Time loss or just an altered state of awareness..

Highway hypnosis is a mental state in which the person can drive an automobile great distances, responding to external events in the expected manner, with no recollection of having consciously done so. In this state the driver's conscious mind is apparently fully focused elsewhere, with seemingly direct processing of the masses of information needed to drive safely. 'Highway Hypnosis' is just one manifestation of a relatively commonplace experience, theoretically where the conscious and subconscious minds appear to concentrate on different things; workers performing simple and repetitive tasks and people deprived of sleep are likely to experience similar symptoms. Therefore, it is a sort of subconscious "driving mode."

source

Hello ATS,

So is time loss just another state of awareness? Huh..

I think many of us have probably experienced "Highway hypnosis" at some point whilst weve been driving. Travelling from point A to point B without really remembering how we got there. This happened to me the other day, a simple 10 minute journey from my house to town. I remember leaving my road and then realised I had arrived at my destination. I dont recall the journey.

Is this time loss?... I did lose about 10 minutes of time although my logical mind knows what happened. (even though I dont remember anything and cant recall the events)

So whats actually happening here... well it seems our subconscious mind is carrying out everyday tasks whilst our conscious mind is off doing other things (wish I knew where mine went)

Can we use this to explain time loss in general. When people experience this time loss phenomenon (whether they are moving or not) is it our subconscious mind taking over our everyday tasks in normal life and our conscious mind leaving our reality. Then when the conscious mind finally drifts back to its normal state of awareness, a period of time has elapsed...= time loss.

So what do we think?

Cheers,

JQ.

Ps. I am a safe driver... maybe.

Although I see your idea as possible, it doesn't really explain the majority of time loss cases where the amount of missing time does not directly relate to distance travelled. Ive read cases where the amount of time missing is longer than the whole journey should have taken, in which case surely something else must have happened in that time to cause the delay. If whatever happened was not a normal occurance then surely your mind would snap out of whatever it is doing and you would return to a normal state of awareness?

reply to post by ray648

Although I see your idea as possible, it doesn't really explain the majority of time loss cases where the amount of missing time does not directly relate to distance travelled.

Totally agree. which is why I said can this explanation be used whether you are moving (travelling) or not.

The whole Highway hypnosis thing is interesting but I wanted to look further beyond that idea. Can the subconscious mind take over (even when you are stationary) and perform mundane tasks allowing time to pass whilst your conscious mind is else where. Just a thought..

Thanks for the reply anyway was getting a bit lonely here

Cheers,

JQ.

I completely agree that the subconscious mind can take over when doing repeatative mundane tasks. Ive had this occur loads of times when you are forced to work on something boring like data entry for example, and after a while your mind just goes into autopilot and you start to think about other things. Before you know it, the whole task will be completed even though you have been thinking about something unrelated and do not remember doing most of it.

The same sort of feeling occurs sometimes when you are forced to do the same set of tasks every day and by the time you have finished them you will not always remember having done so, and your memories will sometimes be of a previous time, or not of having done some of the tasks at all.

Im sure this happens a lot more often than most of us realise, its just that the majority of the time people don't even give it a second thought. Im not really sure what this should be called? The time is not really missing, because although you can not remember it, there are physical signs (work done, change of location, etc) that indicate what must have occured in that time. Missing time normally refers to time that is lost with no logical explaination.

Soon after I got my drivers license - my boyfriend and I decided to go with a group of friends to a barn dance out in the country. Now it's important to get the right visualisation here I was not a very experienced driver and by nature was very stubborn ( in fact I still am ) lol We were travelling on a dirt road - there were two cars in front of me and another two were following close behind. It was just on dusk - the cars were spewing up alot of dust from the road and a thick fog was beginning to descend - all of these factors reduced my visibility quite drastically - to the point that even though I was only a few metres away I could only just make out the tail lights of the other vehicles in front of me.

I was doing between 80 and 100 km's / hr skidding on and off because instead of using my gears I was braking all the time. Stressed out to the max my boyfriend asked if he could drive the car but I insisted I was fine the wise thing to do would of been to slow down but I did not want to risk loosing the others and end up getting lost. We came to a hair-pin bend in the road - I swerved to take the bend and in that split second realised that the two other cars had gone into skids - stopped and were now blocking the road. I swung the steering wheel to the right - headed up an embankment and through a barbed wire fence - while I was airborne I applied the brakes but naturally they did not work the passengers and drivers in the other vehicles all watched helplessly as the nightmare unfolded - now remember my visibility was next to zero - I had gone into shock ( I lost all sense of time ) I was abruptly brought back to reality by my boyfriend who was screaming at the top of his lungs " BRAKE " ' BRAKE ' there were a few choice swear words in there towards the end as well so I applied the brakes. Everyone came running over to check we were okay - the guys were going on and on about the fact they could tell we were airborne by the height of the tail lights and said it was just like watching a stunt scene from a movie my girlfriends on the other hand just wanted to make sure I was okay.

Now the interesting point is the next day the guys went back to fix the fence for the property owner and said what they saw amazed them. Apparently I had been heading in a dead straight line when suddenly the tracks veered off in another direction just metres short of hitting a huge boulder - they said this happened several times until the car finally came to a stop - just another metre on and the car would of gone over the edge of an embankment with a drop of about two metres. They said it was a miracle we got through the accident with no injuries and went on and on about the fact someone was looking out for us. I was like a blindman driving I could not see a thing - was it just good luck that neither of us were sersiously injured or killed or did my subconscious kick in and help me ? All of the people that witnessed the event thought it was more than just good luck.



[edit on 6-2-2009 by destiny-fate]

Okay and one more lol Oh and this is regarding another car accident I had A few months after the above mentioned incident I went out clubbing with friends. I had a few drinks but nothing in excess - I dropped all of my friends off at their houses and then proceeded to go home myself. It was late and I was tired - I must of dozed off for a second and suddenly realised I was driving too close to the kerb - I panicked and over steered - went over an island across another set of lanes and hit a kerb on the opposite side of the street. According to police I hit the kerb on just the right angle because it tipped my car causing the vehicle to roll a few times - the police officer said ( that one incident may very well of saved my life ) because my vehicle was heading straight for a light pole and at the speed I was travelling - could very well of been fatal. Later I was told by police they found the vehicle upside down - resting on it’s roof. I was slipping in and out of consciousness and can only remember bits and pieces of my trip to the hospital in the ambulance.

I remember the police coming in to question me about the accident. The strange thing is - I was adamant the accident actually occurred on a completely different street - in a completely different suburb to the one the police officer mentioned. When I gave him the street name and suburb I thought the accident occurred in - all colour drained from his face - he looked quite shocked - he said he found it quite ironic that I mentioned that particular street and suburb because just prior to getting the call about me another job was dispatched to the city police to attend another car accident on the very road and in the very suburb I mentioned ? They said a young lady was found wandering across the road disorientated after rolling her car ? Kind of like our fates were entwined in some strange way ? Both accidents happened at the same time and both of us were disorientated to the point we were confused about our location ?

I rang the wreckers to find out if it was possible to check and see if I had left anything of importance in the vehicle before they crushed it and the guy asked what injuries I had sustained in the accident I said none just a bump on the head and he said he found that amazing because there was very little left of the car. I was shocked when I finally got to see it - the roof was nearly level with the dashboard - all the windows and doors were smashed in - quite unbelievable I got out of that accident with just a minor bumb to the head.




[edit on 7-2-2009 by destiny-fate]

reply to post by John Q



I would tend to go with "altered state of awareness". Specifically, something influenced your perception of time - and "time" is all about perception, after all.

Yesterday, I think, I read a post where the poster (Jacob, I believe) said that, waiting for a bus, he "makes" it come "faster" by closing his eyes and imagining the bus being THERE already - something like that.

I have been doing something similar for quite a few years now.
It started at university, when I was writing my thesis. I wanted to get it over with ASAP, so I imagined - not just in my head, but with my entire BODY (I think this is important) - that the thesis was finished (and wonderful, of course ), right there and then; to reinforce the feeling, I cast my mind "back" in time, trying to experience the moment I was living as a MEMORY. In other words, I was "remembering" that moment I was living right then as a PAST moment when I was still working at my thesis.

(I am sure many understand what I am saying here, but in case someone doesn't I must say it's easier done than said. In fact it's quite easy to do, but very difficult to describe.)

Anyway, the thesis did not, of course, magically appear completed in front of me - but something very odd happened with the time that (apparently) separated my un-finished thesis from the finished version: it went by at an amazing speed.

I have been doing that with all sorts of situations, and it never fails. In fact, its effectiveness is quite frightening.

Now, this may seem totally irrelevant to this thread, but I don't think it is. I believe that by doing that I somehow "warped" my in-built perception of time - and, as I said before (it bears repeating), "time" is all about perception.

If the perception of time can be "warped" at will, then it is quite possible that extraneous influences could have the same effect.

The question, of course, is... WHAT were those extraneous influences in your case?
(Were there any power towers around? Electromagnetically active topography? Was there a storm brewing, perhaps?)






[edit on 11-8-2009 by Vanitas]

When one is in the world of mind, disconnected from the present, time is still ticking on we are just unaware of it.

This phenomena is more pronounced when one is listening to music and reliving past experiences, while driving. Keeping track of time is as easy as considering that each song is 3-4 minutes in length.

Another way of keeping track of time, while driving, is regularly checking your speedometer. If your driving at 100 km/h then every hour you traverse 100 km. Combine the speedometer info with the road signs.

There are countless other ways of keeping time, those are just examples pertaining to driving.

For the more general case try looking at the clock every couple of minutes or so.