# why can't we feel the time while we are sleeping ?



## love is like a dream

why ?


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## Ramondo

Freezing said:


> why ?


I can't feel time when I'm awake. What does it feel like to you?

Are you you saying you've never experienced the passage of time in a dream? - that in a dream you could not have said that one thing "happened" before another? If so, I think that would be unusual.


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## Magaly

during sleep we go through altered states of consciousness. Our brain chemistry is different than when we are fully awake and aware, although even while awake we may experience time as faster or slower than it is. some mental disorders and many psychoactive drugs cause our perception of time to be altered. I don't know enough about what is going on chemically to be able to give an in-depth answer.

like ramondo said, we actually can "feel" time in dreams. We know we are awake now because other people have minds separate from our own, the objective world is relatively consistent and working as it normally does, etc. We can become conscious in a dream (logical centers in the brain can be somewhat activated) and realize that what we are experiencing is in fact very different from reality.


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## pr0ceeding

I think you're question can mean 2 things: Why can't we feel the passage of time when we're sleeping? or why can't we feel during the time while we are sleeping?

To answer the second one, when you go to sleep your mind basically disconnects from the rest of your body. This is for safety, so when you dream about running across a bridge, your physical body's legs are disconnected from your brain so they don't start running in bed.

But, also for safety (alot of safety features built into the human body), your body will wake up if it is startled enough.


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## JimmyDeansRetartedCousin

Magaly said:


> during sleep we go through altered states of consciousness. Our brain chemistry is different than when we are fully awake and aware, although even while awake we may experience time as faster or slower than it is. some mental disorders and many psychoactive drugs cause our perception of time to be altered. I don't know enough about what is going on chemically to be able to give an in-depth answer.
> 
> like ramondo said, we actually can "feel" time in dreams. We know we are awake now because other people have minds separate from our own, the objective world is relatively consistent and working as it normally does, etc. We can become conscious in a dream (logical centers in the brain can be somewhat activated) and realize that what we are experiencing is in fact very different from reality.


I like your brain.


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## Classified

If you can't feel time go past, does it really happen...?

I watched the movie Inception a few days ago. It makes you really think about stuff like this. Where if you take SSRI's, you may think your dreams are real and something that happened in the dream actually occurred in real life.


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## gomenne

You do not feel it on a conscious level but your brain does, it sends signals to your body to wake up after t= x hours of sleeping. Otherwise you would continue sleeping until you die


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## Ramondo

Freezing said:


> Thank you all for the informative replies ..
> is there anyone interested in the philosophical side of this ??


Is there a philosophical side? What's your perspective?


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## mrMoldyBread

I don't know if this has anything to do with the question, but I've seen on tv that flies can perceive smaller increments of time. That means they perpetually see things in slow motion. It makes one think that the rate of how time passes in the human perspective is not the "absolute" speed of time. Maybe each animal perceives time in different rates. And how about plants? do they perceive time faster or slower? Can they perceive time at all?


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## Magaly

^What you've described is time dilation. The way two observers perceive time is within their frame of reference.
more on time dilation here:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html
http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/timedilation.html


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## Ramondo

Freezing said:


> Yes of course ..my perspective ?
> i am afraid people think i am ignorant and my words make no sense hehe


Oh, you mean the philosophy of time in general, not during sleep?
Frankly, I don't think you've said enough to be thought ignorant yet. That might change. :b


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## wjc75225

Yeah. It's kind of weird. 8 hours while awake can seem like a long time, but 8+ hours while sleeping doesn't seem like much time at all. Time seems to go even faster if you've been put under for surgery.


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## PickleNose

Magaly said:


> during sleep we go through altered states of consciousness. Our brain chemistry is different than when we are fully awake and aware, although even while awake we may experience time as faster or slower than it is. some mental disorders and many psychoactive drugs cause our perception of time to be altered. I don't know enough about what is going on chemically to be able to give an in-depth answer.


 In my experience, my perception of time while sleeping isn't just altered. It's downright warped. My alarm can go off and I set the snooze for 60 minutes. Five minutes later, it's beeping again. WTH? Didn't I just hit the snooze button five minutes ago!?


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## Scorpius

Simply because you are in a "deeper" state of mind and your brain waves are much slower than your usual waking state..this explains the brain waves a bit:

http://www.hirnwellen-und-bewusstsein.de/brainwaves_1.html

During these deeper states of mind (theta & delta) the perception of time is altered or completely lost because time is pretty much an illusion or a trick of the mind and instead you are immersed in the eternal present


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## Akane

I keep track of time just fine while sleeping. I can wake up to within 30mins of any given time with no alarm. I can generally tell you exactly what time it is when I wake up before looking at the clock. If I wake up, fall back to sleep, and wake up I can tell you pretty closely how much time has gone by without having looked at a clock and I can interrupt my dreams because I am aware too much time has gone by and I need to get up. When I say 5 more mins then 5 more mins is what goes by before I wake back up again. I didn't have a clock in the bedroom for years and I haven't used an alarm in over 10 years. The only difference between sleeping time and waking time for me is that the brain does not commit most things that happen while sleeping to memory that can be consciously recalled so even if you are keeping track of time you can't remember it. The brain does not store that space of time.


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## Revenwyn

I don't know about anyone else but I feel the time that I'm asleep. Course I often lucid dream too.


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## Qolselanu

As an aside, I can swear that there are times when I am awake and my perception of time changes. Everything seems to move in a slight slow motion!


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