THE MAN dangles on a cable hanging from an eight-storey-high tower. Suspended in a harness with his back to the ground, he sees only the face of the man above, who controls the winch that is lifting him to the top of the tower like a bundle of cargo. And then it happens. The cable suddenly unclips and he plummets towards the concrete below.
Panic sets in, but he’s been given an assignment and so, fighting his fear of death, he stares at the instrument strapped to his wrist, before falling into the sweet embrace of a safety net. A team of scientists will spend weeks studying the results.
The experiment was extreme, certainly, but the neuroscientist behind the study, David Eagleman at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, is no Dr Strangelove. When we look back at scary situations, they often seem to have occurred in slow motion. Eagleman wanted to know whether the brain’s clock actually accelerates – making external events appear abnormally slow in comparison with the brain’s workings – or whether the slo-mo is just an artefact of our memory.
It’s just one of many mysteries concerning how we experience time that we are only now beginning to crack. “Time,” says Eagleman, “is much weirder than we think it is.”
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I saw this experiment being undertaken on the telly box, I did. Quite some time ago too. The chap falling to the ground was able to recall with perfect clarity the number that was flashed on his wristwatch, faster than normal perception would have allowed him to read.
Bye!
I’ve read about this before, but with regards a fight or flight situation. I got mugged at a cashpoint by 6 Eastern European chaps a couple of years ago (when there was a huge spate of it going on) and as I realised what was happening, everything seemed to go into slow motion – kinda like the Matrix – and I was able to assess the situation very quickly, make decisions and take action. My focus was definitely changed and I remember having pinpoint focus on the guy who was distracting me, but also a sharp circle of periphery and I was suddenly aware of the other men involved also…
…I screamed at him and punched the fucker in the stomach again 20 times till the others gave me my card and money back, so I was OK and, luckily, they seemed to get more of a fright that the 5 foot blonde woman they’d picked on could punch like Jackie Chan. But time deffo slowed down enough in my head and allowed the adrenalin reserves to blast through me and turn me into the hulk for a few seconds. Then I went to jelly when I was safe. It was one of the weirdest feelings I’ve ever had.
My theory which is mine.
Generally time seems slower when you’re a kid. Spent a few days in Holland (no dope), spent a few months in India. Time seemed to slow down. A lot. Connected all three andI put this down to new experiences. Having to process everything rather than having a framework in place and just focussing on what changes (ie less as you get older). Is this a) b*ll*cks b) related to the above? Elk’s 1st Law of Time: Intensity of New Experience is Inversely Proportional to Perceived Rate of Passing of Time.
BTW Time isn’t the fourth dimension is it? Isn’t that spacetime. TBH I’m bluffing here.
I agree with this. It has only ever happened once in my life, but I have experienced a situation where I distinctly felt an event slow down, so much so that i was able to change the event and emerge from it safely. This was noted at the time, and not only through memories.
When I had my car crash, it felt like it happened in slo-mo. Brains = madness. That is my conclusion
I can totally identify with the concept of time slowing down, but I think it’s to do with how fast we think. Just over five years ago I was in a car crash; we were waiting at a red traffic light by a railway bridge when a car rear ended us at 50mph.
I remember so clearly my thought process that occured in what must have been a matter of seconds, but thinking about it consciously takes much longer: That’s tyre squeel. No it’s a train breaking, we’re right next to the station I recognise that noise. No, that’s not a train, that’s tyre squeel – they’re not going to stop in time. *crash* Looking back it seems like it took forever.
The role of stress responses in memory consolodation is already quite well established [James L. McGaugh], but its Derren’s accurate timekeeping brain that needs to be hooked up to a TMS! He could at least gives us that!
@Foasca I remember that, it was Horizon or something similar
Annoyingly, time seemed to speed up last night as I watched the demolition of Nick Griffin on Question Time. The hour seemed to go in less than ten minutes
wow, i always wanted to know how it would feel falling to your death, but without dying.
@ Gaz
I thought so too! Destroyed.
Experienced this slow motion a couple of times in life. Twice triggered by things out of my control and the other time by slowing my self down (although, there was something (and is) not all normal in my brain or better said .. the attaick and ceiling that normally are being closed can be entered by me quite simply .. with strange effects. I therefor keep sort of steady in the midst.
I saw the slowmotion indeed as if it went really slow, whereas the car that hit the other car def. was not going slower ofcourse .. it needs to happen unexpected, but that will not always trigger the slowmotion. So it must be something in your state of mind.
Loss of memory can also be triggered by the same events (you know that you fell because you all of a sudden sit on the floor downstairs whereas you were on the attick .., whereas during another fall I saw the slowmotion, and partial memory loss .. ).
A split second of nothing in my being (that the light goes out but that short that it wont affect yourself .. the memory seems to overlap but you experience as if you faint for a split second without really falling or such .. Without a clear cause.
A sudden shock can also lead to a split second being blind, something I also experienced.
Time: we experience it not all the same.
I’ve had that a few times.
Once when I fell off a rather high rope swing, I almost felt like I was getting bored before I hit the ground. Then I woke up a couple of seconds later to my ‘friend’ standing over me laughing his head off (B*stard).
Did a bloody good job on my wrist and arm that day though.
When I finally do something, I rarely do it by halve’s. The ironic thing is, when I woke up that morning I thought to myself “I’m lucky, I’ve never broken any bones”…. trust me eh.
@ JayKay:
Hope all’s well with you and your relatives.
Glad you and me are on ‘good terms’… at least I hope we are, haha.
Pax, amor et concordia.
x
Hmm,
My comments aren’t being allowed up by the looks of it.
Msg from Abeo: No it just got caught in the spam filter, you should be able to see it now.
Haha, ok that’s typical.
Maybe I just type too much and it’s not allowed anymore. The blog has had enough of me and (like most people) sees me as only good in small doses.
@ JayKay:
I’m thankful that you and me are on ‘good terms’… at least I hope we are, haha. Glad you got out of that situation unscathed though. Hope all’s well with you.
Pax, amor et concordia.
x
I don’t get it… well i suppose I didn’t actually read it properly…
Thanks Abeo
Sorry, this now has numerous posts from me .
Hope all things are good with you guys too
Pax, amor et concordia.
x
This is why slow-motion car crashes in movies feel so right.
I guess this is sort of related to how sportsmen/women see things slower when they get in the ‘zone’ – triggered (guessing again) by intense concentration and physical effort.
@JayKay – want to be my bodyguard?
@ Mr Woolf, we’re always on good terms – you need to show up here more often.
@ ann elk – isn’t time one of those ‘wobbly’ dimensions that they’re not sure is a dimension? And I thought there were about 11 dimensions now..? Can’t keep up!
@ Jane – There’s definitely a feeling of you standing outside of it all/being on another plane, like when meditating; being able to hear yourself talk to yourself. Maybe it’s just madness..?
As a motorcycle racer, I’ve experienced this sensation quite a few times; normally whilst sliding down the track on my arse while watching the bike cartwheel down the track and thinking “Oh no, not again”.
It’s certainly something that is perceived to happen, but my guess (and it is just that) is that it’s to do with the chemical changes in the brain brought on by adrenalin that makes sensory input more heightened. This could well give the brain more information than it usually gets for an allotted “slot” of memory-time, so it appears that there is more memory to cram in, and hence time must have been slower to receive all this information.
@ Mike – talking about madness… I was so mad and so furious that it did look like I was the looney bunching the bloke. I don’t know where the strength came from, I don’t know what in Hell’s name made me think I could 6 blokes?! The funniest thing was they were all pleading with me to let this bloke go, as I’d singled him out and trapped him in the corner with his jumper wound round my hand to make sure he couldn’t get away. They were afraid of me. I wasn’t laughing about it then though…
I mean punching the bloke, heehee.
…conversely, I’ve also finished a long race where I couldn’t remember much about it, even though it was a good chunk of time and of things that I really should remember given the vast amount of information to process.
But then maybe that’s just me.
What was I saying?
Bugger.
@ Gaz I over slept this morning and was late for college because I stayed up watching ‘Question Time’….but it was worth it!
Strange, but things do seem to sometimes happen in slow motion. I remember when I was little, I dropped a teacup, and it just seemed to fall like a feather; really slowly. It’s probably got something to do with survival. Things happen more slowly, you become more aware of them and feel like you can stop them. I just stood there like an idiot and let the teacup fall!
In video form: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjlpamhrId8
It was not my brain creating the 4th dimension (time) …. def. not.
What a great video. If we have our time altered by chemicals, then how does that relatively affect others’ time? Wouldn’t that need to alter? Is time actually elastic with a give and take? Jeezo. And laughed outloud at teh mental coked-up rat and its accompanying music.
@ JayKay:
Glad to hear we are always on good terms (yay)
Ooooh, have I been missed then?
Brings my overall total of friends up to … err… one, lol. No… really, I’m sure it’s more than that
Just been very pre-occupied recently.
Doing lots of little bits and also getting used to my current state-of-mind. Not easy, but getting there.
I’ll try to pop back more often, pwomise
Pax, amor et concordia.
x
Hahaha! The old mind… It’s a dishevelled scary place at times… And sometimes it’s a glorious place. But we can’t always rein the bugger in! But I’m pleased to see you as I’m sure others are too! x
@ JayKay:
“It’s a dishevelled scary place at times” oh… so you’ve been? lol
Actually, it’s like that more often than not… but I’m used to it by now, sort of.
Although it never ceases to throw new weirdness into the mix, just to keep things both interesting and a tad confusing.
Enough about me though.. how’s things all going with you, your partner & the family… all well and good I hope
(not being nosey really, just polite, haha).
Pax, amor et concordia.
x