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From: gmonro@gov.nt.ca (Graham Monroe)
Subject: Re: Time is a human concept (was Re: Reality as a Hologram (Was Re: Discriminative Wisdom))
Message-ID: <1994Sep30.045308.9364@gov.nt.ca>
Organization: Government of the NWT, Canada
References: <1994Sep29.100819.14118@unix.brighton.ac.uk> <Harmon.187.000D454F@psyvax.psy.utexas.edu> <1994Sep29.152807@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 1994 04:53:08 GMT
Lines: 122

In article <1994Sep29.152807@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov> meade@twod.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul E. Meade) writes:
>In article <Harmon.187.000D454F@psyvax.psy.utexas.edu>,
>Harmon@psyvax.psy.utexas.edu (Michael G. Harmon) writes:
>|> 
>|> Malcom, your reasoning is flawless.  True within the framework of
>logic.   
>|> Time is a vector that all animals seem to sense sequentially in one
>direction. 
>|> But, perhaps there is room for something outside the realm of logic. 
>Perhaps 
>|> time is not LIMITED to a strict sequential interpretation by a gifted
>life 
>|> form like humans.
>|>          Consider the dream.  You are dreaming that a man has just 
>|> walked into the bar with a slab of beef and says to you, "Pardner,
>here's the 
>|> beef I owe you!", and slams it down on the table.  At the same
>instant your 
>|> roommate has thrown a sack of garbage against the wall which wakes
>you up.  
>|> They are the same event, but in your dream state, where you are not
>required 
>|> to adhear to logic for your physical survival, you arrange your dream
>line to 
>|> coincide with a "future" event.
>|>         A science type may insist something like, 'your right ear was
>working 
>|> faster than your left ear,' to satisfy his security that everything
>is 
>|> rational in origin, but I, myself, don't buy it.  I feel too strongly
>the 
>|> resonance of the event (I had this dream and others like it).  It was
>too 
>|> well coreographed to be just a little glitch in the hardware.  It was
>the same 
>|> instant.  It was a natural accomodation by an infinite being creating
>a 
>|> paradox in perception.
>|> 
>|>      -Mike
>|> 
>|> 
>
>   That's a very interesting example and one which, not being in the
>realm of basic physics, I can actually enjoy, since I don't an answer
>and
>a dozen counter-experiments don't immediately spring to mind.  Open
>questions that come to mind is the rate at which images form in the
>mind during dreaming?  Without external stimuli, could the brain simply
>be flipping through the 'storyline' faster and bring you 'up to date'
>in the fraction of a second after the disturbance?
>   It is actually the easier course of action to say 'This is obviously
>outside of our perception of time' and leave it at that.  The
>scientific
>approach, though, would be to work to develop some method of monitoring
>what's going on in a person's dream ('dream imaging', so to speak),
>then
>run a series of experiments to see just how those synchronized the
>external and internal events really are.  It would be an intriguing
>research project - maybe we'll have a good enough understanding of the
>brain someday to actually be able to do it.
>

There have in fact been experiments to test a person's sense of
the passage of time during dreaming. As usual, I don't have a 
source handy, but the name of the book I read about this in
was "Lucid Dreaming". The author I can't remember, though I
think his first name is Paul (not that that's of any use).

Lucid dreams are dreams in which the dreamer is aware that he is
dreaming. With some effort people can be trained to dream lucidly.
This can be accomplished by developing the habit of asking
one's self periodically if one is dreaming. This need not be
a profound philosophical exercise; when you have asked yourself
the question you will generally know the difference.

The main obstacle to running experiments of the kind you mentioned
is finding a method of communication between the dreamer and
the researcher (one that is effective during the dream). The
author hit upon the solution to this when he was researching
dreams. He noticed one of the subjects exhibited rapid eye
movement (REM) of a very regular nature. It seemed his eyes
were looking left and right at a steady rhythm. He awoke the
subject and asked what he was dreaming of. It turned out he
was watching a tennis match.

The means of communication was then obvious. At key points in a
dream, the subject could alert the researcher by controlling his
eye movement. The method chosen was to look back and forth,
as had the dreamer watching the tennis match.

The author used this method and a program of lucid dream 
training to test a number of properties of dreaming, including
the sense of time. It turned out that a person's sense of 
time was very much the same if he was dreaming as when he was awake.

There is a drawback to this kind of experiment that the author
never mentioned (that I can recall). We have no way of being
sure that the qualities of lucid dreams can be extended to
nonlucid dreams. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book; it
is a very good read and probably of interest to a lot of 
pagans (especially those interested in shamanic journeys).

Blessings,

Graham
>--
>
>                         | I don't mind occasionally having to reinvent
>a
>  Paul E. Meade          | wheel;  I don't even mind using someone's
>                         | reinvented wheel occasionally.  But it helps
>a
>  Opinions?? WHERE??!!   | lot if it is symmetric, contains no fewer
>than
>                         | ten sides, and has the axle centered.  I do
>tire
>                         | of trapezoidal wheels with offset axles.
>                         |                           - Joseph M.
>Newcomer


