this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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Okay, there's actually a speculated reason for this: while you're dreaming, your body is paralyzed but your brain is not. When you go into fight-or-flight when you're dreaming, your brain starts trying to take sensory input from both your dream self and your real self. As a result, your brain is receiving mixed signals: your arm is moving and it's not moving; you're successfully controlling your arm but you can't control your arm. The result is that it feels like it takes a significant amount of effort to move your arm, and your arm moves slowly.
My own personal experience seems to support this: if I casually run or hit something in a dream, then it happens as expected. If I'm in fight-or-flight mode, then my actions occur in slow motion. However, I got lucky and became lucid during one such moment, and decided to try consciously focus on just moving my dream arm, and I was no longer moving in slow motion.
It’s always interested me that I don’t experience this.
That's amazing! Where did you come across this info? I'd love to read more!
I used to have dreams all the time that I was being attacked or chased and could not fight back effectively. In some, they were full on night terror territory, where I’d be crying out, and others could not wake me.
Then the weirdest thing happened – for a very brief period I did boxing as fitness (instead of like, actually boxing). And I discovered that I can actually throw a hard punch (you know, when I’m prepared for it and jabber my hands wrapped ands am wearing boxing gloves).
But for some reason that knowledge broke my suspension of disbelief as it relates to dreams. If something attacks me in my dreams, I know that the inability to punch means I’m dreaming, so I semi-lucidly just wake up now. If something seems too shitty to be to true, my brain just pulls the escape hatch and I wake up.
Exactly so! Also, dreams can also be PTSD "practice". For me, my guns always jam or weirdly fall apart.
"Oh shit! I'm in serious danger!"
Perfectly reliable Colt .45: "Nah. Jammed. Just because."
My reoccurring nightmare is trying to speak but my words won't come out. Feels like my mouth won't move and my voice chokes up in my throat. I've woken up lots of times screaming something because I guess I try and brute force my body into saying what I'm needing to say
Oof yeah I've had this one plenty in my nightmares. Screaming for all I have and all that comes out is the faintest, quietest squeak.
Damn that’s wild but it makes a lot of sense
My brain has turned that “floaty” feeling of being unable to properly control limbs into creative input for further sections of dreams. It’s interpreted it as the pull of a black hole, and also as somehow the ability to fly
Dreaming is such a poorly understood yet incredibly creative process
What does it mean when you can punch hard BC I can