# Lucid Dreaming > Dream Control >  >  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.

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## 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.

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## 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?

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.
> ...




Wait a minute, is it really possible for 10 hours? i doubt even laberge can do it.

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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!  :wink2:   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.

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## 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.

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## 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 =)

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## Sandform

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

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## 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

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## 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.

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## 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&#37; of the time increase in dreams.

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## 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.

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## skysaw

> Time dilators: present yourselves!



I already presented myself in this thread last year! The post should show up any day now...

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## 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].

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## 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?

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## 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.

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## 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

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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...

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## KuRoSaKi

Man some fellow is being very defensive. I would consider everything with dreaming to be very possible, although probability would come into play I suppose.

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## sourcejedi

> 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



Mine too.  Think about how much time you can pack into a film or a book?  And often in dreams you get the illusion of an extensive false history, partly just as a feeling, partly because you make up something to "remember" that explains why your pet monkey is helping you with your homework etc. :-).  I can also imagine a series of dreams with a shared background, with a number of significant events, and sufficient feeling of [everyday] "grind", to make one nights sleep stretch a very long way.  

We're very good at deceiving ourselves; that makes more sense to me than a prolonged experience running several times faster than real time.  As well as running your brain faster, you'd also have to have a much stronger detachment from your physical senses.  Normally REM, breathing, and muscle tensions are correlated with the dream, which doesn't work if your dream body is breathing twice as fast etc.  Which is a pity 'cos it means it would be difficult to signal-verify a genuine time-dilated dream in the normal way.

Unfortunately I don't think LaBerge explains it very well.  What I read he thought was that people could recall more detail than they could have experienced in real time, because their mind "filled in the gaps", generating false memories of great detail when they look back at their dream.  I know people do generate false memories in waking life, but this doesn't ring true to me.  

In the end, it's not like memories are a uniform timeline containing complete detail of each moment, especially in dreams.  Memory is complicated, so both of the simple explanations - "brains can go faster in dreams" or "memories get made up later" - are probably missing something.

Klace's post makes good overall sense.  Whatever bounds you put on the possible, it's difficult to deny that you could _think_ you've had a two day dream in two hours time.  It's a neat trick however you do might do it, its interesting to speculate why, and theres plenty of room for speculation since the dream science seems to have dried up before it got as far as time dilation :-).

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## Hazel

I believe in it, though it's never happened to me. (I wish it would though, sounds really cool!)

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## therpgmaker

It makes sense, because even in waking life, time seems to pass at different speeds. Even the common phrase "time flys when you're having fun" helps to make the point. When you're bored, time my seem crawl by, but when you are doing something, it may seem to go faster. Even thinking back, when I was younger, time seemed to go by much more slowly. I remember mentally disagreeing with people who said that "that month flew by" or the like. Now, though, I feel the same way sometimes. If in the waking world, you percive time at seemingly different rates, wouldn't it make sense that this could happen in dreams even to a greater extent?

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## thegnome54

> It makes sense, because even in waking life, time seems to pass at different speeds. Even the common phrase "time flys when you're having fun" helps to make the point. When you're bored, time my seem crawl by, but when you are doing something, it may seem to go faster. Even thinking back, when I was younger, time seemed to go by much more slowly. I remember mentally disagreeing with people who said that "that month flew by" or the like. Now, though, I feel the same way sometimes. If in the waking world, you percive time at seemingly different rates, wouldn't it make sense that this could happen in dreams even to a greater extent?



Of course it's possible to perceive seemingly different rates of the passage of time in dreams - just like it is in the waking world.  As for ACTUAL time dilation - not just time that 'seems to drag', but time that actually drags - that has yet to have any good evidence or reasoning behind it.

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## skl02134

I think that people dont exactly EXPERIENCE the whole amount of time they've dreamt about. I think that it's more like a movie. In the movie, the time passes, but it's all squeezed Into however long the movie is. So, even if a week passes in the movie, the movie itself only lasts like, 1 1/2, 2 hours. I think that's what it really is, instead of actually going through the whole time, you only experience a few key points, but the time between each key points (in the dream) could be a day, in real life its only a second between each different scene. That's really all it is, different scenes going by, and the time in between going past in mere seconds. I dont know if I am explaining this right, but I hope you get it. Like someone said before, your dream lasts real time. Each of the seperate "scenes" last real time, but the time in between it doesnt really happen. If we didn't skip the time in between, 100 years in your dream (and experiencing the WHOLE 100 years) would ACTUALLY take 100 years. What we really do is only experience a few moments of the 100 years, and even though our dream takes place throughout 100 years, it only takes an hour or two to dream it. There, I think i've explained it in the simplest way I could.

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## Sandform

If you start to realize that time and action are two different things, the idea of time dialation begins to either A, crumble, or B, calcify.

Meaning, if you think that experience is only physical, then of course it is impossible to have so much time in one night.  

However then theres the other thing, how fast is actually possible, and how much information is actually pact?

Let me put it like this...

A word is a single word, comprised of letters yes?

But then there is a dictionairy full of other words that explain what the words actually means...

Whose to say action can't have the same action pact ability that words have?

Memory of action, and actual action are two different things.  You already know that information can be pact into your head like this because of the fact that "knowledge" is pact into your head while you are dreaming.  If you are vampire, you know you are a vampire, and you probably have a story about who hangs out with you.  This is the point.  Who is to say images and memories can't coincide if you focus on having it happen?





> Of course it's possible to perceive seemingly different rates of the passage of time in dreams - just like it is in the waking world. As for ACTUAL time dilation - not just time that 'seems to drag', but time that actually drags - that has yet to have any good evidence or reasoning behind it.



I don't think there is any evidence, for sure there is none, but reasoning, I think i've provided some, even if I don't neccesarilly believe it to be true, I suppose I never will believe it for sure unless I experience it, or enouh peole have had this tested on...

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## fonti

I can't "prove" that it happened to me, but it did. Not 100 years...more like 2-3 months. In my dream I was about 12 years old, and I was absolutely in love with  a young japanese girl who was about 10. A deeper love than any I've experienced in life. I went to her dad to ask for permission to marry her, and he said, "if you can figure out how to say 'no' in japanese, i'll let you marry her."

So I went down to the library, which was relatively small (maybe 20m long, 6 m wide, 5m tall)...essentially just a large room, but filled with rows and rows of books. This is where the time dilation happened. I literally read every one of those books beginning to end. Granted, most of them weren't in English, and the ones that were didn't make any sense, but I read them all. No breaks to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom etc. Anyway, on the last page of the last book was my answer. 2-3 months is a guess. It could have been more, it could have been less, but it was much, much, much longer than any dream I've ever had before or afterwards.

So I leave the library the happiest I've ever been (happier than I've ever been awake), and I find the little girl at the playground. I put her on my shoulders, and we run to find her dad. Running, running, running...and I see him sitting on a bench. We're both laughing, and I'm crying from happiness.

I'm about 5 metres away from him. I trip...and the girl falls off my shoulders (this happens in slow motion) and she lands head first on the concrete...here head and skull split open, there is blood everywhere...I take in a breath to scream...and I wake up.

got a bit carried away there, and I don't know if this is what you were looking for, but yeah. That's my one and only experience in this matter.

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## conisag

Interesting, well i think you can speed things up in a dream to make it feel like more time has passed.
I think fonti, that your dream may have been about perception, or maybe you read the books so fast faster than possible in reality that it appeared to spread over months.
either way i would do anything to live a year in a dream imagine the life span- increase, a million years of experience anyone?

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## Jeff777

I believe this is extremely possible.  But impossible for those who believe it's some cheap parlor trick or not real.  Our beliefs are our only limitations.

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## Sandform

> Our beliefs are our only limitations.



Liar.

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## anthrax

Perhaps in dreams, the reason it may seem like weeks/days (longer than you are actually asleep for) is because in dreams, you skip the stuff you would do in Real Life that takes up time, and you only do "dream activities". Example: in dreams, you most likely dont eat, dont use the washroom, dont shower, dont brush your teeth, dont shave, dont have to spend time travelling (you can just 'teleport'). In dreams, you can read what seems to be a whole book in a matter of seconds because your brain already knows all of the knowledge and info in the "dream book" so you do not have to gain any knowledge... if walking/travelling by car, you could theoretically walk from france to India in a matter of seconds/minutes, because you are producing the scenery you want to see...

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## BeSomebody

> I can't "prove" that it happened to me, but it did. Not 100 years...more like 2-3 months. In my dream I was about 12 years old, and I was absolutely in love with  a young japanese girl who was about 10. A deeper love than any I've experienced in life. I went to her dad to ask for permission to marry her, and he said, "if you can figure out how to say 'no' in japanese, i'll let you marry her."
> 
> So I went down to the library, which was relatively small (maybe 20m long, 6 m wide, 5m tall)...essentially just a large room, but filled with rows and rows of books. This is where the time dilation happened. I literally read every one of those books beginning to end. Granted, most of them weren't in English, and the ones that were didn't make any sense, but I read them all. No breaks to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom etc. Anyway, on the last page of the last book was my answer. 2-3 months is a guess. It could have been more, it could have been less, but it was much, much, much longer than any dream I've ever had before or afterwards.
> 
> So I leave the library the happiest I've ever been (happier than I've ever been awake), and I find the little girl at the playground. I put her on my shoulders, and we run to find her dad. Running, running, running...and I see him sitting on a bench. We're both laughing, and I'm crying from happiness.
> 
> I'm about 5 metres away from him. I trip...and the girl falls off my shoulders (this happens in slow motion) and she lands head first on the concrete...here head and skull split open, there is blood everywhere...I take in a breath to scream...and I wake up.
> 
> got a bit carried away there, and I don't know if this is what you were looking for, but yeah. That's my one and only experience in this matter.



 That's happens to me so much it's a dream-theme of mine.
I fall in love and then either she disappears, or she dies horribly.

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## Abra

Hypnosis has been used by some to implant/distort memories. Perhaps in a lucid, one could use that lucidity to_ rapidly implant memories,_ thus giving the illusion that a long amount of time has occurred.

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## BeSomebody

> Hypnosis has been used by some to implant/distort memories. Perhaps in a lucid, one could use that lucidity to_ rapidly implant memories,_ thus giving the illusion that a long amount of time has occurred.



 A lot of my dreams feature memories, but they are recognized as such and I don't feel like I have lived them.

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## thegnome54

> A lot of my dreams feature memories, but they are recognized as such and I don't feel like I have lived them.



That doesn't prove anything, because you have no way of knowing which parts of the dream were actually memories to begin with - yes, you recognize the memories you recognize as memories.  However, if there are memories that you don't recognize as such, you won't recognize them.  Right?  ::lol::

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## Abra

> A lot of my dreams feature memories, but they are recognized as such and I don't feel like I have lived them.



 The only difference between an implanted memory and a true memory is that you remember actually living through the true one. Through will, you can make yourself believe that implanted memories have been lived through. And if you were the one who implanted the memories, then_ of course_ you would will them to be true.

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## Lethe

I dream long periods often enough to describe what happens to me. Sometimes its as little as days or weeks, sometimes its years or more. Once many generations passed.
What happens, to me at least, is that  skim from time to time, touching down in various spots.
The thing is, when I'm touching down in various spots, I get memories of the intervening times. Like the one dream where generations passed, I skipped all that, but when I arrived at the end, it was like I just KNEW what had been happening. 
And sometimes it can be devestating.
In one dreap  I speant two years as a husband and wife. (I'm often a group of people at once) She was undergoing some sort of trial while he waited and lived outside the enclosure. When I woke up it was a little disorienting. Took me a few minutes to get my bearings.
I both like and dislike such involved dreams. When I woke from that one I was left with a deep sense of loss. Although for what exactly I can't say.

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## conisag

Hey everyone ive got news:
Ive finally finished the demo version of my "lucid invention" as some of you might know i make alot of inventions that i basicly make up to help people who ld achieve a desired goal.
Ive basicly designed a time machine for lucid dreamers to use to dream for longer, this is just the demo hopefully i can use and gather some more idea's to design and even draw a picture you can use in your ld's to decide how long you will dream im going to create a new topic now and will post the link here in a few moments.
EDIT: heres the link and goodluck feedback is highly appreciated:
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...510#post523510

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## BeSomebody

> That doesn't prove anything, because you have no way of knowing which parts of the dream were actually memories to begin with - yes, you recognize the memories you recognize as memories.  However, if there are memories that you don't recognize as such, you won't recognize them.  Right?



*HEADACHE*

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## Hercuflea

I challenge this to be a Task of the Month to see if the experts on DV can actually do it.

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## Sandform



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## nayrki

I don't know about living days or weeks or years in a nights dream, but i've lived for hours on end in the space of five minutes many a time. See, when i was in the military, i had a lot of times that i'd fall asleep for five minutes at a time, only to be woken up again. Hitting rem sleep as soon as i closed my eyes, i'd be able to dream enough that i wouldnt even remember myself, and id question reality when i woke up.
Was i lucid during these times? no, i would say not. But i can say that i dreamed for a lot longer than i was actually asleep. 

Time dilation is a huge possibility. The main problem is, the average dream only lasts a matter of minutes normally, and sleep cycles interfere with this. The only way to achieve time dilation to the period of weeks or months or years, would be to utilize alternative sleep patterns, that promote longer periods of REM sleep at a time.

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## lagunagirl

I usually like to think realisticly and use logic to understand things but when you think about it, just because we haven't experienced it doesn't mean it can't be experienced. It can be just as hard to prove that it's not possible as it is to prove that it isn't. Just because you may have more information on one side doesn't mean that there really IS more info. that's just the only info that we know about. we as humans haven't even gotten anywhere near to figuring out all the possabilities in life. There are things that our subconcious' will do that we still don't understand. We don't even nkow the capabilities of our own minds on levels much simpler than trying to pull of something like this. I'm not saying it is true, I'm just saying there's really know way of knowing until you actually experience it yourself.

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## bcomp

I'm convinced time incubation is possible, since I've experienced it (quite recently in fact.) 

In a five minute snooze button alarm cycle, I had a dream that lasted at least 15 minutes. During that time, I read a chapter of a book with a DC - reading every word on every page out loud - and then flew with her... and I was aware of every second. 

You can argue that memory modification was a play, but I awoke feeling as if I had just dreamed for fifteen minutes, not five. Whether or not the time really passed differently in my dream can never really be proved I suppose, but it felt like it truly did... and isn't that all that matters?

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## Sandform

I often wonder, is it possible for time dialation to occur?

It has never happened to me, well at least never definitively happened to me.  You see, the only experience with dialation I've had is with occurences within the span of 5 minutes, times that I will wake up in the middle of the night and then reawaken 5 minutes later (according to my clock) and I will feel extremely refreshed afterwards, feeling that I had dreamed for at least 30 minutes, instead of 5.  Ands then I realize I lost the game.

No but seriously, what I said did happen.

The only practical reason for time dialation is to get "months worth" of vacation time in which it actually FEELS like months and not "seems" like months.  It needs to be the same as if you had sat down on the couch and felt like you watched 200 episodes instead of just the one episode full of...god what is it called when they just show clips of their old shows alot?...anyway that.

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## SKA

I once was on MSN with a DV member some year and a half ago if not longer ago. Can't remember who it was. He spoke of another DV member with who he's been discussing Time Dillation and that this person was able to dillate dreams to many many years-experiences and that he pulled it off too. 

Not too much time after that convo I found myself in a Lucid Dream and decided to "Stretch the Dream to the time-experience of 1 month". My dream didn't turn into a 1 month experience and I soon lost lucidity again.

HOWEVER, the rest of my nonlucid Dream was VERY vivid and memorable and defenitely appeared to last for an entire day-worth of experience as opposed to the common 10 minutes - 30 minutes snippets of Dream I usually experience.

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## Sandform

> HOWEVER, the rest of my nonlucid Dream was VERY vivid and memorable and defenitely appeared to last for an entire day-worth of experience as opposed to the common 10 minutes - 30 minutes snippets of Dream I usually experience.



But the question is, did you wake up feeling like you had lived a day, sleeping for a day?

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## Cacophony

*I've posted this before... I've had a dream where I woke up and went to sleep for several nights in the same dream.

Feel free to interrogate me all you'd like. I don't have anything to prove/hide, just experiences to share.

Er - it wasn't as if I were living every second of the day. I would wake up, do something, or not do something, then go to sleep again... In the end I became lucid and woke myself up from being really excited about a skyscraper that turned my hand into atoms when I tried to touch it.

There was some crappy prince guy stalking me too. 

I also happened to be living in the basement of a candy shop in the dream. 

I saved a princess who had her limbs ripped off and was screaming and stuff.

I'm just cool like that.

ERRR - Back to the time-dial-a-thingy-tron5000
... I believe that you can spend a long time in a dream. I mean, I spent days in a dream, although it did not feel like each day was an entire day. Each event was seperated by a day. I didn't feel, at the end of it, like I had lived through an entire week. I just thought it was a very bizarre way to dream.

Any thoughts/questions... yarrr!
(It's national pirate year, guys)*

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## Erikkujonson

I had a dream that lasted around a year, it was a long one so details escape me but it was awesome and I also was not training in dream recall at the time lol but I cant control it it was a simple chance happening

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## Inny Binny

What I find interesting here is that everyone here seems to be comparing our subconscious mind to our conscious one.

Our subconscious mind is INSANE. The speed at which the brain computes the advance 3D trigonometric equations in order for us to see in perspective is astounding.

Our memories, however, are generally made and summoned by our conscious mind, and this thing has no competition with our subconscious. We have trouble multiplying two two-digit numbers in under ten seconds.

I simply cannot see why our subconscious could not compute and present us with huge amounts of data that correspond to timeframes much larger than real time.

And really, if we truly feel that we have experienced a month in a dream, it doesn't matter if we experienced it, or if it is just a memory. If we are convinced that we had experienced all that inside the dream, it doens't matter if we consciously experienced the things in our sleep, or if our subconscious presented the memory and data in a way that we are just as convinced that we experienced it. In effect, we have experienced it.

Just like free will - doesn't matter if we have it or not, because perceived free will is precisely the same from our own perspective as true free will. We are convinced that we have free will, and that's all that matters from our perspective.

So I can't see why 'time incubation' would be impossible. Our subconscious would present us with lots of memories that convince us we experienced them.

And this 'time dilation' - I guess because I'm into physics, using this term wrongly annoys me.  :tongue2:  Time dilation is a key effect of special relativity that means that you will percieve time slower than anyone who's speed is not zero relative to you - so you can travel to the future. The world record for travelling to the future I believe is two seconds.

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## JET73L

As for time dilation, it has happened to me. Often, before I started really focusing on LD'ing. I would have a false awakening last several days, once over a week and a half, and wake up after not having slept any longer than usual. I don't see that it is impossible, and it could have been that I just dreamt having the momory of the week and a half. I do believe that I dreamed the entire time, in detail, so I am pro-time dilation.

Anyway, I doubt it can be proven. You can't wake up with knowledge you didn't know when you went to sleep, unless it was part of a recording you heard through your dream. You can piece together information you already had but hadn't noticed, but you couldn't have learned 100 years worth of chinese language and grammar. That would be astral projection, which I accept can be possible (though I sincerely doubt most claims).

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## Inny Binny

There are other more basic reasons that I don't view this as impossible as well. What about even moderately fastreaders, or the more extreme - those with photographic memories?

If you are a fast reader, you will read a book that has more details in it than would be presented in real time. You can comprehend more than just what can happen at real time. When you read a book, you imagine the stuff happening in real time, yet read it faster than the events would actually be enacted!

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## Cacophony

*





 Originally Posted by Inny Binny


There are other more basic reasons that I don't view this as impossible as well. What about even moderately fastreaders, or the more extreme - those with photographic memories?

If you are a fast reader, you will read a book that has more details in it than would be presented in real time. You can comprehend more than just what can happen at real time. When you read a book, you imagine the stuff happening in real time, yet read it faster than the events would actually be enacted!




That was a good point. I don't really have anything to add, I just liked that.*

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## Advantageous Noodle

I sincerely hope this sort of thing is not possible because I never want to be stuck in a library reading every single book. Though I think it would take much more than 2-3 months to read every single book. If you read 1,000 books at a rate of 1 book in 5 hours it would take over six months. Of course you may read much faster or slower. This is also assuming I did some very easy calculations correctly. This is also assuming you had 1,000 books in the collection.

I think my worst nightmare would be that I have to perform every single microscale experiment in my organic chemistry lab book by myself from start to finish. At ~ 15 experiments at 4 hours each...= 2 and half days...of pure..fuckin...hardcore..chemistry. I'd rather shoot myself in the legs.

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## Inny Binny

If this were to be harnessed, I don't think the main intent would be to torture yourself. Though, what's wrong with chemistry experiments?  :tongue2:

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## Advantageous Noodle

I wasn't talking about being lucid while stretching time. I meant being non-lucid and having to live days or months in a false life, or even possibly being tortured with some menial task until the end of time. If one were lucid and were forced into doing such boring things, he or she could simply say "ok, fuck this. I'm going straight to the end." Or "fuck this, I'm waking up."

It is being stuck in an endless loop and not being able to do anything about it that haunts me.  ::?:  Manipulating time at will - even in the dream world - seems very far-fetched, though very interesting.

There is nothing wrong with chemistry. I just find it very extremely ass boring. And if you happen to enjoy doing nonstop chemistry marathons then I'd probably find you to be boring as well.

 :wink2:

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## Inny Binny

Well, if you had a ten-year long non-lucid dream, your mind would be messed up. End of story.

So I can see the problem there. Probably not ideal.

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## redclay92

Yes, you would be messed up for a day or 2 but i remember reading a similar thread that came before this too lazy to search but it spoke of many things from having dreams inside of dreams to how much memory your brain can handle. Someone on the thread claimed that most amount of lifetimes that your brain can handle was 210 but i forget the name of the thread.

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## Inny Binny

You would be messed up for quite a bit longer than a day or two of you had a 10-year dream. The poeple that you had known and spent ten years with would be gone. The end. Pretty messed up if you ask me. Probably for months, years even if the length of time and the emotional involvement was great enough.

That 210 number is completely arbitrary. Why would 210 lifetimes be a limit? I mean, you would have to have one lifetime in one sleep period, it clearly can't bleed over several sleep periods. Therefore, you could theoretically have about (70 years times 365 nights) approx.= 25,000 lifetimes at a guess, if a lifetime can be held in the period of one dream.

Oh, and you can only have one dream per REM period. At 6 REMS per night, you could have 150,000 lifetimes.

Now, of course, how many of those could you remember? You have 100,000,000,000 active neurons, each which can make a whole lot of connections. How that translates into memory storage is anyone's guess.

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