Thread: Can Time Be Measured In A Ld?

I don't think there is a way to measure time in dreams. Looking at a stopwatch's display will change over time and definitely not be a good indication of how much time has gone by.

I'm not sure if it would be possible to measure time in a LD...

Well, I'm sorry to say there doesn't seem to be an apparent way to measure time in the dream world anyway, because everything is always so back an forth and broken. Now, it would be interesting if maby in the future scientists were able to develop a system whereby the dreamer could start and stop a stopwatch by using a predetermined pattern of eye movements while lucid to indicate when they had gone into a lucid.

I usually try to wake myself up after doing a bunch of things in a lucid dream. Even though it probably shortens it, it helps me remember it (especially in the early REM stages). Once in a lucid, I got "It's breakfeast time" temporarily in my vision, with a picture of a spoon and eggs lol. My dream self thought of it as my lucid dream being 1/3 over, but it actually came near the end of the lucid dream.

Interesting question... no, there isn't.
Everything's too relative to measure.

Eg. try this in an LD:
Walk across a room, measuring the number of strides
Now do it again.
Different, right?

Time would have the same trickiness in measuring.
Time seems to dilate depending on (1) the reality of it (2) your sleep state/depth (3) the stressfulness of the dream. I'm sure there's other reasons too.

It'd be great to find a way of measuring things. The eye movement isn't a bad idea, but isn't very helpful to the average LDer.

Well, not to beat a dead horse but in Laberge's work, he had his students count in their dream and he compared it to actual time, and both were ususally pretty close. So, you could simply count, but that would be a pretty boring dream.

carlhungis beat me to it. Yes, time has been measured using eye movements and it pretty well correlates to actual time. Here is something to try, I've used this for years.

Get a shortwave radio and listen to the WWV timing signal on 5, 10, and 20 Mhz. After listening to it repeatedly, you will be able to replay it in your mind pretty accurately, much like you can a song you hear on the radio forever.

Originally Posted by Placebo

Eg. try this in an LD:
Walk across a room, measuring the number of strides
Now do it again.
Different, right?

[/b]

Have never done this, will try it out!
[echoeey 50's UFO voice: "The distortion of space and tiiiime...!"]

carlhungis beat me to it. Yes, time has been measured using eye movements and it pretty well correlates to actual time.[/b]

You mean I'm wrong?? Rats..
But then how do you explain having an longish dream play out in one or two bleeps from an alarm clock? (The dream had to do with sirens)

Originally Posted by Placebo

You mean I'm wrong?? Rats..
But then how do you explain having an longish dream play out in one or two bleeps from an alarm clock? (The dream had to do with sirens)
[/b]

One of the theories on dreams seeming to play out longer is that there is a kind of time lapse effect similar to what you see in movies. So in a movie a year can pass in a few seconds, something similar can happens in a dream. That's just a theory of course...

Originally Posted by SoulSearcherX

One of the theories on dreams seeming to play out longer is that there is a kind of time lapse effect similar to what you see in movies. So in a movie a year can pass in a few seconds, something similar can happens in a dream. That's just a theory of course...
[/b]

Yeah, I know that one - you drive to the shops and don't dream about the trip itself. It don't think it would quite explain the one I had though.

BTW, perhaps the reason that counting in your dreams is the same as in reality, is because we take into account our pulse & breathing when measuring the intervals. It should be a little slower then, but not much.

[EDIT: Apologies if I sound a bit daft - it's my first night of re-adapting to polyphasic sleep]

I often know when a dream is going to end soon... it's like a hunch. Or, when I'm about to wake up, I feel tired and my thinking starts to get hazy--weird, because it feels just like going to sleep

Doing left-brained stuff like keeping track of time seems to be hard when you're asleep. I do have a talent that might help me though: When I'm awake, and I set a timer for a short time--twenty minutes or less--I can usually tell, without keeping track of time at all, when that timer is going to go off. Microwave times, I'll get up to get my food and the thing will finish and ring as I'm walking there...

That seems a more instinctive mechanism of timing things than a clock; and if it carried over to a dream, it might be useful.

Maybe I'd be able to time my dreams using whatever mechanism that allows me to keep track of time like that. But the problem is that I'd have no way of telling how long I was in REM, and thus to find out how accurate my estimate was, unless I hired somebody to watch me or got sensors.

Also, I don't know whether I'd be timing "lucid time" (because lucid dreams usually start halfway through a dream) or general dream time...

So probably it's theoretically possible.

Well like carlhungis, according to research the dream time correlates with real time. However, I think that woudl only work if you just sat and couned in your dream. Time is relative. I mean, how many times in your waking life do you feel like a 1/2 cmath class feel likes its lasted hours and hours long? Or feel like spending a whole day with someone your in love with feel like just a few minetues? So time is just as long as you feel it could be; exspeicly more so in dreams becuase nothing is grounded in reality.

Sorry Placebo, I was assuming an LD where the subject was actively trying to measure in realtime.

I've also had the experiences where an entire dream seems to be built around an event that occurs for a few seconds. I wonder though. If during that time, you began moving your eyeballs, would they move very quickly?