Research case · Transformation
A video that pauses between dreams
Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study
I was sitting in front of a computer watching a video, but I could see myself from the outside, as though I were observing myself. I was aware that I was in a dream, almost as though it were a lucid dream. The strange thing was that every time I woke up and then fell asleep again, I returned to exactly the same point in the video where I had stopped. It was as though the dream had been paused and then resumed. The entire experience was confusing, like a continuous transition between reality and dreaming, and it left me with a very peculiar feeling. I am fairly sure that I really did wake up because, when I performed reality checks, I was actually in waking reality; however, shortly afterward I would fall asleep again. This happened about three times.
Open this dream in the galaxy →
- Source
- Virtual reality as a metacognitive training tool for lucid dreaming — Supplementary Materials — Andrea Signorelli, Francesco Tormen, Bruna Dal Bianco and Nicola De Pisapia, 2026. Supplementary Materials, Semi-lucid Dream Reports, Report S1.3
- Record type
- Research case
- Place
- Not stated · Italian
- Date
- Date unknown · contemporary study
- Uncertainty
- Moderate — De-identified lucid-dream report. The English text is the study authors’ translation from Italian; the calendar dream date is unknown. Chinese title and translation are AI-generated editorial drafts, not human-verified.
- Imagery
- Time · Falling
- Feelings
- Confusion
Another way to look at this dream
Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.
Time
Did time in the dream run fast, slow, or stop? Were you late for something, or waiting?
Early dream research Dream research
Ellis devoted part of a chapter to the “apparent rapidity” of dreams and the odd sense of time in them, arguing that a dream often feels long because it is remembered like a described picture.
Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911), ch. IX
Nineteenth-century case Dream research
Alfred Maury reported dreaming a long drama of the French Revolution ending at the guillotine, and waking as the bed’s headboard fell on his neck. Freud and others debated how so much could fit into a moment.
Alfred Maury, Le Sommeil et les rêves (1861); discussed in Freud (1900), ch. I
Falling
Where were you standing before the fall? Were you reaching for something to hold, or letting go?
Jung · Descent
In his memoir Jung describes deliberately “letting himself drop” into an inner depth in 1913, and treated descent as a way of meeting what lies below everyday awareness — frightening, but not only a disaster.
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)
Early dream research Dream research
Ellis explained falling dreams through bodily sensations at the edge of sleep. Sleep researchers today describe the related “hypnic jerk”, a sudden start while falling asleep.
Havelock Ellis, The World of Dreams (1911), ch. VI
Classical Chinese medicine Historical medicine
The same passage of the Lingshu pairs flying with falling: when the lower body is in excess, “one dreams of falling”. This is a historical theory about the body, not medical advice and not a way to diagnose anything.
Huangdi Neijing, Lingshu ch. 43 “Yinxie Fameng”
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
- Reporting in a Lab Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study
- The blue telephone in a game world Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study
- The scene I had to write England · before 1911
- Dreaming within a dream State of Song, China · c. 4th–3rd century BCE
- A Microphone and Wooden Block Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study
- A mouth full of broken glass England · before 1911