someone and having to get up early in the morning discourages the amount of preparation involved), I think I'll start building up my stamina again and see what happens.

Fascinating stuff - I've had a few dreams where days and weeks have seemed to pass, but then I don't remember every detail of every minute, so must say that time just appeared to pass. Though as codec mentioned this is similar to my waking experience! There are levels of awareness in waking and asleep - I always remember reading a book by Jim Corbett who was hunting man-eating tigers, alone and on foot, in the jungles of India. He wrote the book(s) ten years after the events but could recall almost every footstep because he was so in the present moment, all his senses acutely tuned to every little detail. Some LDs, even from my childhood, are 'qualitatively different' like this, and I can recal them perfectly to this day.

Another thing to throw into the mixing-pot:
Time doesn't exist - there is only an eternal, dynamic present. Being fully there (here!) is, for me, what its all about.

/rant on/

Each of us lives within the universe of our senses, and that experience is a completely unique one, no other living being will ever experience our reality. I am speaking for both the waking world and the dream world. Now with that said.

How can I tell that the past isint a fiction designed to account for the discrepency between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?

In my experience it was remembered just like the memories I have here, the only reason I can tell it was a dream is because the timeline is not the same as the one here, in terms of reality, and vividity, they are equals.

In studies they have shown dreamtime to be a few seconds longer than waking time, but in these cases, the people were trying to interact with the waking world, what if you could dissassociate yourself with the waking world and time completely.

Think, if you will for a moment of the most vivid thing you have ever seen within the dream, the landscape the people perhaps multiple people, if dreams are just the ramblings of our unconsious brains, a hell of a lot of rendering and calculation is goin on during that dream for it to react to you in a realtime manner and keep up with your senses, thats an awful lot of information. Our minds can apparently work pretty fast when the rest of the wakingworld senses are turned off. So perhaps the mind can experience things much faster in the dream world, all my experiences have been by chance, never planned them, its kind of taxing on ones sanity especially if its a long time, if yous tart to get used to it, and then you wake up back here, its a shock to ones mind.

The other theory of mine is probably a lil bizzare to most because it combines science with spirit, in any case, the spirit perhaps falls into another reality via quantum sized worm holes, since the spirit is etherial and has no mass what s to say it cant pass through natuaral worm holes, they exist but not like deep space nine, they are tiny and only are stable for short times, sometimes they are big enough to let a few subatomic particles pass through and the occasional sleepers spirit =D

In my experience I just take them as being real , well as in having happened for the length of time they happened. A lot of my life would just be thrown together memories like some say the time compression dreams are if their theories are right... and I cannot accept that, as its a big chunk of my life.

I think thats why alot of the people that have had it happen to them say its real, that the time did happen, because its difficult for us to accept that such a large portion of time and experience might just be a false impression, but thats when those that it has happened to ask...

Do you remember what you were doing a year ago from now? In detail?
(heeh perhaps some of you do, good for you but for one such as myself my memory is shot =)

/rant off/

a little question for you guys who have had the luck of having LD's that lasted for days or more... how do you go about the nighttime. do you just not sleep because you know it is a dream, or is there just some kind of timejump from day to day? and did you use any varbal commands to manipulate the time, or did the dream just go on and on and.... by itself?

I tried to use a verbal command for slowing down time last time I became lucid, and it was the longest and best LD I have ever had. Too bad I was woken up by the phone, or it might have lasted a lot longer But I will be sure to experiment some more with this next time I have the chance...

I was just stuck there... same deal as here though dreaming there was normal weird dreams and no lucidity. Dream abilities didnt work either.

Excellent rant Serinath! I feel one comming on myself...

if dreams are just the ramblings of our unconsious brains, a hell of a lot of rendering and calculation is goin on during that dream for it to react to you in a realtime manner and keep up with your senses, thats an awful lot of information. Our minds can apparently work pretty fast when the rest of the wakingworld senses are turned off. So perhaps the mind can experience things much faster in the dream world, [/b]

Very good point - I've never had much faith or interest in 'clock time' - if a week seems to pass in a dream then that's a real and valid experience, irrespective of what the guy with the watch might say. Not sure about worm holes, space/time etc and I don't understand relativity theory (!) to me it doesnt matter what you do with spaceships, torches and clocks etc. it is always NOW. I'll keep an open mind though... (whatever - isn't the dream mind just amaaaaaazing?!!!!!)

a little question for you guys who have had the luck of having LD's that lasted for days or more... how do you go about the nighttime. do you just not sleep because you know it is a dream, or is there just some kind of timejump from day to day? [/b]

I have only gone to sleep a few times in my dreams, sometimes I sleep like a log and time jumps, other times I've had dreams then woken back into the original. The really long ones (not always LDs), are just like epic films - I have been married and watched my children grow up and die. Time passes in different ways, some is experiential as Serinath mentions and I wonder how it all got crammed into one night. On other occassions time passes by inference - I frequently dream of staying up the whole night having various adventures and watching sunrise only to feel that I've missed something important (my sleep), but wake up relieved to discover its only 4am and I've been dreaming.

and did you use any varbal commands to manipulate the time, or did the dream just go on and on and.... by itself? [/b]

To prolong LDs (which is the closest I get to manipulating time) I use spinning/ focus/ or 'pulling dream stuff' - (I want to try verbals as they sound powerful from what others have said, but I'm more kinesthetic/ visual). Most of my lucid dreams are usually quite short and intense, some seem to last a long time, but the epics are mainly just very vivid and might only end lucid as a finale (I've posted a couple like this in the dream journal section). What amazes me is that some of these epics seem to have been pre-written, often with hidden clues or twists-in-the-tail that only become apparent as I'm nearing the end. My girlfriend (another LDer) even has credits rolling at the end of hers, and sometimes wakes up laughing at the wonderful, creative, ridiculousness of her subconscious.

Ive had a dream that felt like it lasted a lifetime ie: 80yrs or something like that but I cant be sure because I dont realy recall each moment only that when I wokeup I was dissapointed because I had just known Id lived a full lifetime only to be back in this time. But I was also sick with the flu.
But it felt more like images like when you try and recall the last 20 or so yrs of your life and all the memoires that go with it.

Did you feel any different when you woke up 80 years later? Like.. more mature or something?

Perhaps dreams are more than what we perceive them to be . . .

I had a dream that lasted 6 moths. i made a good friend and I met alot of people. i felt soooo sooo sooo sad when i woke up to fin dit was a dream. I was sooo sad for 2 weeks. imminge best frineds an dlovers, all "dead' because they never existed. Also, it was winter again and schoool was abck in session. lol. in my dream the school year ended already.

How do we know that are dreams aren't the real world and that this world, 'reality', is the dream world?