You know how to run.
You've done it thousands of times, swishing your arms back and forth, tackling ground one leg at a time. And yet, when you enter a dream, running becomes much more complex. You feel sluggish, weighed down, forced to pull your body through some kind of invisible quicksand hellbent on trapping you.
It feels like you're running in slow motion.
How does this happen? Some research indicates, as a whole, our dreams may actually occur in slow motion. Daniel Erlacher, a psychologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, conducted an experiment to analyze brain activity during sleep, interested in finding out how the brain reacts to action in a dream. If you're running in your dream, does that actually activate the parts of your brain related to running?
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In order to measure brain activity, he conducted the experiment on lucid dreamers, people who practice controlling their dream experience.
When he asked them to complete an activity, the subjects took 50% longer to do it than they would have in real life.
How common of an occurrence is a slow-motion run, though? Ian Wallace, a psychologist and dream expert, says it's popular, but not that common.
"I have analyzed around 200,000 dreams for my clients and slow-motion running is the 55th most common," he tells Mashable.
People also have plenty of dreams where they're running at a normal speed, or even a super-quick speed, he says. When you pick up the pace, Wallace interprets, it's usually a precursor to flying dreams. Having interpreted thousands of dreams, Wallace believes there's a reason you're feeling that slo-mo pull.
"Your legs represent your fundamental drive as you push yourself forward through life," he explains. "If you feel that your legs are moving slowly, then you feel that there is something resisting your progress in waking life."
That dramatically slow sprint you're attempting could be a manifestation of your daily life, if you subscribe to dream interpretations.
Since people can experience lucid dreams even without intending to, Erlacher's research is likely the more common reason. Though you don't know it, your dream is happening more slowly because of your state of lucidity.
Now that you know, maybe your next dream run won't feel like such a nightmare.