Can a long dream last a split second?

[adolf hamster]

4.3 billion years of highly competitive life and death struggle later and STILL, most animals have to spend a third of their lives unconscious and vulnerable to predation!!

WHY!????

Because its a forced, allocated time to allow the brain and body to do things it cant do properly whilst active like repairing, processing memories and food etc.

Its the same as any man made machine, you can't have it going 100% 24/7 there needs to be downtime for maintenance (albeit animal maintenance is done internally and doesnt require outside intervention)

 

[dacads]

Bit concerning you had a dream about having no trousers on in front of a kid.

I hate dreams, so try to avoid them like the plague.

Sounds like your having nightmares

 

[iceypan]

I remember waking up with a massive foot cramp after a dream of playing football while injured, which felt like a full length game

 

[Nitefly]

I love those dreams when someone peeves you off / does you wrong, and when you wake up you know it was a dream, but you can't but be annoyed by them in real life.

"Is... err... everything... OK with you today?"

"... you know what you've done ¬_¬"

""

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Bit concerning you had a dream about having no trousers on in front of a kid.

he looked about 18/19 SO LEGAL

 

[dacads]

he looked about 18/19 SO LEGAL

Hehe, was just kidding

 

[Skeeter]

You see how it can make sense. You hear people talk about ideas popping into their head. For me I can have a whole idea or thought pop into my head in an instant, and it be fully formed in a way that if I was to describe it then it would take me seconds or up to maybe minutes to explain what had just arrived in my mind all in one go.

When awake and communicating or moving your limited by the speed you speak or move at. But our brains can work faster so it makes sense that they could process the thoughts behind a conversation or action in our minds in a fraction of the time that they would if they were physically happening.

I quite often have my alarm enter a dream for a 'while' (perhaps an in dream minute or so) until I realise its my alarm and tell myself to wake up and find its litterally just gone off a second or so before...

I also dream really boring stuff. Just today I mentioned in a conversation an email someone sent me a couple of weeks back, only to then find no record of the email at all. I expect I probably dreamt it, and this isn't the first time I've done that

 

[Diddums]

Anybody else as weird as me?

I doubt it, you do take some beating

 

[Em3bbs]

Dimple, you have kids don't you? I'm surprised you even have to ask this question. On 'bad' nights or mornings when my kids were younger I would often have dreams that seemed they had lasted ages and then realised I'd only been asleep for 5 minutes.

 

[ukxenon]

the brain is such a wonderful thing and also the most disturbing thing in the world and while you are asleep the brain ties to make sense of what went off through the day.

 

[jkb]

I used to work in the USA, I would spend 3 weeks there then come home to the UK for a week. Almost every time I flew to the USA my first night would result in sleep paralysis where I was convinced aliens were in the room and they had paralysed me pinning me to the bed. My legs and arms were so have that they couldn't move no matter how hard I tried and there were even flashing lights from their flying saucer. It was really scary especially since I knew it would happen before I went to sleep on the day I arrived there.

 

[cadmunkey]

I love those dreams when someone peeves you off / does you wrong, and when you wake up you know it was a dream, but you can't but be annoyed by them in real life.

"Is... err... everything... OK with you today?"

"... you know what you've done ¬_¬"

""

Haha, plenty of times I've been annoyed with the missus first thing in a morning because of something she's done in my dream. Poor lass

 

[Rroff]

The (sub-conscious) brain tries to reconcile external stimuli with the current context so it would try and explain the noises within the dreams - not of itself an indication the whole dream was triggered by the external event.

I've had a few times where I've woken up a few moments before my alarm is due to go off, inadvertently drifted off to sleep again and had what seemed like a long and complex dream in less than 5 minutes before the alarm woke me - not sure about mere seconds though.

 

[ChroniC]

Here's the thing.

All animals sleep (Even insects, though with insects it is called "Torpor")

Why?

Not necessarily true, water living animals which require oxygen at all times and either have to be constantly moving or surfacing are capable of allowing half of their brain to sleep.
Still sleep in a sense, but it does mean that you can be constantly awake too.

 

[Krands1985]

I've had a few times where I've woken up a few moments before my alarm is due to go off, inadvertently drifted off to sleep again and had what seemed like a long and complex dream in less than 5 minutes before the alarm woke me - not sure about mere seconds though.

A friend of mine had similar on a flight recently. He nodded off and woke up again several times in a short period and each time he said he remembered a dream. I'd always thought dreams only occurred in the REM phase of sleep, but obviously not.

Has anyone ever experienced lucid dreaming?

 

[Thekwango]

Has anyone ever experienced lucid dreaming?

Oh yes. And never ever enjoyed them. Being in a dream and knowing it is a dream but not being able to forceably wake oneself from that dream is not a pleasant sensation.

Also had dreams within dreams. i.e. I've believed I've woken up from a dream only to actually wake up for real having realised my previous sensation of waking was within the dream I was having.

And I've suffered sleep paralysis for years.

Sleep is not my friend.

 

[The Boke]

I've been having the same recurring dream for about 20+ years now and it always revolves around me needing to phone the emergency services for various reasons. It could either be a fight, a mugging or car crash but I need to get to a phone to call either the police or fire brigade or whatever. But every time I get to a phone something stops me from getting through. Some times the dial is broken or the line is dead.

Eventually I began to realise that I was in the dream and when I was witness to whatever it was that necessitated me to call the emergency services I would say to myself that I am having that dream again and when I picked up the phone I would shout down the line why was I having the same dream all the time.

I never got an answer until one night I voice replied asking me why hadn't I worked it out yet. I said that I hadn't and asked who he was (the voice on the other end of the phone) he said; 'I am you'. I woke up at that point feeling quite disturbed.

And then sometime later I was dreaming that I was on a bus and I saw a fight take place in the street. I turned to the other passengers and asked if everyone else realised that this was a dream but no one responded. I saw an old style, red phone on the floor of the bus so I picked it up and spoke into the hand piece and asked why was I having the dream again and this time a female voice told me to look up towards the back of the bus and when I did a saw a female standing in the aisle looking towards me. As I approached I kept asking what was all this about but she just faded into nothing.

I've had this dream many times since and now I just take them as they come.

Does this put me in the top weird spot?

 

[Rroff]

A friend of mine had similar on a flight recently. He nodded off and woke up again several times in a short period and each time he said he remembered a dream. I'd always thought dreams only occurred in the REM phase of sleep, but obviously not.

Has anyone ever experienced lucid dreaming?

Whether its somehow REM phase or not I dunno but I frequently dream during short periods of sleep i.e. if I come home from work tired and take a nap I will usually have very vivid dreams for some reason (and always wake up after 1 sleep cycle max).

I frequently have lucid dreams but unlike the poster quoted below I can force myself awake if the dream gets bad - never occurred to me to try otherwise.

Oh yes. And never ever enjoyed them. Being in a dream and knowing it is a dream but not being able to forceably wake oneself from that dream is not a pleasant sensation.

Also had dreams within dreams. i.e. I've believed I've woken up from a dream only to actually wake up for real having realised my previous sensation of waking was within the dream I was having.

And I've suffered sleep paralysis for years.

Sleep is not my friend.

Quite rare but I've had those dreams where you think you've woken up - can be quite disorientating.

I've been having the same recurring dream for about 20+ years now and it always revolves around me needing to phone the emergency services for various reasons. It could either be a fight, a mugging or car crash but I need to get to a phone to call either the police or fire brigade or whatever. But every time I get to a phone something stops me from getting through. Some times the dial is broken or the line is dead.

Eventually I began to realise that I was in the dream and when I was witness to whatever it was that necessitated me to call the emergency services I would say to myself that I am having that dream again and when I picked up the phone I would shout down the line why was I having the same dream all the time.

I never got an answer until one night I voice replied asking me why hadn't I worked it out yet. I said that I hadn't and asked who he was (the voice on the other end of the phone) he said; 'I am you'. I woke up at that point feeling quite disturbed.

And then sometime later I was dreaming that I was on a bus and I saw a fight take place in the street. I turned to the other passengers and asked if everyone else realised that this was a dream but no one responded. I saw an old style, red phone on the floor of the bus so I picked it up and spoke into the hand piece and asked why was I having the dream again and this time a female voice told me to look up towards the back of the bus and when I did a saw a female standing in the aisle looking towards me. As I approached I kept asking what was all this about but she just faded into nothing.

I've had this dream many times since and now I just take them as they come.

Does this put me in the top weird spot?

A recurring dream like usually indicates something troubling your sub-conscious on a psychological level - i.e. you often think that people don't listen to you or deep down you are worried how you'd react in an emergency situation or something like that.

 

[Thekwango]

Quite rare but I've had those dreams where you think you've woken up - can be quite disorientating.

disorientating, that is most definitely is!

 

[Rroff]

disorientating, that is most definitely is!

Had one the other night where I had a bit of a bad dream and thought I'd woken up to my normal alarm, dreamt I'd got out of bed, got dressed, etc. and then as I tried to walk out of my bedroom there was nothing - outside of my bedroom was just blackness and I couldn't move forward out the door - attempting to move forward just made me spin over and over (pitch) it was the unusual sense of floating in mid-air spinning that made me realise I wasn't awake and woke me up. The strange thing is when spinning like that I noticed details of the lintel that never registered on a conscious level before and were indeed there when I went to look actually awake.

Aside from those times where I think I've woken up I'm always aware I'm dreaming.