Summary: Period perception varies depending on the context, frequently slowing down in emergencies or new settings and moving up as we age or absorb more information. Time expansion experiences ( Tees ) occur when seconds stretch into minutes, frequently in accidents, sports, or moments of calm. These activities, usually tied to altered states of consciousness, allow people to approach more information and act quickly.
While beliefs associate dopamine release or biological version, their presence in peaceful says suggests a deeper relationship to changes in self-perception and knowledge. Understanding sweaters might provide insights into human survival mechanisms and thinking.
Important Facts:
- Time Expansion in Problems: Tees usually occur during crises, allowing fast decision-making.
- Calm in Chaos: Despite harm, people usually report calmness during Sleeves.
- Improved States Link: Sleeves are tied to shifts in awareness, such as meditation or extreme concentrate.
Source: The Talk
We all are aware that moment moves at various speeds and in various circumstances. For example, moment appears to move carefully when we travel to new places. A fortnight abroad seems significantly longer than a week at home.
Time also seems to go quietly when we are tired, or in discomfort. It seems to accelerate up when we’re in a state of uptake, such as when we play music or games, or paint or party. More typically, most people report period seems to speed up as they get older.
However, these variants in period perception are rather mild. Many more dramatic changes can be made to how we perceive time.
In , my new publication, I describe what I call “time development experience” – in which moments may stretch out into hours.
The causes of time passing through a gap are a little obscure. Some researchers, including me, think that mild variations in time perception are linked to , information processing.
As a general rule, the more information – such as perceptions, sensations, thoughts – that our minds process, the slower time seems to pass. Children learn as they go through a time that is slowly passing.
New environments stretch time because of their unfamiliarity. Our attention becomes constrained, our minds become quiet, and our thoughts are slowed down, reducing time. In contrast, boredom stretches time because our unfocused minds fill with a massive amount of thought-chatter.
Time expansion experiences
Time expansion experiences ( or Tees ) can occur in an accident or emergency situation, such as a car crash, a fall or an attack. In time expansion experiences, time appears to expand by many orders of magnitude.  ,
In my research,  , I have found that around 85 % of people have had at least one Tee.
Around a half of Tees occur in both natural disasters and emergencies. People are frequently surprised by how much time they spend thinking and acting in such circumstances.
In fact, many people are persuaded that time expansion saved them from their severe injuries, or even their lives, because it made it possible for them to take preventative measures that would normally be impossible.
For instance, a , a woman who reported a” slowdown of the moment” incident that caused her to “decide how to escape the falling metal on us” described a situation in which she “achieved to avoid a metal barrier falling on to her car.
Tees are also common in sport. For instance, a participant described a Tee that appeared to last for” about ten minutes all occurred in the space of about eight seconds,” while playing ice hockey. Tees also occur in moments of stillness and presence, during meditation or in natural surroundings.
However, some of the most extreme Tees are linked to psychedelic substances, such as LSD or , ayahuasca. In my collection of Tees, around 10 % are linked to psychedelics.
A man claimed that while using LSD, he looked at the stopwatch on his phone and that” the hundredths of a second were moving as slowly as seconds normally move.” It was really intense time dilation”, he said.
But why?  , One theory , is that these experiences are linked to a release of noradrenaline ( both a hormone and an neurotransmitter ) in emergency situations, related to the “fight or flight” mechanism. However, this doesn’t fit with the calm wellbeing people usually report in Tees.
People typically feel strangely calm and composed, despite their potential in danger of losing their lives.
For example, a woman who had a Tee when she fell off a horse , told me:” The whole experience seemed to last for minutes. I was so incredibly calm and uneasy that the horse was still struggling to maintain its balance and was possibly prone to falling on top of me.
The noradrenaline theory also conflicts with the fact that many Tees occur in serene settings, such as oneness with nature or deep meditation.
Another theory , I have considered is that Tees are an evolutionary adaptation. Our ancestors may have been able to slow down time in difficult circumstances, such as violent animal encounters or natural disasters, to increase their chances of survival.
However, the above argument applies here too: this doesn’t fit with the non-emergency situations when Tees occur.
A third theory , is that Tees aren’t real experiences, but illusions of recollection. In emergency situations, so this theory goes, our awareness becomes acute, so that we take in more perceptions than normal.
These perceptions are ingrained in our memories, so when we recall the emergency, the extra memories give the impression that time passed slowly.
However, in many Tees, people are certain that they had extra time to think and act. Time expansion made it possible to develop complex sets of ideas and actions that would have been impossible if time had been moving at a regular rate.
In a recent ( not yet published ) poll of 280 Tees, I found that less than 3 % of the participants believed that the experience was an illusion. Some 87 % believed it was a real experience that happened in the present, while 10 % were undecided.
Altered states of consciousness
In my view, the key to understanding Tees surrounds altered states of consciousness. The sudden shock of an accident may disrupt our normal psychological processes, causing an abrupt shift in consciousness. In sport, intense altered states occur due to what I call” super-absorption”.
Absorption typically makes time pass more quickly, as in flow when we become fully immersed in a task. But when absorption becomes especially intense, over a long period of sustained concentration, the opposite occurs, and time slows down radically.
Our perception of identity and our typical sense of separation from the world can also be impacted by altered states of consciousness. As the psychologist , Marc Wittmann , has pointed out, our sense of time is closely bound up with our sense of self.
We typically experience the impression that the world is “out there” on the other side of our mental space, with the world “out there” in our minds. One of the hallmarks of intense altered states is that the separation becomes less apparent. We no longer feel enclosed inside our minds, but feel connected to our surroundings.
This results in a softening of the boundary between us and the world. And in the process, our sense of time expands. We slip outside our normal consciousness, and into a different time-world.
About this research on time perception and consciousness news
Author: Steve Taylor
Source: The Conversation
Contact: Steve Taylor – The Conversation
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
