Do dreams really last for 16 seconds each?

Question

Last year one of my friends said that dreams last for about 16 seconds but my dreams seem so much longer than 16 seconds.

Answer 1

Dreams really don't last long at all, but I'm curious as to how your friend knew that his dream was only 16 seconds. Our dreams hop, skip and jump about, and most of the time they make little sense to us, but when we awake and remember them, we try to see them as a story, which makes them feel like they are much longer, because things that happen to us in life are much longer.

Answer 2

i seriously doubt that!! it seems like ive had dreams that last for the whole night!!

Answer 3

You may find this dissapointing so brace yourself. The average dream usually lasts for 3 seconds. Yeah I'm scared too. I think they are way longer but I asked a professional dream analyser and they said it lasts about three seconds. Though it seems virtually impossible its true. Tell your friend to cram that in his face. lol srry if it sounded mean. Wasn't intended. Plus after I asked the dream analyser I went to ask then I looked on a shampoo and conditioner bottle. Ha! I was so desperate to prove him wrong. Oh well like I said it is shocking but true, only 3 seconds.

Answer 4

When we dream our soul is released and roams other dimensions where there is no linear time. So what appears like all night is only a few seconds in our reality.

Answer 5

A. REM sleep periods, and therefore dreams, last typically in the range of 5 to 45 minutes. Often, the subjective time spent in a dream is much longer. One possible explanation for this time-stretch effect is that dreams are combined from pieces (see preceding paragraph) that have their own different setting in time. You first dream of something that occurred a year ago, then -following - of something that occurred just recently, mix them up abit and are left with the remembrance of a dream that lasted a year.



But experiments suggest that dreamed actions run in "real time" - what you do in your dream takes exactly this time to dream. With external influences like the radio running in the morning, you have both the real time in which you hear something and - sometimes - the feelingthat it lasted considerably longer. Anyway, time is one of the perceptions that are heavily distorted in dreams.