Interesting dream lengths.

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I understand this to be a fairly common thing among my friends, but i figure we can discuss it out of curiosity. This happens to me on only rare occasions, as it's rare that I even remember my dreams at all, but on the occasion that it does happen, I find it pretty interesting.

Have you ever gone to sleep and had a dream where you could swear you felt the passing of time as if you were awake? That's rather normal, however when it was merely an illusion, it's also common to wake up and realize time was flowing fast, your actions in the dream couldn't have taken that long or been that slow. But, you ever have a dream that was actually very realistic in your sense of time, but you seemed to have had your dream last longer than the amount of hours you slept? In the event a dream is shorter, it's easy to rub it off as forgetting something, or just losing grasp on time. But, on the rare occasion I've had a dream where it seems to last longer, I try my best ti sit and think about it before I do anything to help me remember it. All in all I've had some surprisingly long dreams.

I remember one from a few years ago, though the years have made the memory very spotty, but the main thing i remember were my thoughts the next day. It felt as though the dream itself span over 36 hours, a whole day and a half. The thing that made it curious was that when I recalled the events, it would have been impossible for it all to have really happened within the 7-9 hour time frame of my sleeping, as it was a rather vivid dream.

Ever have this happen to you? What would be your theory as to why this happens once in a while? I, for one, assume it to simply be due to our brains slow in activity, causing its own perception of time to be altered, and it really isn't going at a real-time speed, but when you wake up and tr to remember it, your brain tries to make sense of it all as well, and as a result, it makes the actions fit into what feels like real time, effectively making it seriously feel like you had a dream longer than your time sleeping. Thoughts?
 
Yup yup yup!

It doesn't happen very often, but once in a while, usually when I wake up and then go back asleep when I only have a short amount of time before I wake up. Unfortunately I don't remember any of them, only one do I remember a bit vaguely.

It felt like a nightmare, but it wasn't really one. It's hard to put into words, and I doubt anybody cares haha. But here goes- There were multiple paths to get to the white house, and I took one, and I had to figure out how to get out of the house. There were other people too, but none I remember. The house made creepy noises, and apparently there were some ghosts in it that I never saw. The weird thing was I KNEW I must have had this dream before, it was a bit like Deja Vu even though I knew I had it before, but then again part of me thought I didn't? Really weird sensation. It felt like I was there for many, many hours. And then I woke up and it was barely ten minutes after I had last checked the time. CRAZY RIGHT? I know :O

I have no clue why it happens lol. Your theory sounds plausible :grin:
 
Dream time is faster than reality time.

This is kind of complicating to get into, and I only understand the REM part. That doesn't mean you dont have dreams the full length of your sleep sessions. Dreams are taxing on the brain and the longer they last, the more drained you're gonna feel when you wake up.
 
Yep. Actually one thing I've come to realized... my dreams during the afternoon/late mornings after I get home from work are usually more... fast-paced? Especially if stressed. Like two hours ago, I woke up from my nap. I slept for a little over an hour, and I swear I had over 5 different dreams. They were all pretty short, but I felt myself wake up a few times and the dream will somehow get mixed in with reality.

For instance, I'll open my eyes a bit, look at the clock, and then fall back asleep a few seconds later dreaming of that same clock - often times me being late for work (even though this haven't actually happened yet). The flow of time is a funny thing.

At one point earlier, I was actually dreaming that I woke up, got up, and finished folding the laundry. But nope, I found myself on top of my laundry, which still needs to be put away... (instead I'm here making a post about it).
 
I don't know about dreams taking longer than they should, I don't think I've had one where I've been that aware of time. I usually am a troublesome sleeper as is, so I end up waking up tired a lot, whether I remember I dreamt, or not.

What I often have, are re-occurring dreams. I'll dream about some chase one day, that I hid somewhere for example, and there's still crazy psycho going around. I'll wake up and remember how vivid the dream was. Months later, it sometimes picks right back up where it left off... That has me waking up, thinking wtf... >.>

I also have had dreams where I'm dreaming I'm waking up / awake. They're the weirdest. Thankfully I have strong bladder, but whenever I gotta pee when I'm sleeping and you have that real bad pressure, I go pee in my dream but there's no bladder relief? So that wakes me up and I go pee... Weeeiiiirdo. Thankfully I don't pee the bed.
 
Interesting topic. When I first saw this topic I thought it didn't relate to me, and that I didn't have any experience which compares. I perhaps still do not, but on reflection it applies to me slightly, though not extremely.

I'm not sure how long my dreams actually are, and most of the dreams I've had during the night seem to fit into the time I'd be asleep, but the details of the dream when put together during recollection do seem to spread the dreamtime out.

However, I've lately been having some very deep and vivid dreams in the mornings. This is (luckily) not often on a day that I work, but tends to be on a day off. Sometimes when I am so exhausted and hit the alarm for longer than I would on a work-day, I've found myself falling asleep. Then I have a very vivid dream, which shuts my brain off entirely, and the next thing I know I'm awake much later than I'd intended to be, and my alarm is still going off every 15 minutes without waking me up. My self-frustration kicks in, etc etc.

But the dreams seem to pack an awful lot into this time. Some of my most complex and drawn out dreams have happened during this time. In reality I guess I'm sleeping for an extra half an hour, or even an hour. Sometimes when I'm very deep into sleep it'll be more. But the dreamtime seems much, much longer, and I'm completely swallowed up and convinced by whichever dreamworld I'm in at the time.

However, other than a vague sense of time, the details of the dreams are always hazy for me. I am never able to write a full account of my longer nightly visions.
 
I have experienced time dilation in dreams.It happens mostly around the waking hours when lucid dreaming is at the highest probable period.Its weird when you glance at the clock upon waking for the first time,falling back asleep for an hour during which an epic dream takes place that couldnt possibly fit in real time of just 60 minutes.Lucid dreams are awesome,,,the downside though is they take it out of me and the groggy feeling happens when I wake up from them.Another thing I ve experienced to many times,is the actual time on the clock,,,I will be sleeping,going in and out of a half dream state and Ill start looking at a clock in my dream state, notice what time it is,then actualy wake up look at the clock and it is the exact time I just saw in my dream,It weirds me out sometimes.
 
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