Time dilators: present yourselves!

[Spamtek]

I hear this muck all the time. It shows up in a newbie thread or in the middle of a completely unrelated thread; someone asks about a dream they had that felt like it lasted for a day or someone asks "hey I heard about this monk who lived 1000 years in a single night! what's up with that?" Then inexperienced skeptics will say it's not possible, other inexperienced optimists (like me) will talk about how maybe it is if you overclock your brain or something, and then a third body of completely mysterious mysticists will show up and talk about a friend who totally did have a week-long lucid, or they might even be brave enough to say they themselves have had an experience like that. And then you ask them about the mechanics of the experience or to provide a detailed recollection of the time period in question, and they dodge the interrogation or just never reply at all. Everyone wants time dilation to be true (controlled time dilation, at least), and a bunch of people are making vague claims that they first- or second-handedly know without a doubt that it's true, possible, and within a dreamer or lucid dreamer's grasp. So for all of you who've had an experience like this or all of you who intimately know the details of a friend's experience like this, show yourselves and prove you're not making it up. Present enough evidence, detail, or reasoned logic to show me that the 100-year life as a Japanese grammar teacher you lived really was as deep, long, and detailed as a 100-year-old Japanese grammar teacher's, and not just a delusion you got ahold of. Right now I can explicitly visualize having lived a long and detailed life as somebody without ever actually having done so. I can compartmentalize these concepts of 'long life' and 'lifelike detail' as individual thoughts, and think them and feel that I know what I'm talking about, but I simply don't have the depth and detail of memory to back those impressions up. Show me you're not fooling yourself the same way and passing it off as truth.

[KuRoSaKi]

Okay Time Dilation also known as Time Incubation is the process of making a dream that takes place in real time going anywhere from 10-2 hours seemed to last in dream time many hours, days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes, etc. How does this work? It has to do with believing, and memory manipulation. You may remember a thread from a while ago where someone said they had lived a month in Japan after stepping into a odd portal? This is one method in which you can induce Time Dilation. The method most commonly used from people who I have chatted with and performed myself is the portal. Once you have the portal it is belief and suggestion. You implant in your mind that once you step into the portal you will have a dream about (Blank) that lasts for (Blank) amount of time. Once you re-assure and confirm to yourself that this is what you will experience upon entering the portal it becomes so. Now does the dream really last for a week? Of course not, but it seems to last for a week. And it is recommended that you start off small having the dream last for a few hours, then a day, then a two days, etc. working your way up. I have had a dream that has lasted for upwards of 18 hours or so it seemed. Okay so what's my opinion on lifetimes and years? I cannot say from firsthand experience that I have had a dream that has lasted this long. Although I have talked with people who said they have experienced it. As of now after my own experiences I am saying that this is indeed a possiblity. I hope this helped.

[BeSomebody]

I always believed in it, if my mind can recreate a perfect copy of a road I know along with realistic texture, wind and sound, why can't it simulate sound? I've had very long dreams after falling asleep for twenty minutes before. Why not?

[Xaqaria]

I've had dreams in which I remembered long periods of times or in which the dream would jump extended periods of time but the actual amount of time I experienced was normal. I have remembered things that happened in dream that were from hours or days previous but didn't actually experience them and I've had dreams in which I was doing something and then it would be hours later all of a sudden but never actually experienced long stretches of time.

[Moonbeam]

I remember a lucid once that I thought three days had passed in, but when I woke up it didn't seem like it anymore.

[Xei]

Our memory is 'made' of neurons. Many people remember having week long dreams, but these memories are just neurons, and the brain can shift neurons however it likes (by suggestion, for example). So such memories are unreliable, and do not represent the truth. Experiments show that conciousness is linked to time pretty solidly, so that's the most probable idea. Spamtek says it all, really.

[Acedreamer]

Okay Time Dilation also known as Time Incubation is the process of making a dream that takes place in real time going anywhere from 10-2 hours seemed to last in dream time many hours, days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes, etc. How does this work? It has to do with believing, and memory manipulation. You may remember a thread from a while ago where someone said they had lived a month in Japan after stepping into a odd portal? This is one method in which you can induce Time Dilation. The method most commonly used from people who I have chatted with and performed myself is the portal. Once you have the portal it is belief and suggestion. You implant in your mind that once you step into the portal you will have a dream about (Blank) that lasts for (Blank) amount of time. Once you re-assure and confirm to yourself that this is what you will experience upon entering the portal it becomes so. Now does the dream really last for a week? Of course not, but it seems to last for a week. And it is recommended that you start off small having the dream last for a few hours, then a day, then a two days, etc. working your way up. I have had a dream that has lasted for upwards of 18 hours or so it seemed. Okay so what's my opinion on lifetimes and years? I cannot say from firsthand experience that I have had a dream that has lasted this long. Although I have talked with people who said they have experienced it. As of now after my own experiences I am saying that this is indeed a possiblity. I hope this helped. Wait a minute, is it really possible for 10 hours? i doubt even laberge can do it.

[trigotron]

ok, firstly, let's refer to it as "time incubation" from now on, because "time dilation" refers to the relativistic concept that you will always experience time slower than anyone else you see (see general relativity for better description) Anyway, this is entirely possible, as i always say: the human brain is capable of a lot of things, and anything that it is capable of doing can be controlled with enough practice. Are there real life examples of time incubation: Yes. In the instances of NDE's (near death experiences), the brain's neurons/synapses begin to fire at incredible rates, up until the time when they expire. It is an exponential thing, where the last 3 seconds of brain activity left may seem to last for minutes, and the last milisecond of brain activity could last for hours, however, very few people are recovered from this state in time for them to experience the last milisecond of life, perhaps only the last few seconds, or last 10 seconds, but the closer the brush with death it seems, the longer the time they estimate elapsed for them. People also report having this same effect in car crashes, moments of extreme stress, etc. for probably the same reasons. Our brain knows that it is in grave danger and does everything it can to save itself, including speeding up the speed of the neurons firing. Is this controllable: I believe so. We can force our brain to slow down our heart rate, increase electrical activity (EEG voltage at least), even force our brain to shut off our sense of pain. It is just a question of practice and confidence, if one believes they can speed up the neuron activity so their sense of time slows down, it is possible. As Xei and Brandon suggest: there may be even more to this concept than just neuron speed, it may in fact be memory modification as well, making one second in the dream seem in memory like it had taken an hour is another way our brains could control our sense of time through memory. It is a kind of time-lapse in the memory effect. I've never actually had a dream that has lasted for thousands of years, but i have had dreams that felt like they've lasted a lot longer than one night, but i doubt i consciously forced my brain to work faster and slow down time, it just kindof felt in hindsight like i was in a dream for a few days. However, i believe there might be more of the conscious thought speed increase in lucid dreams because i would imagine it is a lot harder to modify your memories when you are actually conscious.

[Sivason]

I dream between hitting the snooze alarm. Lets say I enter the dream instantly and dream the whole 5 minutes. My dreams can take up to 1/2 hour to describe. However, while I would love real weeks to pass, it is more like when I read in a dream. I can look at the book and know what it is saying (not looking at the words) it may be a large thought, but takes just a flash in the dream. My experiance is that it seems like an hour, but is really just crowded in tight. Lets say I walk down a path that I feel is 1000 yards long... I do not feel and see every step but feel I walked 'very far' maybe 10 seconds of real time pass and I think I just walked for 5 minutes. Not like the idea that I can have 5 minutes of second by second detail in 10 seconds real time. So, my thing is not magic, but feels like say an hour in 5 minutes between snooze alarms. Good enough for me,,, it is fun if not amazing.

[Bear]

As Xei and Brandon suggest: there may be even more to this concept than just neuron speed, it may in fact be memory modification as well, making one second in the dream seem in memory like it had taken an hour is another way our brains could control our sense of time through memory. It is a kind of time-lapse in the memory effect. I've never actually had a dream that has lasted for thousands of years, but i have had dreams that felt like they've lasted a lot longer than one night, but i doubt i consciously forced my brain to work faster and slow down time, it just kindof felt in hindsight like i was in a dream for a few days. I agree with this, that dreams can seem to last a long time, but that doesn't necessarily mean they actually did. I can easily imagine someone waking up from a dream with dream-memories spanning a hundred years, but that's very different than claiming that they actually dreamed every second of those hundred years. Has anyone ever woken up and had full memories of 100 years worth of life? I think that would screw me up completely and prevent me from carrying on my normal life, if yesterday was 100 years ago. Having full memory of 100 years and having memories spaced out over 100 years are entirely different. LaBerge did an experiment on the speed of time in dreams and found it was basically the same as in the waking world: "We have been able to receive a direct answer to this age-old question by asking lucid dreamers to estimate various intervals of time while dreaming. The dreamers marked the beginning and end of estimated dream time intervals with eye movement signals, allowing comparison of subjective "dream time" with objective time. In each case, the intervals of time estimated during the lucid dreams were very close in length to the actual elapsed time (1), as shown in the figure below." (http://www.lucidity.com/NL53.ResearchPastFuture.html) Now, I know that this isn't any sort of proof that time incubation isn't real, and I'm not offering it as such, so don't flame me for it! However, I think it is useful as a baseline to show that normally, time in dreams is the same as time in waking life. And if the two options for getting away from that baseline are massively increasing the rate of neuron firing way beyond anything possible in everyday life, and giving the impression of a long span of time through dream memories, I'd call the second option more likely, just because it's simpler.

[Gothlark]

I've had plenty of experiences with time incubation. I can't say for sure the mechanics of it, since all I did was open a portal in the dream requesting for the new world I arrived at to last for however long before I woke up. I didn't have to really worry about how it worked. However, it seems to me that there are two possibilities as to how it works. One is the more scientifically based idea that we only experience some parts of it and we remember the parts in between only when we try to. Our mind creates false memories and all. Even if this were the case, well, in real life the average person doesn't consciously participate in most of their life either. As for the less founded belief which still makes sense to me, we experience every moment of it because our mind can create every moment of it. Our mind can compute things faster than any supercomputer, even if it's stored away somewhere. Of course, people will say that the conscious mind can't think that fast. Remember, you're in an altered state of consciousness here; you may well be able to interact with the rest of your mind as if you are thinking that fast as well. There's also the new age belief that time doesn't exist, solipsism, etc. I personally don't care how it works, so long as it does. In my experience, I was able to recall anything from the day I took my first steps to the day I tied my first shoe quite vividly in a lifetime where I chose to age as if it were real. I could also recall every dreary day laying around and reading some cool novels about the adventures of Ivan, or watching some quite abstract television about cookies. I could remember wandering around and just hanging out with people. I also remembered the more important things such as my dad going to war and my mom later going to identify his body but getting in a crash on the way there. I didn't use dream control very often in this particular one (though I do in most) since I wanted a fairly realistic life simulation. Sad, though. I died trying to protect the only person who was there for me, thinking "Why did I have to die in front of them and make their life horrible." I was only 18 at the time in the dream. Most are happy, but I don't regret the experience all in all. I can make them quite a bit longer than 18 years long, of course. My point is that it's real to the person experiencing it, whether all of it's true memory or some of it's false. It's pretty difficult to tell a real memory from a false one, but I'd wager they're as real as any other dream.

[Sandform]

I've had plenty of experiences with time incubation. ............... My point is that it's real to the person experiencing it, whether all of it's true memory or some of it's false. It's pretty difficult to tell a real memory from a false one, but I'd wager they're as real as any other dream. So Gothlark are you saying you lived 18 years? Dang. Lol I wish I could do that. That is neat if that is what your saying, I didn't really catch exactly what you were saying. Anyway, in real life how old are yuh? your profile says your 16, so I guess you are. But the reason I ask, is cause I wanted to ask, do you feel like your...well however many years your dream was + your waking age or do you still feel 16? EDIT: Time incubation would be fun for little mini vacations if your feeling over stressed, or if you had a test or something and you wanted time to study in your dream world. Maybe you couldn't introduce new information, but it would be easy to 'reinforce' information you already knew. Or if your an actor with a play that lasts X amount of hours, and your wanna practice =)

[Sandform]

*bump* I guess my question was, do time dialators feel older?

[DarThDreAmeR]

I didn't read ALL the posts but some...I was too lazy to read the long ones. But what I read in one of Stephen La Berges books is that sometimes things in dreams happen that make you just think a lot of time has gone by... So maybe for example (just for example) you see kids going to school in your dream. You do some things and then see kids walking home from school. Because you see this your mind makes you think that a lot of time must have passed because school is about 6 or 7 hours. This would be my opinion just because it makes the most sense to me

[thegnome54]

For everyone advocating neuron action speeding up, there IS a physical limit: the absolute refractory period. There is a period during which the voltage-gated Sodium channels along the axon are inactivated, and physically incapable of opening again, even with depolarization. This prevents the neuron from firing another action potential until the period is over. Therefore, even if you assume that the stimulus is enough to overcome the relative refractory period (when it's just harder to fire again, but theoretically possible), you still have a maximum rate cap at well below the theoretical maximum of 1000 Hz - that's theoretically, withOUT the absolute refractory period. So, you could speed up your neurons to some extent, but as for spending 'thousands of years', or even 'several months' in a dream, I do not think such speeds are possible. Memory modification is MUCH more likely.

[trigotron]

so what you're saying is that we can't think faster than a DOS computer no matter how hard we try :p I read the wikipedia article, it says that the refractory period is aproximately 1ms, which relates to 1000Hz, but is that the absolute period or just the normal period which we usually think at, if more voltage were to be applied would it reduce the period more? or is 1ms the absolute refractory period that even if more voltage were to be applied, it still wouldn't act? i think my question boils down to: how fast do we normally fire our neurons vs. how fast are we capable of firing them under the most extreme circumstances? it sounds from your post that we normally think at 1Hz, if this is true, it is theoretically possible to speed up thought to 1000x that of normal thought, doing some conversions we get: 8hrs (longest dream possible, i'm being generous here) could be sped up to 8000 hours, 8000/24 = 333.33 days (about 1 year) 1hr (longest theoretically possible dream, again, being generous here) could be sped up to 1000 hours 1000/24=41 days (about 1 mo.) however, judging from the "stages of sleep" posted on dreamviews home, it looks like the frequency of normal brainwaves is somewhere over 4Hz and under 8Hz, so i'm going to postulate 6Hz for normal everyday thinking, so the most we would be able to do would be 1000/6 times normal time = 167x so, using this information we get... 8hrs REM sleep -> 1336 hrs -> 55 days (a little under 2 mo.) 1hr REM sleep -> 166 hrs -> 7 days (a week) in conclusion, it seems that under the neuron speed hypothesis, one could only realistically speed up a normal REM period to a little over a week, and that's assuming you're AT THE VERY MAXIMUM theoretical limit for how fast your brain can work, which is not likely achievable without loads of mental training, and even then it's doubtful. Realistically this neuron speed increase does happen, brain wave frequency is doubled in REM sleep versus normal everyday activity, so this does happen... to an extent, perhaps some people can even triple or 10x their neuron speed in dreams realistically, but for the most part, i think i am forced to conclude that memory modification accounts for 99% of the time increase in dreams.

[thegnome54]

I read the wikipedia article, it says that the refractory period is aproximately 1ms, which relates to 1000Hz, but is that the absolute period or just the normal period which we usually think at, if more voltage were to be applied would it reduce the period more? or is 1ms the absolute refractory period that even if more voltage were to be applied, it still wouldn't act? 1000 Hz is theoretically the fastest a neuron could fire action potentials, no matter the magnitude of the depolarization. I don't know of an average speed for all neurons, they probably vary widely. I expect that most neurons never come close to 1000 Hz, though, because that would require a LOT of stimulation, to overcome the relative refractory period. Keep in mind that achieving maximum frequency doesn't necessarily indicate maximum data flow - since all action potentials are the same amplitude, the only way to encode information is through variations in frequency and firing patterns. If you max out a neuron, its signals may well become meaningless.

[skysaw]

Time dilators: present yourselves! I already presented myself in this thread last year! The post should show up any day now...

[Lucidbulbs]

Hehehe.... I've done it before, hours, days, max time I can recall is three days [though I want to try to do more than three days in 8 hours].

[thegnome54]

Hehehe.... I've done it before, hours, days, max time I can recall is three days [though I want to try to do more than three days in 8 hours]. Do you remember three days worth of activities you did, or just three days in general? I don't see how you could know how many days have passed in a dream, seeing as the sun and moon are random and it's very hard to estimate 72 hours. Also, three days is a loooooong time, didn't you get bored?

[LucidDreamGod]

I think it might be possible for the dream to be made up of false memorys and seem intirly real, that would be an interesting thing to beable to do, insert any memory you want to have into your mind.

[Pride]

time incubation, could defenitly be real time incubation is what im practicing atm, if i figure anything out ill be sure to pass it on here

[Lucidbulbs]

Do you remember three days worth of activities you did, or just three days in general? I don't see how you could know how many days have passed in a dream, seeing as the sun and moon are random and it's very hard to estimate 72 hours. Also, three days is a loooooong time, didn't you get bored? As for days and time, it wasn't a for sure, 100% 72 hour estimate, so I guess you could say 3 days in general since I did sleep twice [though the second time was more of just to kill time]. It's not like I carry a dream clock on me to record the dream time's hour by hour movement [I'm a timely person but not the kind that uses a watch]. If you wanted a more precise timing, I'd say about 2 1/2 days. And the sun and moon set/rise when you expect it to so unless you expect it to do so randomly, I think it will go on a fairly smooth, normal time scale [since in real life I wasn't asleep for 3 days the mind would have to make something equal to that proportion of a 24 hour day in an n amount of hours/minutes] Though, I can hardly say I was bored considering I had a lot of drama in that dream and a fair amount of action, I did things I'd probably never get a chance to do anytime soon in real life and a few things only available in dreams. I did also kill time eating in that dream... And meandering around.

[Klace]

This "time dilation" is possible in a number of ways. And each way is acceptable for either the Believers or Non believers respectively. When in a dream, we perceive time differently, sometimes lasting for what seems like a day, to a week, or more. Now I believe that time dilation is possible, that we can control how long our dream lasts by auto suggestion within the dream scape, and that is what most believers believe. Now for the people who are skeptical of time dilation, think about your longest dream, and then again how we perceive time differently in them. When we are in a dream, they can implant memories, so you basically know what is going on in you current scenario, who is with you and what you are doing, now it's possible for the dream to last normal length, but rapidly switch situations implanting the memories of all that happened in between in your head, having them be fresh once you wake up, seeming that it was all one long dream. Then you must ask yourself, can you picture everything that happened? Chances are no, only vivid parts you remember will come to mind, and those parts are the ones you acted out, not the ones your mind created to string the actions together. So there is true time dilation, but if you do not remember everything as mentioned above, maybe you had a dream that only seemed long. I had a two day lucid dream that only took up two hours real time and I can vividly remember everything that happened, so that was true Time Dilation.

[Starry Knight]

What an awesome thread. I find this to be quite facinating. If this whole concept is real, not just for a few people, but attainable for many...imagine the implications it could have. The ability to master anything in one or two nights of time-dialated dreaming? The advancement of our human race would be staggering, if this could be applied and learned at a young age. You could learn things only a lifetime of experience would teach you...so many possibilites...I feel a journal entry coming on...