Time Distortion - Myth Or Reality?

Francis · Joined: 10 Feb 2011 Posts: 49 Location: Poland

Hello. I would like to know about the time distortion. I read on a lucid dreaming forum (another than this - Polish one) a history of a guy who learnt a technique to lengthen his lucid dreams. It's called "time distortion" and according to his story, he made it so long that he had lived about 100 years in one of his lucid dreams. It's kind of weird and unbelievable - seems like a plot of "Inception" movie. Most of people believe him but for me it sounds unreal. What do You guys think about such a thing like time distortion? Fake or real? Personally, I don't believe it. I made a poll so we could see our opinions in statistics (easier to read than catching up with all replies).

Phen · Joined: 24 Aug 2010 Posts: 25 Location: Chile

In a certain way I think it could have been real. In dreams that 'time distortion' is like skipping the boring parts of the dream. Like when in a movie the protagonist gets into his bed at night and 2 seconds later the camera shows his clock and its 7 in the morning in the morning. So that scene skipped 8 hours aprox. I think you can do this several times in a dream, so it would seem like you slept for hours, days or weeks. But I doubt a 100 years.
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Eastern minded · Guest

yea, 100 years? May be exaggerating. Sad

But can't say without reading the account of his experience. Links?

Francis · Joined: 10 Feb 2011 Posts: 49 Location: Poland

I can give You the link to his discussion with another forum users but it's in Polish. All he said was something like that (few posts):

He grew up, became more mature during his extra long lucid dream. He achieved it by meeting a woman, who told him, that she could lenghten his lucid dream, but it was not enough for him. He wanted more, so he killed her and "gained" her power. He spent 15 years in a dream. When he woke up, in his next lucid dream he wanted more so he made it to 30 and in the last lucid dream even to 100 years. He used some suggestions - told himself to lenghten lucid dream and it worked. Every day was going so long, just like in a normal life. He had to face with some unfriendly people, who wanted to attack him. When he finally woke up after the longest lucid dream he had ever had, he was so shocked that he didn't go out of bed for 4 hours. Unfortunately, he lost his ability of lucid dreaming.

That's the whole story about him. And it's not that he changed the callendar in a dream from 2011 to 2111, but he had a very long dream which took him about 100 years. It must have been very tiring, but for me it still seems ridiculous...

PS: If someone can read in Polish, here's the link to the discussion:
http://www.psajko.fora.pl/problemy-i-pytania,1/dystorsja-czasu,4230.html

dylan9236 · Joined: 06 Dec 2008 Posts: 187 Location: Australia

Freddy885 · Joined: 30 Jul 2010 Posts: 117 Location: United States

I've had dreams that lasted for multiple days (like 2 or 3). But I honestly can't say that it felt like I literally spent 48-72 hours in the dream. More like my mind made made multiple dream-days out of 45 minutes.

If that makes any sense at all...
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Eastern minded · Guest

That makes perfect sense, freddy.

IrbidProdigy · Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Posts: 485 Location: Chicago, il

It sounds more of like some fairy tale with a lesson than a real happening...

mayanightstar · Joined: 25 Nov 2009 Posts: 43 Location: MN, USA

I know that your brain can trick you into thinking a dream was longer than it really was by skipping boring parts and kind of filling it in later, you know, but I'm really skeptical about making a dream last 100 years... It's probably an exaggeration. You could probably fit 2 or 3 days into half and hour's worth of experience, though, by skipping the boring parts and your brain making it feel like something happened during that time when it didn't. If that makes sense :/
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Freddy885 · Joined: 30 Jul 2010 Posts: 117 Location: United States

A famous author named John Draper said "Time is nothing absolute; its duration depends on the rate of thought and feeling."

In that sense I think time distortion in dreams is very plausible in dreams. However, not to the extent of what this guy is talking about.
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n8b · Joined: 19 Nov 2010 Posts: 73 Location: California

stubsy123 · Joined: 02 Nov 2010 Posts: 16

Dr Le Berge conducted a study on the amount of time passing in a dream compared to waking life using eye movement. When you lucid dream your eye movements in your dream body correspond to your eye movements in your real body.

He went about the experiment by moving his eyes left to right every second that past while he was awake (what he perceived as a second) so they could use this against what he would perceive as a second when asleep. He induced a lucid dream and while he was there he moved his eyes left to right as he counted the seconds go by. When he awoke they studied the results and found that seconds going by in the dream world and in reality are the same.

I had a really really vivid and stable lucid dream recently that was probably around 10 minutes long but it felt like half an hour so this isn't so black and white in my opinion. Interesting all the same.

HaoAsakura · Joined: 08 Mar 2010 Posts: 90

How is experiencing 100 or 1000 years more ridiculous that shitting suns and planets with a thought?

It may seem impossible from this perspective, but impossible from the one that can fly like superman?

IrbidProdigy · Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Posts: 485 Location: Chicago, il

gman42 · Joined: 03 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

I had a dream where I was in the dream for several weeks to a month or two but it was like a greatest hits album with all the good memories from that time but none of the bad ones or the basic day to day. That makes me a bit suspicious of this in that he started to get near normal time periods of memory per day. Also there's the question of how much memory and experience can the brain store?