experiencing time while getting older

Originally posted by Aliensun
reply to post by GypsK

 

Time is but a precept, changable according to the situation.

I agree with that, just wish I could 'change' it be sloooower! hehe

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
reply to post by GypsK

 

I've heard this analogy, see what you think about it.

Think of an hourglass. .... We notice it more at the end, because we become aware it is running out, and we start paying more attention to it. So time is something we become aware of, which, as child, we don't give it much thought.

makes much sense.... maybe also because we become more aware of our own mortality, time that is 'running out'...makes us more aware
thanks

Originally posted by Shadow Herder

The reason time seems to pass quicker as you get older is the memory system. When you are young every day you encounter new emotions, sights, sounds, experiences. The brain is in overdrive recording everything demanding your attention therefore 'slowing' time down. ...

This theory can be experienced in car travel. Notice when you travel to another city for the first time it seems to take forever but as you frequent the city the trip seems to fly right by and becomes a small commute. Your brain pays less attention, records less because it doesnt need too, its been here already so in retrospect

I really like that explenation!
so it is a bit like time seemingly slowing down while having an adrenaline rush...
I wonder how long the day lasts for the most hyperactive kids putting it this way.... having one in my family, his brain is totally into overdrive all the time!
I'll ponder this some more
thanks

Originally posted by GypsK
Today I woke up at 7am, wanted to get a couple of things done by noon... it's 14.20 now and I'm half way.

That's ATS' fault, nothing to do with time speeding up.

haha, that may be true for today (I admit) but not always,
oh well, it's good to have a backup excuse for the future: 'ats did it' (and if that doesn't work time IS speeding up :p)

Originally posted by maccascfc
reply to post by GypsK

 

This is another example of why your brain hates you.
...
Your brain however isn't bad, it is in fact helping you. By letting bad stuff seemingly go on forever when you get to dying you will look back on life thinking "that was mostly crap" and be happy in death.

That really is an odd way of puting it....
and I hope it is not true, I love life, just wished it moved a bit slower so I could keep up

Originally posted by chiefsmom
reply to post by Shadow Herder

 

I can relate to the car ride, only it doesn't even take making the same trip again, just driving home seems quicker than the drive there.

YES! I have that all the time! lol
guess we know why that is now

When you are 1 day old, 1 day is all you know and that seems to be a long time. When you are 2 days old 1 day is only half of what you have experienced so 1 day seems shorter and so on and so on until 25 years doesn't seem like a long time. It's really that simple.

When you are 1 day old, 1 day is all you know and that seems to be a long time. When you are 2 days old 1 day is only half of what you have experienced so 1 day seems shorter and so on and so on until 25 years doesn't seem like a long time. It's really that simple.

This is a simple issue of mathematics.

When you are 10 years old one year represents 1/10th of your life.
When you are 40 years old one year represents 1/40th of your life.

Time seems to go by faster with age because we reckon time differently. The impact of a single year on our life diminishes with each passing year.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
This is a simple issue of mathematics.

When you are 10 years old one year represents 1/10th of your life.
When you are 40 years old one year represents 1/40th of your life.

Time seems to go by faster with age because we reckon time differently. The impact of a single year on our life diminishes with each passing year.

Though you would think it makes sense but the theory is highly flawed.

I had a some tough challenged one year. That year seemed to last forever. See my original post on the 1st page it will explain it to you.

Originally posted by Shadow Herder
Though you would think it makes sense but the theory is highly flawed.

I had a some tough challenged one year. That year seemed to last forever. See my original post on the 1st page it will explain it to you.

We were talking about why time seems faster with age, not why time seems slower when under duress. My explanation only applies to the former.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
We were talking about why time seems faster with age, not why time seems slower when under duress. My explanation only applies to the former.

This theory can be experienced in car travel. Notice when you travel to another city for the first time it seems to take forever but as you frequent the city the trip seems to fly right by and becomes a small commute. Your brain pays less attention, records less because it doesnt need too, its been here already so in retrospect you feel that time flew by quicker.

- Shadowherder

The only competing theory in my mind that I like to entertain is that time is like water whirl-pooling down the drain speeding up as we go down the drain. The revolutions begin to get tighter. Atomic clocks will show that time is still 'accurate' as well as quartz and humans. Sorta like holding a ball in a car doing 100km/h. Is the ball going 100 km/h as you hold it in your hand? yes and no. I am not sure im making any sense right now lol.

And when you hit 50 and look back on the speed of the last 20, then look forward into the next 20 and heck your there already.

reply to post by GypsK


If you think time is fast at 30 something, wait till your 50. Personally, I think time is moving faster, but that's for another day. When a person is young they experience the "now" and that is a long time. As they get older they can perceive a future, and have a record of the past. They are now on the way to some other place they left.

I remember standing in the hallway of my school having three minutes of free time. I was only 6 years old. It lasted forever. During those moments I wondered how old I would be in the year 2000 and would I remember that I wondered about it when I was that old. 41 I said. In the year 2000, on my 41st birthday I remembered that moment. It seemed like no time had passed between the two moments in time. Amazing.

Time is like the ocean waves and ebbs and flows, speeds and slows down. A sensitive person can feel it. My theory is a disturbance nearby in space. My thought is a black hole. I have no proof, but still, time is changing between faster and slower as we pass through each wave of space-time.

My First Post, be kind!
I think its several things that the brain keys on. If you dread something coming up time flies by quickly as your aware of every second passing. If its a desired event than you anticipate time going by and want it to proceed quickly, just the opposite of what you experienced with dread. It all in the perception of the future related to your present.
There have been experiments with the perception of time. They had people judge time in a normal setting and they were pretty accurate. Then they put them in a carnival ride where people felt like they were falling. People all judged the fall to last longer than it did. Unpleasantness lasted longer when occurring.
As a side note, we all have biological clocks that help us judge time, as we age the clock changes

When I was in a car accident and the car opposite me was about to hit me head on, I instantly lost my ability to hear anything. Suddenly time began to move extremely slow, so slow that everything moved like a slow motion picture. The impact seemed to last forever, and then it was done. While in the slow, I was able to think carefully about what to do, and managed to put my car in reverse and step on the gas. That's how I was spared very serious injury. I thought about that a lot over the following years and came to a conclusion. I was living completely in the "now" . The "now" has no past or future and so is an element of pure time not connected to anything. It can last a long long time.

reply to post by GypsK

"As we get older, why does time seem to move faster?"

It does not, your perception of it moves faster.

Time is not linear or at the same wavelength for everybody, its different for everybody by minuscule and unnoticed ways. We only have the illusion that we are all on the same time-length but were not.

For me I sometimes have whole years missing from my memory, or whole days seem to go by in a couple of hours. Or sometimes its like groundhogs day, everyday its the same old thing over and over and over. And I't has been that way since I was 5 years old.

But ya time does not exist, its an illusion and even though we think we are all on the same timeline. We are not.

reply to post by GypsK


I recently turned 30 and I've noticed a dramatic difference in how fast time is moving in just a few short months. It was getting pretty fast in my late 20's, the gaps between seasons seemed shorter, months escaped me but now it feels like I was celebrating my birthday last weekend and it was 4 months ago.

I've never experienced things moving like this. I kinda like it, relative to me anyway it means I have to spend less perceived time in this hell hole before I get reincarnated into an even worse one as a snail for what I've done

reply to post by fusionman


Welcome to ATS. Have your first star on me

Let's suppose the brain thinks in thought cycles. Each cycle the brain touches upon many subjects stored in memory. As one grows up there are more subjects to be touched upon during a cycle, so one cycle takes more time. As a child one may have 100 cycles a day with only 100 subjects each cycle being processed, while as an adult one may have 50 cycles but with a 1000 subjects processed each cycle. Yet the cycle itself "feels" to take the same amount of time. One cycle as a child may take a minute while the same cycle as an adult may take several minutes due to the increase of information. But the feeling one gets from finishing a cycle remains the same.

So when growing up the brain is more preoccupied with these cycles and the processing of information, as a result the conscious self becomes less present (or more easily distracted from the here and now) as parts of the brain which used to be dedicated to the self as a child needs the capacity to calculate these cycles.

Down south, we have an expression that amuses many folks that immigrate here from parts elsewhere...

"I'm fixin' to ..." as in I am fixin' to go to town. Or ...We're fixin' to eat dinner.

My point is...how much time do we waste as adults "fixin" to do something. As a child, we used to get on our bikes and ride to the store and get drinks and chips...or just get up and go fishing...we never "fixed" to go anywhere. Then suddenly as adults...we have to actually worry about fashion or looks...well, maybe for me about half the time...most times I just get in my truck and go.

But how much time do we waste preparing to to a specific task? 5 minutes here and there 12 times adds up to an hour wasted.

Also, how early do we start our day? As a child, i couldn't wait to get up and start a new day in the summer... and the day lasted forever. Likewise, I notice on my days of...today as a matter of fact, that when i get up early and have a sketched in agenda...I have a longer day and can get more done...and usually at a leisurely pace.

When we go to the coast...we like to get up early..about 6am...drive down to the beach...have some coffee...spread the blanket and just soak in the day, after a while... maybe make a sand castle or two.... get in the water as it is starting to get hot...maybe eat a sandwich...look at the watch and it is only 10am...maybe grease up and catch a little nap ...wake up and go swimming...add to the sand castles...go swimming... open up the Doritos and a beer...eat some lunch...and its only 1230pm...and then...You Get My Point

On the other hand, an infantry soldier hitting that same beach under fire with his buddies getting splattered all over him...5 minutes is an eternity.

Back to my day...almost 8am, as sson as I finsh this coffee...I will feed the farm animals, then cut up some more firewood...then take a break... then finish taking down and cleaning up a fence line by an old hog pen...then eat lunch...then i will go to town and get smokes for my wife and some beer for me...then I will break down some pallets and packing crates and drink a few brewskies...then about 5...stop... crank up the grill...fix dinner..and drink a few more brewskies.. back up the truck and listen to some beach music...eat...and it will only be about 7pm or so...then time to just chill...maybe read what y'all have since said here...and then time for bed.

I really think time is dependent on the paradigm we frame each day and the circumstance we place it in...the mind is a wonderful thing.