Thread: A Time Theory

While reading some other discussion about time in dreams i came up with this...

What if one would, while LDing, (lets say accidently) decrease the speed of time in dreams by 1000 000 000 000 times not knowing how to set the time back to normal. So one minute in reality would last 1000 000 000 000 minutes in his dreams. So he would be stuck in that dreams for eternity (or at least for a very long period), though in real life it would last just a few seconds. He would than die in sleep, becouse his brain would be like 120 years old and tottaly exhausted.

Do you think it is possible?

I could see it possible . His mind would be much more knowledgable and wise but his actual brain will only be a few seconds older.
I have wondered something similar about coma patients.
Perhaps they go into a dream state where they live out their lives like a LD, not knowing they are dreaming but are limited by the physics that they have not questioned. Maybe at one point in their alternate 'coma-LD-life' they are killed and thats when they awake into this world again to be told "Dude! you were just in a coma for 3 years!"

i once had a dream like that. i dreampt that i got seperated from my parents and sucked into a different like universe or something and when i got out my mom said i was only gone for like 5 min. it was weird

Its an interesting theory, and I think it could happen. Dream time doesn't always match real time so I see this as possible.

I don't think you would die, since I think time doesn't actually slow down for your brain, just the way you perceive it does. You might go crazy from boredom/loneliness though.

if you lived for eternity in your mind in minutes it seems that your mind would experience so many thoughts that it would store as memories that, if you recalled your dream upon awakening, your brain would "overflow." you would then have so many memories stored that you would run out of room. i dont know what this would physically do to someone, perhaps some sort of brain aneurysm. but it seems that ones brain would kind of slow down to a stop, and just stop storing anything that is sent to it. just my thoughts.

You would spontaniously combust.
Figurativly, of course.
But I'm sure you'd get one HELLA big headache when you woke up - AT LEAST.

It's simply not possible. There's been done many experiments on exactly this subject, and it always results in the same thing: Time can't be altered. Not even in dreams. You might remember a dream like, if it was 5 days long, but that doesn't necessarily mean, that you remember every single moment. You just remember it like "Around that time of the day, I did that, and at that time, I did that and that".

If it happened, that you were stuck in your dream for such a long time, your instinct of survival would just wake you up. Or you'd find a way, to change time back. Otherwise, you'll go insane. Or have a good time.

Once again, your dreams last just as long as you sleep in the waking world. The only reason dreams last longer logically is because they are built of conceptual thought - the ultimate form of thought used by the subconscious mind allowing for the perception of concepts at speeds far higher than speech or image based comprehension ever could.

Originally Posted by Merlock

Once again, your dreams last just as long as you sleep in the waking world. The only reason dreams last longer logically is because they are built of conceptual thought - the ultimate form of thought used by the subconscious mind allowing for the perception of concepts at speeds far higher than speech or image based comprehension ever could.
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thats a great way to put it.

But everybody thinks that thats just what goes on in the backround. They're asking about what they see, feel and hear. And do you want to know what we really see, feel and hear in dreams guys?

Nothing. Its all pure thought. We only think we see because we think we should be seeing. We only hear something because thats the way we're used to gaining information. When a DC comes up to you and says hi, they never said hi. What happens is that you have the knoledge that the DC said hi. You would then "see" that thier mouth is moving because they are speaking.

Now for the time element. That thought or recognition that the DC is saying something passed through your mind in a milisecond. That means the DC saying hi - an action that would take about a second in real life - took a fraction of the normal time in the dream.

Am I on track Merlock or am I going totally the wrong direction? Either way, I think we need a topic or tut on conceptual thought and how it relates to LDs. Its too important and too few people understand it.

And for all of you who totally reject the theory about conceptual thought (i know there'll be some), go ahead and continue to believe whatever explanation for dreams that you use currently if you think it will lead you to better/more fun LDs.

Originally Posted by arby

thats a great way to put it.

Whats really being asked here however isn't abot what goes on in the backround. Its what we think we see, feel and hear. And do you want to know what we really see, feel and hear in dreams guys?

Nothing. we only think we see because we think we should be seeing. We only hear something because thats the way we're used to gaining information. When a DC comes up to you and says hi, they never said hi. What happens is that you have the knoledge that the DC said hi. You would then "see" that thier mouth is moving because they are speaking.

Now for the time element. That thought or recognition that the DC is saying something passed through your mind in a milisecond. That means the DC saying hi - an action that would take about a second in real life - took a fraction of the normal time in the dream.

Am I on track Merlock or am I going totally the wrong direction? Either way, I think we need a topic or tut on conceptual thought and how it relates to LDs. Its too important and too few people understand it.

And for all of you who totally reject the theory about conceptual thought (i know there'll be some), go ahead and continue to believe whatever explanation for dreams that you use currently if you think it will lead you to better/more fun LDs.
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Aye, you've got the nail on the head, arby. The reason we have sight/sound/feeling in dreams isn't because we see or hear something in dreams (obviously, we're in bed and asleep, heh) but because the concepts are interpreted into our senses. After all, we're used to them and we exist in a physical world, we spend our waking life using our senses. If we had no physical bodies and were only beings consisting of our mind we would use conceptual thought alone without sight, hearing, smell, etc. to relay information.

But that's going even deeper into conceptual thought, deeper than is needed to understand why dreams are realised the way they are in our minds.

This reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episode "The Inner Light"... anybody seen that?

Doesn't explain how I got a 30 minute durating dream that took one minute realtime. (It involved driving over the highway, crossing through the grass hills next to them with motorcycles, and some other random stuff)

-0mega-' date='Feb 1 2007, 06:29 PM' post='408135']
Doesn't explain how I got a 30 minute durating dream that took one minute realtime. (It involved driving over the highway, crossing through the grass hills next to them with motorcycles, and some other random stuff)
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That's very normal. It's called N-REM. It's practically said just an illusion. As BD said, you remember that you did that and that, but you only used a few seconds on each thing and then your brain just expands the stuff.

Okay, time for BD to kill this damn topic.

Time cannot be altered, got it? Think of a movie. It might last years in the movie time, but does it show the guy eating, pissing, walking to work? No. It shows, for example, the guy closing his eyes, screen blacking out, and alarm going off. Same concept with your crazy delusions of time altering. The things that are unspectacular, your mind actually skips them. Now, flying, etc, your mind let's you see. You only remember "I did this, then this, and then this." Your mind recalls that, not the years you spent looking for a wife, just the time you spent fucking her.

Originally Posted by BeautifulDreamer

Okay, time for BD to kill this damn topic.

Time cannot be altered, got it? Think of a movie. It might last years in the movie time, but does it show the guy eating, pissing, walking to work? No. It shows, for example, the guy closing his eyes, screen blacking out, and alarm going off. Same concept with your crazy delusions of time altering. The things that are unspectacular, your mind actually skips them. Now, flying, etc, your mind let's you see. You only remember "I did this, then this, and then this."
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Does it really take such an aggressive reply for people to grasp the concept of conceptual thought? Or are my posts just invisible? >.<

I think people are getting confused between subjectively perceived time and time measured by physics.

Subjectively perceived time can be distorted so that you can experience a lifetime within an hour.

As for time measured by physics... weeell I&#39;m not all too sure. We haven&#39;t really discovered all there is to time and space yet... so I’m not going to say it’s impossible.

I agree with you16. However, as far as actual physical time, I believe that it is actually (for lack of a better term) some kind of substance itself that can be altered. Although not necessarily by your mind. Einsteins theory of space time continuum suggests the same thing.

I wonder, though, if lucid dreams may be closer to real-time because we&#39;re more aware. With that awareness, I believe, comes our internal clock, by which we can estimate the passage of real time. With this restored internal clock, we are better able to estimate real-time, and the additional awareness and focus of lucidity increases the ability to notice inconsistencies. If we believe that we are &#39;talking&#39; to a DC and not using any other form of communication (i.e. telepathy, or other instantaneous communication), then we expect the visuals of their mouth moving and the rate at which we hear their voice to be consistent. Thus, when we are more aware, conversations may be closer in length to real-time. In non-lucids, it is of course much harder to notice communication being given in symbols (i.e. instantaneous knowledge) rather than actual speech.

I hope I&#39;ve not been too confusing. :sweat1:

I&#39;ve also thought about the possibility of slowing time down in lucid dreams as a way of expanding each lucid experience. Like many have already said, our brains use conceptual thoughts in dreams...however, that in no way rules out the possibility of "slowing down" time in dreams.

In fact, it makes it more plausible. Using conceptual thought, we may be able to experience things in lucid dreams which seem to take hours, but in reality, it takes seconds. I base this idea on the fact that the brain can process information at incomprehensible speeds. Usually, our physical body simply cannot keep up with the speed at which our brain processes information. Fortunately, we have no "real" body in our dreams, so the only limitations on your dream body are the limits you place on it.

Using the high rate at which our brains work, it seems to me that not only is extending lucid dreams possible, but I think it will become a signifigant part of lucid dreaming in the future. A few decades ago, most scientists laughed at the idea of lucid dreaming......




.....who&#39;s laughing now?

HAHAHA I&#39;m laughing...
...because I got a 2 on my last exam, becouse someone exidentally counted 1 more point for me

On to topic:

Yes time can be altered, it depends on your speed, and on gravity, so physical time is also subjective time

If in LDs we use conceptual thoughts then I also think that we can "live" out more time compared to how long we actually dream in RL

About the brain overflowing with memories: I think our brains are smarter than that (at least mine is, I hope ^^), we probably sort by what is important and what is not and we forget some things so we can take in new expeirences

And for the topic starter: Maybe we already lived an eternity in a dream, it&#39;s just... we don&#39;t remember it? So how could it feel to experience an eternity in a dream? If you know it is a dream, you can surely wake up yourself at any point, even if not by will. And if you don&#39;t know it is a dream but you fully experient it, than watch the Matrix
Also I simply don&#39;t think our mind would die by experiencing an eternity

Two thoughts here.

Have you ever fell asleep and feel it was 5 mins, but your slept for 8 hours, huh. and other times felt you slept for 30 mins but felt it was 8 hours, huh. Anybody knows any ideas on this? Is this part of the time and space perceptive control.

oh shoot, i forgot the other one, it was a good one, too.

anyways, i am going to try the time thing. Whats the longest have you had? I had one where i felt it was like forever. It was when i wake up in my dream. I woke up like 50 times in my dream.(i sometimes i hate this , i get very desperate and try to wake up but only find i am still sleeping. It&#39;s like trap in a never-ending hell)

You definitely wouldn&#39;t die. The brain has an almost infinite amount of "super gigs" if you will. But maybe just maybe you might get a slight case of mental illness.

I was looking into the "conceptual time" vs "real time" or something like that. It was what Arby first mentioned. Well, I really like those ideas that since we aren&#39;t actually receiving stimulus from our hands and feet or our eyes or tongue or ears, all the work is done in the brain. And it seems logical that the work done in the brain would be faster. That assumption might not be true and I do not know the physics and science behind it so anyone care to do some research on that? Anyways, I stumbled across a website that talks about the speed limit on thought and thought I might link it here...

A Speed Limit on Thought?

If anyone thinks that thinking faster in lucid dreaming and experiencing our created worlds faster is possible, feel free to add on. Proof and scientific evidence would be nice if you have any.

Well, I was the one that mentioned it first and arby was the first to understand/take interest but otherwise...what scientific proof? Do you need scientific proof to prove what you&#39;re thinking? All things stated about conceptual thought are stated from personal experience. It&#39;s not a theory, it&#39;s a fact of things stated from experiences in dreaming.