How the Brain Stops Time (New Research)

Fascinating article I suffer anxiety and really have noticed huge slow downs of time in moments of fear - especially in car crashes (they seem to take forever lol)! Thanks for the great read.

S&F

[edit on 23-3-2010 by byteshertz]

i have been riding motorcycles for around 30yrs, and driving high-performance vehicles for about 25. also surfing skating, motocross, bmx, martial arts, etc. also - i have experienced this time dilation more times than i can count. after experiencing this so many times, i can almost turn it on and off.

sometimes while playing guitar and singing i think about random stuff, play out whole scenarios in my head, wonder about what i'm going to eat or what the girl in the front row thinks about me - all in the space of about 3 minutes.

maybe it's just me, but i believe we are more than capable of doing these things and do not give ourselves enough credit.

I experienced this phenomenon myself many years ago and did a podcast about it on ATS Media If you want to hear the story and my ideas on what makes this possible just watch. It would be an amazing thing to be able to do this at will but it would take some serious research to be able to do this in a controlled way.

The time slowing down is obviously an illusion, but it's one that takes place after the fact. When you're having an intense experience more of your cognitive resources are devoted to dealing with it. The fact that more of your brain is paying attention means that the memory which is laid down in this time is more intense and contains more information. So, when you recall that memory, it seems longer because it contains more information. Therefore you come to believe that you had an experience of time slowing down, when in reality at the time you didn't experience slow motion.

The experiment in the requires an explanation. In the video they say that the initial results suggest that people are able to have "slower" sense perception of things, and therefore can identify brief images better in states of hightened stress. After they complete the experiments and analyze the results though they find that their initial conclusion was wrong. You don't experience slower time at the time of the event. Your memories of it afterwards are what are what seem slow, so, again, you think that the actual event was slowed down for you.

Ever notice how when you drive somewhere(if you're the one driving) for the first time, it seems to take longer than when you make the same trip again later? The first trip seems longer because your memory of it contains more information, because you were paying much closer attention in order to not get lost and go the right way. The second time you make the same trip, you're paying less attention because you have a better idea of how to get there, so your memories of that second trip don't contain as much information. That's why even though both trips took the same amount of time, one seems to have taken longer because you memory of it contained more information( because you were paying more attention).

It's the same phenomenon in all of these cases:
1) When you devote more of your brain to something - for whatever reason: stress, fear, intentional focus, new experience, ect. - that translates into memories which contain more information.
2) Memories which contain more information make the event seem to have lasted longer.

One second of sky diving with one hundred percent of your cognitive capacity devoted to the present here and now lays down a much more intense and information rich memory than one second of watching tv. When you go back and recall the memory, the memory of one second of sky diving is "bigger"(in terms of information content) and therefore seems to be more than one second long, when compared to the one second of watching tv which contains far less information.

People make a mistake when they think that time is what they see on a clock.

Perceived time passage IS time passage. It's the paradox that puzzle's people's minds.

Two people can be in the same room, and experience completely different passage of time. Person A feels like he's been there for 2 hours, person B feels like he's been there for 30 minutes.

EACH person has within himself the ability to control his OWN passage of time. Were it not for the socially enforced need to synchronize our time to that of a Quartz, we would all be much further in our journey to the 4th density mind.

Time is unique to each person, that is how the time threads can be weaved and fates avoided.

As an example of time manipulation, look at Mike Tyson. The amount of passion and love he puts into his NOW, slows down his perceived time. In many fighters as well as race car drivers, the passion of the experience, slows down their timelines. It is in this way, that they can easily see what is coming at them.

Another example is a Cobra or a Rattlesnake. It is the projected life energy within a being that controls it's timeline. The more engaged and focused it is on the NOW, the slower the world appears to move to it. Most animals on earth live within NOW conscience. That is why they are so quick and precise.

Look at the Matrix movie which touches on this same principle.

Listen to stories told by people who have had near death experiences. They all speak about time slowing down.

if you leave the reactionary world of the 3rd dimension mind, you will be able to intentionally direct energy into your NOW's. You will slow down your perceived time..while others will view you as speeding up.

Another example is in the lifespan of Dogs, it's the passion energy a Dog puts into it's NOW's that slows it's own time. They may appear to move quickly and jittery to us, but to them, WE are the ones moving too slow.


lastly, if you apply this principle to your own life experience, you may begin to wander just how OLD you truly are. Compare that to what the Quartz or the Atomic clock says and you will see how you have been a victim of time manipulation.

In my opinion, it is the very reason why I think FEAR is being used so often to control people. The more you can get them to disengage from life, or kill their passion for it, the more you can control their perception of time and therefore their patience with it.

In 2012 there will be a tombstone in a graveyard that will say

"Here lies XXXX , although he lived for 100 years, he was told he was only 30"


Imagine what would happen if there was in FACT a conspiracy to slow the clock down one second every month.... imagine how fast you would kill off the population over the next 10 years.




[edit on 23-3-2010 by manbird12000]

Those rats know what's up

Marijuana reminds me a lot of being depressed. You are so transfixed on things, that time starts to come to a stand still. You could be the happiest person on earth, but because you can only focus on one thing and millions of thoughts process in your head at a time for that one object...the outside world ceases to exist.

When I was going through relationship troubles, and all I could think about was how to fix problems between me and my girl...it was the longest month of my life. Absolutely brutal, because all I would do was focus on her. And I can say that marijuana does the same thing...you just focus on less negative thoughts.

But anyway, I always interconnected the two between rapid critical thinking, I just never thought it was worth a post...until I saw that experimental video. I love when science proves my crazy theories in my head...it makes me feel not so crazy

regarding the video, instead of reading flashing numbers, perhaps he should have a stop watch on, synchronized to one on the floor. If the endangered subject was able to slow down time, his stop watch should have clocked up more time than the one on the floor.

just an idea.

reply to post by OnceReturned


People are all moving in their own version of time, it's only when they compare that to the pulse of the Clock, do they see how it speeds up and slows down.

It's nice to have a clock to synchronize events, but it tends to gradually control one's own life frequency, Keeping everyone in the same prison of time reference.

It isn't in retrospect.

And it isn't necessarily in response to fear. Danger and "fear" aren't necessarily connected together that way.

I don't feel fear or anxiety when I have this effect happen. I feel - focused. I don't experience fear or pain for at least 20 minutes afterwards.

So if their research is all bound up with the expectation of fear and anxiety, they will miss a good section of people.

And the effect is absolutely NOT in retrospect. It is real time.

You all slow down enough that last time it happened to me I not only had time for complex thought, assessment, planning, and excution, but enough time to think, "well gosh, look at that you all just slowed down, that's a cool effect. Vikings. Must be the viking ancestry."

I mean, you all REALLY slow down.

And to prove my point. Not only do I not feel fear or anxiety, but I am one of those really disturbing people who SMILE when it happens. I understand that it isn't a friendly smile, but I do smile quite uncontrollably.

“I like a man who grins when he fights.”

Winston Churchill


[edit on 2010/3/23 by Aeons]

This has happened to me.

I was in junior high school and one of the local bullies was trying to shake me down for money. I wasn't going for it.

The next thing I knew he was throwing a sucker punch at my face. It seemed like time slowed down (from my perspective). I was able to move my head enough to the side that his fist glanced off the side of my face.

My friends described is as sounding like someone slapping a board on the pavement.

However, I felt almost nothing. It felt like a little kid had slapped me.

The funny thing was, the bully didn't know what to do. I was still standing and now was ready for full combat even though he was twice my size. ( I thought I was going to get the whopping of my life)

The bully must have thought that he thrown his best punch and it didn't have any affect, he basically turned tail and beat a hasty retreat.

Then time sped back up. Pretty much everyone was standing there with their mouths open. They couldn't believe what they'd seem. The giant bully had unloaded a sucker punch onto a pipsqueak and it had little to no effect.

It's interesting what your body/mind can do when it's put in extreme situations.

[edit on 23-3-2010 by manbird12000]

reply to post by Wildbob77


yeah, people really don't know what to do when you don't react, or when you just get back up as if nothing happened. Totally messes up their "plan" of how things are supposed to happen. Very convenient.

Originally posted by manbird12000
reply to post by OnceReturned

 

People are all moving in their own version of time, it's only when they compare that to the pulse of the Clock, do they see how it speeds up and slows down.

But, people didn't discover clocks, they made them. Don't you think they made them in order to measure something that they already had an idea existed? Don't you think the cave men could tell a long time from a short time? Clocks don't make time. Their behavior is directly corrolated to time, so we use them to make precise measurements. Just like we use thermometers to tell temperature even though we can guess about hot and cold. They both respond is a predictable way to a real physical phenomenon. You're not moving in your own version of time any more than you are moving through your own version of the ambient temperature.

I have had a few life and death close call experiences and can testify to the fact that time does indeed seem to slow down but there surely seems to be far more to it than that.

This is not an exciting life and death story but it is a true life and death story that illustrates what I mean by it involving far more than that.

About a year ago I was standing in my kitchen one day fixing something cold to drink when all of a sudden a sense of profound dread overwhelmed me.

A little voice in my head said “wow I feel like I am about to die”

This was accompanied by a profound wave of physical dread that despite standing in the safety of my own kitchen in my own home truly made me feel like death was imminent.

A split second later a very different voice in my head said “Take one step to the left now as quick as you can”.

Because of the profound sense of dread and impending doom I was feeling I complied with out hesitation and as I took one step to the left, turning my head over my shoulder to the right I saw in slow motion a 20 pound heavy glass art deco light fixture that had just broken off of the ceiling slowly fall past my shoulder and a rush of air and watched it crash to the floor exactly where my head had been just a split second before.

I stood there just looking at the broken glass for minutes pondering all the implications. My sixth sense had alerted me to a improbable random event that had yet to occur within seconds of when it would occur. My sixth sense for lack of a better way to describe it prompted me to action, an action that I had no real reason to take except for the fact that I respect my sixth sense.

How the heck did I know though? What on heaven or earth or in the great universe beyond actually knew what was about to happen to the point that it would be communicated to me in such a way and how was it known.

The astronomical odds of that all happening as a coincidence are as slim as to be virtually impossible.

There is far more to life than we know. At the least want to pay attention to and accept except during those pivotal moments of life and death.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
Talk to a printer. Where the untrained eye sees a blurred stream of paper being sped past, I could focus and 'stop' the sheets to see if there was any problem apparent. Not for long, but long enough to see if there were any gross issues in the product.

I know exactly what you're talking about, I run a 3 tower web press and I can easily discern one word from the next, and able to tell if I need more ink or if the plate is bad.
All it takes is a little more concentration, not even so much you have to strain.. just basically tell yourself you need to see more, and you do.

Amazing how the mind works.

Originally posted by doorhand
regarding the video, instead of reading flashing numbers, perhaps he should have a stop watch on, synchronized to one on the floor. If the endangered subject was able to slow down time, his stop watch should have clocked up more time than the one on the floor.

just an idea.

I think you are misunderstanding... a person does not slow down the time AROUND them.. but speeds up thought processes.
So having a stop watch would not change a thing, it would read the same as the one on the ground.

reply to post by Aeons


Except nothing happens in real-time. Before you actually perceive something photons have to hit your retina, it has to be converted into electrical energy, then that electrical energy must be conducted from the eyes, to the brainstem, up into the cortex and into the visual cortex in the occipital lobe. At this point the information being received must be divided based on spatial attention and the shape of the stimuli, at which point it conducts to the visual association cortex. So, we can only perceive our environment as fast as electricity can be conducted through our brain.

I don't see the big deal. This is basically a survival instinct. As we become more fearful, a trigger gets hit and adrenaline gets pumped through our system. This and probably many other biochemical reactions give us that edge to stay alive. Time doesn't stop, it's just our perception that changes. I can trigger adrenaline rushes with ease when I want to enter flow.

I think the difference these researchers found was that when you're scared (you can't handle the fearful situation internally) , your ability slows down, but when you are faced with fear and accept it, you actually speed up to handle it all.

[edit on 23-3-2010 by unityemissions]

I think the movie "Wanted" really puts the nail in the coffin - at least the way I believe things work. Your senses speed up so fast you're able to do things you normally would be unable to do.

I can attest to this personally. I was getting jumped by two guys with weapons. I was hit on the left side of my head with a bat while fighting one of them, and as I was falling to the ground I looked down where I was going to fall, and this was all happening in slow motion by the way, and I saw the top of a fire hydrant which was going to go right into my temple if I fell on it. Well somehow I maneuvered my body just the right way to make it over the fire hydrant. I literally missed it by mere centimeters and landed perfectly into a roll and onto my feet. I don't know how I did it, I assumed it just happened because of the situation I was put in. It doesn't matter how it happened though, it saved my life and that's all I care about.