On integrating outside stimuli, what I’ve always wondered is how wall clock time relates to time in the dream world.
I have a vivid memory of a dream as a kid where I was a fighter pilot, went through a bunch of dream time as a kid’s idea of what fighter pilots did, was eventually shot down/ejected over water and condemned to drown in the dream. I woke up with my mouth stuffed full of my own blanket to the point which was making mouth breathing almost impossible.
Did I start ingesting the blanket and concoct and experience a long dreamtime dream in 3 minutes? Or did the dream take 45+ minutes and I started ingesting the blanket midway through?
This was probably 40 years ago and I can remember it like it was last week.
Maybe I should simplify my question. If my alarm starts ringing at 7:00:00 and this is an instance where that stimulus will be incorporated into a dream which started slightly earlier, can the dream be 4 hours long in dream time, ending with the alarm stimulus, if the dream started at 6:58? Or is there a much smaller (or larger) time dilation possible?
Does the brain speed up to quickly get to a scenario where that alarm sound is plausibly part of the dream world? If I started dreaming 1 second before the alarm, what’s the most complex dream I could experience that ended with an alarm sound?
The brain and dreams are fascinating to me, which is pleasingly meta.
I have a vivid memory of a dream as a kid where I was a fighter pilot, went through a bunch of dream time as a kid’s idea of what fighter pilots did, was eventually shot down/ejected over water and condemned to drown in the dream. I woke up with my mouth stuffed full of my own blanket to the point which was making mouth breathing almost impossible.
Did I start ingesting the blanket and concoct and experience a long dreamtime dream in 3 minutes? Or did the dream take 45+ minutes and I started ingesting the blanket midway through?
This was probably 40 years ago and I can remember it like it was last week.