The Clock Runs, the Record Stops: sleep and dreaming in a framework where time belongs to the agent
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: An interpretive note, not a result. Two definitions from the author’s papers in submission — time as the modular flow of an agent’s state, and a record as relaxation onto the fixed-point manifold of a gapped generator — are applied to sleep and dreaming. The note examines the hypothesis that dreams are experienced in a different time from the one in which they are recalled, and finds it not refuted but not needed: rapid forgetting, felt coherence, lucid control, the frontal signature, and the accuracy of dream-time estimates are at least as well explained by a generator running with its boundary conditions turned down, and lucid dreaming cuts against the translation hypothesis. The one claim stated in the framework’s terms is that the question for sleep is not whether time runs but whether the agent is recording. Companion to the author’s research note “What the Algebra Decides,” which uses the same clock–record distinction for measurement. Twelve references, including the LaBerge, Maquet, Voss and Dresler sources for the empirical claims.
Author: Roeseler, Michael
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225649021