Why is it that time is skewed when you dream?

[her209]

Does this happen to you anyone else? When you dream, the seems to have taken place over a longer period of time than your actual period of sleep. Why is that?

 

[GoingUp]

Somewhere I heard that your actual dreams only last 2-3 seconds... which would make it possible for the time warping effect........

 

[KingNothing]

You can think faster than you can talk, right? Why can't your brain present a whole series of events faster to you than other people could?

 

When in a dream state, you are not limited by your actual physical senses (sight, hearing, physical feeling), the synaptic responses in your brain are extremely fast, thus your dreams are extremely fast as well.

 

[Zenmervolt]

I've heard that one of the reasons is that dreams are not truly continuous, but rather that they "jump" from one thing to the next and the lack of continuity is ignored by the brain.

ZV

EDIT: Think of it like watching every tenth frame of a movie. It would be all jumpy, but the movie would go by 10 times faster.

 

[zCypher]

Originally posted by: Roger
When in a dream state, you are not limited by your actual physical senses (sight, hearing, physical feeling), the synaptic responses in your brain are extremely fast, thus your dreams are extremely fast as well.

Good response... that's what I also thought, but lacked the words to put to it.