Now, before everyone starts thinking “Oh this guy is crazy”, and “He’s watched too much inception”, I would like to just express some thoughts I’ve had pertaining to the idea of becoming stuck within a dream, such as in Inception.
First of all what I mean by becoming “stuck within a dream” is basically any variation of the idea of either - waking up within a dream, believing it is RL, and being wrong as it is still actually a dream. Or getting stuck within your own subconscious.
I base my theory around the concept of a dream clock. There have been many dreamers which have successfully prolonged a dream with the use of a dream clock. What if one were able to length the dream at 100 years, first removing the idea of escaping the dream through death or otherwise. Could the dreamer forget they were dreaming whilst continuing to think it was reality - there have been many times my RC’s have failed, could they lose touch with reality?
What if you made yourself immune to death or escape and prolonged a dream for 100 years? Furthermore, what if there were a way to force your subconscious into believing once you died in a dream, you would go into a deeper dream state?
I hope some understand where I’m coming from and can try and answer these questions! I am very interested in finding out the answers.
The quick answer is no; your body has natural functions that wake you up after a certain amount of sleep. Now, in regards to how long you can prolong the dream, it’s all theoretical at this point. We have people like WritersCube who can stretch a dream out for hours in dream time where it may only be a couple of hours real time. As far as how this works is subject to debate.
Stephan LaBerge actually did a study using eye motions. The dreamer was to move their eyes in a certain way that LaBerge could recognize while they were asleep and to do it every so often. His results showed that dream time and real time were the same. However, many of us have experienced the opposite. It could be due to things like false memories or the perception of longer amounts of time, but we simply don’t know.
As far as people who have allegedly spent hundreds of years in one night, I’m skeptical. Most of them almost seem to be an urban legend (i.e. I know a guy who knows a guy who said…), and there is unfortunately no way substantiate these rumors. As for me, the evidence just doesn’t support dreams of that length. But again, we really don’t know.
I have never heard of anyone losing touch with reality due to dreams other than those who already presented certain mental conditions like paranoia or schizophrenia.
In terms of convincing your SC your dead; I highly doubt it. It is specifically programmed to help with your survival. Hell, it’s what creates dreams and it knows when you are dreaming. And again, what the SC actually encompasses is up for debate.
Thanks Rhewin, what you’ve said actually explains a lot to me. I guess at this point in time we just don’t know enough as well? I also had WritersCube in mind when thinking of a dream clock. If there are dreamers who can account for every minute of a dream and it spans for longer than real time, surely it cant be false memories if such memories link the story so well?
If anyone else has any opinions on the subject, go ahead and post them I’d be interested in hearing your opinions.
No, I don’t think false memories account for all of it. Really I think its the perception of time that changes things around. After all, dreams are based on perception. And despite LaBerge’s experiment, I do think the mind is able to process things fast enough to “speed up” time. Basically you’re thinking and acting much faster than you perceive because of the fact you don’t have physical restraints. But again, that’s pure theory with really no basis in fact.
I have wondered these same things altuno, that maybe, if we became so involved in our LD, and completely forgot we were actually dreaming, that we could get stuck in that dream state, or “reality”.
This is a very interesting topic, and the subconscious mind can surely do some weird things. However, like rhewin stated, I think our body would eventually naturally wake us up.
the closest ive got to that, i didnt extend time but i was in a nightmare a couple of days ago and i was in my bed and i was like: man! i hope i dream about being back in reality… i was not lucid but it was kind of hard to explain so basically i thot it was reality in my dream but just screwed up like x10 and i wanted to dream about things being normal inside my dream…
This is correct. It’s likely the same sort of thing as when people get extremely scared and their mind starts processing significantly faster so they sense time passing much slower than usual. As you’re not physically moving, this difference would be undetectable in a dream.
I’ve had a situation that felt at the time, like I was going to be stuck for ever.
A couple of weeks ago it must have taken about 10 “wakes” before I finally hit RL. It was very frustrating (I knew I had to get up for work and was worried I would be late), I don’t know how common that is, but its put me off LD’ing for a while.
I’ve never heard of a case of somebody, with no problems or issues, going to sleep and then not waking up. Comas have always been linked to some trauma, even if the comas continuation is unexplained, there was always a trauma which started it. If there are credible sources saying otherwise I’d love to see it, but until then, that fact alone rules out the possibility of ‘getting stuck’ in a dream, in normal circumstances for me.
As for those who claim they have extended their dream time, or claim to know people who have done so. For the second group, hearsay is a bad thing to take as a source of truth, there is a reason it isn’t accepted in a court of law. For the first, it would be very naive to just accept without question anything anyone says. It’s not that I’m being cynical about peoples natures and accusing them of lying, but embellishment of the facts is very common. Look at people around you, heck even look at yourself and chances are you’ll find you exaggerate when relaying back a story. All we have to go on for this sort of thing right now is peoples relayed stories.
We must also take into account that some people are desperate to feel special and valued, and being seen as a ‘good lucid dreamer’ will automatically win respect from a number of people who aspire to be better lucid dreamers. The drive to paint a colourful picture is just way too strong to ignore these things when reading peoples reports. I’m not saying to start attacking people who relay such stories, just encouraging that you treat what you read with a healthy dose of scepticism internally.
Basically I’m saying don’t change your entire life outlook based on the reports of other people. There are plenty of conflicting reports about life, religion and others. I don’t see why we should afford additional special treatment to reports pertaining to lucid dreaming than we would ones relating to religious ideology. (Baring in mind there are many conflicting reports about that too)
