Time in Dreams

Experiments have shown that time in dreams seems to flow at the same rate as time in the "real" world. If that's so then how come some of our dreams seem to last hours, days or even longer?

The answer seems to be that dreams are "cinematic".

A Broken Arrow

Imagine you're watching a movie and the main character wants to drive from home to the office. You'd probably see a shot of them getting into the car, maybe a couple of shots of the journey with scenery or traffic jams to set the mood, then a shot of the car pulling up in front of the office. A trip of half an hour or more would probably be reduced to around fifteen seconds screen time.

Dreams work the same way.

This can cause problems for some lucid dreamers. Imagine you are dreaming that you are in your apartment. You look out of the window and see a party in the street below. You want to join in.

Many people would automatically walk out of the room into the hallway, to the front door, open it, walk down the stairs, out into the street... By which time they might have woken up!

The way round this is to practice having your lucid dreams work in the same cinematic fashion as ordinary dreams. Get into the habit of just saying to your mind "make it so"! Simply will yourself to be out of your apartment and in the middle of the party, without all that tedious mucking about in normal space in between. If you really have trouble with this then you could try imagining some form of teleportation effect.

Life is short. Dreams are shorter. Don't waste them.