Extremely long non-lucid dream

Most of us have probably experienced false awakenings, I have even heard/read about people waking up after one that seemed to take hours. For example they spent the whole day at work, then woke up realising it was actually a dream and they still had to go to work.

But has anyone ever heard of a dream/false awakening that took extremely long?

About a year ago I had a long talk with a friend of mine about how he experienced (a dream?) that lasted for years. He remembers most things perfectly, like it was all real. I cannot go into too much detail about this, but he told me how he lived an entire life, got married, grieved the death of friends, went to bed, woke up in the morning, got to work etc etc.
Then one day he just woke up in bed, completely confused about what had happened and even questioning reality.

So after I got into lucid dreaming, this has been on my mind for quite a while and I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of a story similar to this, or maybe even experienced something like this?

I personally have never had such a long dream, but I have had ones that have seemed longer than usual. I have also heard that others have had similar “super-long” dreams; some lucid, some not.

I had some pretty long ones, but nothing longer than 5 hours.

I’ve never had a dream that’s lasted for quite that long, but from time to time I have dreams that are longer than usual or convey some sort of coherent story. When I wake up, I do feel quite empty, and it’s not a pleasant experience.

Since dream time is roughly equal to waking time, I go by the theory that when you have a long dream, the dream actually just consists of the most important elements over that long dream-time and the illusion of length.

Yes, in dreams you usually don’t need to travel between different locations - you just kind of end up there - so you can easily feel like you get up, go to work, stay at work, go home etc since you only experience the moments you actually care about; you know, getting out of bed (5 seconds), leaving your house (5 seconds), suddenly entering your workplace (a couple minutes), suddenly chatting with someone (a couple minutes), suddenly having lunch break (a couple minutes again) etc.
Also remember that even just one minute can feel like an incredibly long time in a dream.
It’s like waking up in the morning and getting the illusion that you lie in bed much longer just because you count the seconds - you become more “aware” of each second.

Well if his experience made you a little bit uncertain about everything or if it made you more interested bare in mind that we can dream only as long as our REM cycle is. Of course there are NREM dreams but mostly we remember REM dreams. As we sleep longer the REM cycles become longer but as long as 40 minutes tops. Of course this can be different from person to person, it’s not a rule but it’s around that number, so there is no way you could dream 1, 2 or 3 hours in one piece, you can think you did, that is your perception of dream time can be altered by many factors and it can made a impression of much longer time spent in the dream that you actually spent.

And it’s a great thing if you ask me, from it we can experience this great things.

i wonder the experiment which is about dream time equal to real time is really true. .because some people in this forum claims its opposite. i have felt somedreams i had lasts overmuch time in some dreams. i should learn having dreams lucidly. there is no way to prove it myself i think.

I’ve had a bunch of dreams that feel like they’ve lasted really long. But the dreams only show important parts. There was a dream I had that felt like it lasted about 10 hours, but it cut out lots of things. For example, I was doing an hour long drive, and it only showed a few minutes but just felt like an hour. Walking up steps was skipped a few times too.

There are a lot of facts about sleep cycles, and how dreams work, but from personal experience, they don’t seem to add up right.

It is true that dreams are capable of connecting a dream sequence that you consciously recognize as one flow, that was actually separated into many segments. There are small fragmented areas in long dreams where you feel “less aware”, or cannot recall all the exact details. It’s similar to looking back at your own waking life memories. There are bits and pieces that You don’t recall but overall have a general idea of the long term experience.

I usually have fairly long dreams. And my recall is rather exceptional. Due to this, I can often recognize these areas and notice strange things that occur… For example. The other night, I had 3 overlapping dreams. Two of them were taking place at the same time. Or so I recall as I woke up (I recall sequences switching back and fourth between two dreams, but the flow of each dream remained constant). Two running memories. Two presences. The third seeming to start nearing the end of one of the prior.

It seems so normal while asleep, but it’s extremely confusing after waking up.

I’ve had dreams myself that while I’m inside the dream, have lasted up to two years, but obviously after waking, It’s clear to me that it was a single night.

I for one do not believe that dream time is equivalent to real time. I’ve had several experiences where this has been convincing to me. Dreams that - even recalling all of it, and writing it down, have seemed to have lasted the entire night, even waking up, I’ve been ready to start the new day, only to find that it’s only midnight, and I had gone to sleep at 10:00pm. The same goes the other direction.

Time may or may not be fluid in itself, but our personal experiences can cause our brain to register it’s flow differently. There are many many causes for this to occur.
But one of the easiest examples is the difference between boredom, and enjoyment. “Time” Is not actually speeding up or slowing down. But the way you percieve it, is.

To my view, the way we experience time in waking life is expressed through our perceptions, and how they’re exposed to that waking life flow of time. Obviously your brain’s physical existence doesn’t speed up or slow down, but it’s processing may be capable of doing just that. Since dreams are not reliant on waking life’s feeds through perception, it may be able to process vast amounts of “dreaming” in very little amounts of waking life time.

This is quite easily revealed to me due to my waking dreams. Even when I am conscious and exposed to the outside world, I can fall into a dream inside my head, and I completely lose track of time. There are times when I’m lying in bed, or staring out the window of my front room, where it goes both ways. I feel like I’ve been dreaming for half a day, but it’s only been 2 hours, or the other way around. I feel as though I’ve been dreaming for possibly 2 hours, but it’s been 6. I had a serious problem with this in school. I would be trying to pay attention, then suddenly catch myself spaced out, only to realize that the subject being discussed had completely changed in only a minute or so, but it’s actually been half an hour. This is while I’m Awake. My waking dreams are not reliant on waking life’s perceptual input.

Another interesting thing, that may or may not apply as an example, is sedatives. (I think that’s the right term.)
I was put to sleep to have my wisdom teeth removed, and 5 seconds later, I opened my eyes again, and it had been an hour, or longer. I don’t recall exactly how long the operation took. All I recognized at that time was that I felt - for lack of a better term - a glitch. It had consciously felt as though it had only been 5 seconds, but deep under the surface, I felt another experience that it had in fact been as long as I was out. This was only a feeling, however, and my conscious perception still told me it had only been 5 seconds.

The only real facts I can provide about all this is my own observations, and of course, I’m not perfect or by any means more so knowledgeable about how it all really works, but that is just what I’ve had experience with.

Also… I have noticed that the longer dreams I have tend to make me more confused when I wake up… Longer dreams seem to be easier to remember, and feel more solid some how. I’ve woken up in the morning wondering who’s room i was in for a brief moment of time.

There is a post on here where a member described a dream that he was in for two years (dream time). He talked about how he remembered the names of the characters and missed them. I tried to find it but can’t right now…it’s hanging around here somewhere.

The dream that lasted for years

That’s it. Thank you!