On October 29th's live stream, there was a brief discussion on dream seeds and how long it takes for them to actually show up in people's dreams. Daniel said, in general, that the lag time is about three days, but several people said that for them its a day or less. I know for me personally, small elements of my dreams are seeded by things I did that very day.
For instance, this morning I had a dream involving a large fly buzzing around me, and at work the previous evening there was that same fly (if only I had known to reality test when I see flies!).
I was curious though; Have you noticed how long it takes for these dream seeds to sprout in your subconscious? Have you noticed it's different for big and small seeds? Do you think it's possible to predict dream seeds (that's a bit of a stretch, but interesting to think about nonetheless)? Let's talk about it!
In the chat of the livestream, I said that my dream seeds were pretty much instant. I've since needed to adapt that belief. This is a comment I left a few days later:
Does my subconscious need more time before it can start to process serious events in my dreams? Daniel answered:
Hello there! I was one of those people who said that the "lag time" from waking life into the dream world is usually that night or the next day. This could actually be a bit off as I don't journal really anything (whether day journaling or dream journaling). I might be missing dream seeds all the time, but, the ones I notice are typically in the near past.
For example:
- Last night I had a dream where I was struggling with school work (it never ends, does it) and I was being punished. Earlier in the day, I had seen short skits on YouTube about tests/homework.
- My friend has recently gotten me into a game. While I've been playing this game, it's popped up into my dreams slightly after I downloaded it (maybe 1-2 days after I had gotten it).
- A while back, I was driving with a family member and we passed by someone who was on a long board, which they commented on. That night I dreamed that I was on a skateboard causing chaos.
- Lastly, the other day I was thinking about coincidences and how me thinking of something could set an expectation in the dream world. I was thinking of a TV show in my car and a song somewhat related to it came on the radio. I thought about doing a reality check but had remembered I has done one a few minutes before. In the dream later that night, I was thinking of those paramoters and one of them came flying in from my left. I thought to do a reality check but, someone was looking at me and would question me, so, I didn't do one.
Like I said, my estimated lag time could be due to a lack of data from both my dream life and my waking life, but, these are the ones that I instantly thought of to estimate my lag time. As for dream seeds, I find that I cannot predict any, as when I think "wow, I want this to be a dream seed", it never shows up in my dreams that night. That may be different for everyone, but, that's my own personal experience.