They said the same about clocks/watches, but I’ve seen the time a couple of times already in a dream. Yeah, NOT the real time, but a realistic one.
Also about reading words. I’ve read plenty of stuff in my dreams. The problem is that the words aren’t stable. Like they change when you look away.
For me I can read fine in my dreams, but if I become the tiniest bit lucid I realize that it doesn’t actually say what I thought it said, it’s just gibberish. Also my brain will sometimes go “The thing you thought it said makes no sense. It’d make a lot more sense if it said this.” Then the words change and I go “Oh, my mistake.”
Around 3 years ago I dreamed I overslept and woke up at 6:31. I have to leave home around 6:10 to be on time for work.
That morning I woke up on time, but when I got in my car its clock showed it was 6:31. I didn’t understand how it could be that late and checked the time on my phone. Turned out the car was showing the wrong time, which happened to be the same time as in my dream.
Last month I overslept and woke up at 6:31.
My thought has always been that it’s not that things like that can’t work in dreams, but dreams are mostly symbolic and you’re more likely to dream about using a phone or something if you have an issue with what it symbolizes. For instance, I personally often dream about trying to call or text my wife, but either the phone doesn’t work, I can’t see the screen, she can’t hear me, or something like that. My guess is that the dream is about my frustration when I can’t communicate well with my wife.
I’ve also had dreams where I was stuck or trapped in something and couldn’t get my phone to work, couldn’t make my voice work to yell, or anything like that, and I figure that it’s because I have real issues asking anyone else for help.