6 ms·

I have been in true 'life or death' situations (in other words, I'm alive because others were slower or less able to draw their weapons and fire). In those sor

I have been in true 'life or death' situations (in other words, I'm alive because others were slower or less able to draw their weapons and fire). In those sorts of situations time truly does slow down. I replay those times endlessly in my dreams/nightmares but either way it seemed like both at the time and in my mental replaying of the events that time slowed down to a crawl. During endless sessions with various mental health professionals it seems that people involved in car crashes have the same slowing down of time. Based on what I've learnt, the time differential boils down to muscle memory (much like a batter hits a fast ball) that can and does initiate a response before the brain processes the event and that the mind catches up afterwards and is able to replay the events in a somewhat coherent way.

johndhi 4y ago
Interesting! I have the same experience with the one time a group of teens attempted to mug me. I can remember the sneer on the kid's face as he cocked back and readied to punch me, I was holding textbooks under my right arm, standing 3/4 of the way toward the street on a brick sidewalk at a particular intersection in DC.
- chubbnix 4y ago
  Well go on, finish the story!
  - tarl0s 4y ago
    I guess that the story is already quite explicit as it is: simply recalling all that amount of details is a clear indicator of how much the time slowed down for the gp during the event.
foobiekr 4y ago
My experience with an attempted carjacking is like this. Even now there’s the crystal clear memory an ultra slow tap pause tap of a pistol on the window and the accomplices beelining to the passenger door. Intellectually I know that it all went down in a few seconds but I have no access to a normal speed memory of the event. Only tapppppp delay taaaappp (and then flooring it and nimbly pivoting between accomplice one and two).
- mordechai9000 4y ago
  Last spring a moose charged me out of nowhere, then followed me through the woods, off trail and in deep snow, and charged me again. Each time I fell on my face in the deep snow and had to pick myself up and try to get behind cover. In my memory, I was moving excruciatingly slow. In reality I think I was moving as fast as I've ever moved in my life. It was almost like I was standing outside myself, observing and telling myself what to do.
- quacked 4y ago
  Ah, wish you'd hit them. Armed robbers deserve a quick end.
Waterluvian 4y ago
One subjective thing I discovered in a decade of playing ice hockey is that it seems like there are people where time slows down during high intensity situations. Sadly I'm not one of them. Maybe I'm just describing something obvious related to adrenaline or fight vs. flight. But I wonder if some people are just physiologically better wired for these situations. Would that make them better at sports or warfighting? It also reminds me of birds and other animals that seem to effortlessly perform incredible feats at high speed. But to their frame of reference and perception of time, maybe the world is just very very slow moving.
- version_five 4y ago
  I'm reminded of something I once heard about a type of sea slug that follows another slug's trail and eventually overtakes and eats it. The whole thing happens at slug-speed but you can picture from the perspective of the slugs that they are in a high-speed life-or-death race
- NickRandom 4y ago
  I experience what is known as 'Survivors Guilt' (in other words I wonder those exact same thoughts as you do except from the other side of lens with respect to the those that were 'able to / vs. not able to lens'). Those that can - survived, those that couldn't/didn't - died. In terms of natural selection (for want of a better term) it often leaves me puzzling that very same thought late at night sometimes before I'm brought back to reality by the shrinks that relate it back to those that made the major league vs. those that faded into obscurity. [Edit]: Sorry, the above comment makes war and death seem like a game of baseball which it very much isn't and trivializes the needless suffering of entire populations on behalf of the vagrancies of politicians across the globe. YMMV.
- jvm___ 4y ago
  I wonder this about Messi. Does he just have better perception of his own body as well as another sense of where the competition is in the field and how best to adapt his play in light of their changes. Can he perceive time better which is why he's so good at soccer.
amelius 4y ago
Isn't it the adrenaline that causes this?
watwut 4y ago
Adrenalin experience have that effect. I had same time slow up in sports where I was in very little real danger, but in stress and subjective fear (white water kayaking and falling while climbing). And yes, also car crash. I think it is typical effect of adrenaline.
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
I think there's also some effect if the flood of adrenaline and other chemicals causes your body and brain to essentially accelerate. Like a slowmo camera. Time didn't slow down, but you're acting and recording at a higher framerate for lack of a better analogy. So the recording (memory) feels like time slowed down.
retrac 4y ago
I once found a loved one in grave condition, without a pulse. What followed was like a surreal movie that has its frames out of order. I remember a thought of surprise at basically flinging furniture out of the way. Very much a passenger in my body at that point. I began CPR. Muscle memory is right. I was not really conscious throughout most of it. One of the few things that resembles a thought during the entire episode is something like "you cannot think about this right now if you do you will collapse". A jumble of eternal instants. It dragged on. And on. And on. Eventually, very eventually, the paramedics arrived. I had another thing resembling a thought. I can collapse now. I can look away now. I have no basically no memory until the next day when I saw her, awake, in the hospital. I know the day and time it happened. I checked the logs after. The paramedics took less than 5 minutes to arrive. But it was outside the normal linearity of my experience. It doesn't fit between the day before and the day after. For a while, the jumbled movie would play in my head, involuntarily. I think I was trying to make sense of it, fit it in, when it really doesn't fit. Experiences and memories I couldn't easily process because I didn't really experience them consciously when they occurred? Maybe something like that. It went away with time, and does not bother me these days, but descriptions of PTSD do make a lot more sense to me now.
- somrand0 4y ago
  > I was not really conscious throughout most of it. I disagree. hear me out. I think you were just using a non-linguistic mode of consciousness. We are far too accustomed to thinking and being (and imagining that we are) made out of words, or things that can be put into words. But I have chosen to believe that this is merely one amongst various others ways to think. Language is a tool. A human being is not made out of words (from a language). Nonetheless, a lot of what we imagine ourselves to be is made out of words (from a language). Let's not keep on making the mistake that what we are is something that can be *completely* put into words.
  - parthianshotgun 4y ago
    Any further reading for the uninitiated?
JadeNB 4y ago
> In those sorts of situations time truly does slow down. I replay those times endlessly in my dreams/nightmares but either way it seemed like both at the time and in my mental replaying of the events that time slowed down to a crawl. Interestingly, in at least one measurable, quantitative sense, time does not slow down, not even subjectively: > Using a hand-held device to measure speed of visual perception, participants experienced free fall for 31 m before landing safely in a net. We found no evidence of increased temporal resolution, in apparent conflict with the fact that participants retrospectively estimated their own fall to last 36% longer than others' falls. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001295 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
c22 4y ago
When my car got T-boned at 60mph and rolled over two times I definitely experienced this slowing of time. I recalled the random factoid that people instinctively stiffen up during car accidents and tend to break their legs so I grabbed tightly to the steering wheel and allowed the rest of my body to go completely limp. Despite being over in a matter of seconds it felt as though I had ample time to analyze the situation and react. Despite not having a seatbelt on at the time I emerged with barely a scratch. The driver of the other car, which was going much slower, got out with a broken arm. Since then people have told me that I only experience this slowed time in my memories and in reality there's no way I was reacting to the moment, but I'm not sure I completely believe them. It definitely felt like my brain was working in double-time, noticing and processing details that I'd never notice in normal situations.
gumby 4y ago
This slow down is real. I still clearly remember, 40 years ago(!), waiting to turn left across oncoming traffic, seeing in my rear view mirror the car behind me being rear-ended, and, looking forward, deciding I could just make a quick left turn. I particularly remember seeing what looked like plastic from the tail light flying away from that car. Yay teenaged adrenal gland! I made the turn and immediately pulled over. I was shaking. The only other times I knew my life was at risk it was slow and embarrassing. Nothing like NickRandom's experience.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
When people experience this I wonder if time really does slow down relative to your decision making -- you're able to make more decisions in the same amount of time or make a decision earlier -- or if you just perceive time to have been slower when you experience or recall it, perhaps because more or stronger memories are being created during that time.
coldtea 4y ago
I've read that a sudden splurge of adrenaline does that...
macdust 4y ago
This mental dilation of time makes physical torture worse than murder. The pain turns sideways to time, occupying an infinitude of paralyzed desperation.
suzzer99 4y ago
Falling off a roof was the slowest time I ever experienced.

johndhi 4y ago

Interesting! I have the same experience with the one time a group of teens attempted to mug me. I can remember the sneer on the kid's face as he cocked back and readied to punch me, I was holding textbooks under my right arm, standing 3/4 of the way toward the street on a brick sidewalk at a particular intersection in DC.

chubbnix 4y ago
Well go on, finish the story!
- tarl0s 4y ago
  I guess that the story is already quite explicit as it is: simply recalling all that amount of details is a clear indicator of how much the time slowed down for the gp during the event.

foobiekr 4y ago

My experience with an attempted carjacking is like this. Even now there’s the crystal clear memory an ultra slow tap pause tap of a pistol on the window and the accomplices beelining to the passenger door. Intellectually I know that it all went down in a few seconds but I have no access to a normal speed memory of the event. Only tapppppp delay taaaappp (and then flooring it and nimbly pivoting between accomplice one and two).

mordechai9000 4y ago
Last spring a moose charged me out of nowhere, then followed me through the woods, off trail and in deep snow, and charged me again. Each time I fell on my face in the deep snow and had to pick myself up and try to get behind cover. In my memory, I was moving excruciatingly slow. In reality I think I was moving as fast as I've ever moved in my life. It was almost like I was standing outside myself, observing and telling myself what to do.
quacked 4y ago
Ah, wish you'd hit them. Armed robbers deserve a quick end.

Waterluvian 4y ago

One subjective thing I discovered in a decade of playing ice hockey is that it seems like there are people where time slows down during high intensity situations. Sadly I'm not one of them. Maybe I'm just describing something obvious related to adrenaline or fight vs. flight. But I wonder if some people are just physiologically better wired for these situations. Would that make them better at sports or warfighting? It also reminds me of birds and other animals that seem to effortlessly perform incredible feats at high speed. But to their frame of reference and perception of time, maybe the world is just very very slow moving.

version_five 4y ago
I'm reminded of something I once heard about a type of sea slug that follows another slug's trail and eventually overtakes and eats it. The whole thing happens at slug-speed but you can picture from the perspective of the slugs that they are in a high-speed life-or-death race
NickRandom 4y ago
I experience what is known as 'Survivors Guilt' (in other words I wonder those exact same thoughts as you do except from the other side of lens with respect to the those that were 'able to / vs. not able to lens'). Those that can - survived, those that couldn't/didn't - died. In terms of natural selection (for want of a better term) it often leaves me puzzling that very same thought late at night sometimes before I'm brought back to reality by the shrinks that relate it back to those that made the major league vs. those that faded into obscurity. [Edit]: Sorry, the above comment makes war and death seem like a game of baseball which it very much isn't and trivializes the needless suffering of entire populations on behalf of the vagrancies of politicians across the globe. YMMV.
jvm___ 4y ago
I wonder this about Messi. Does he just have better perception of his own body as well as another sense of where the competition is in the field and how best to adapt his play in light of their changes. Can he perceive time better which is why he's so good at soccer.

amelius 4y ago

Isn't it the adrenaline that causes this?

watwut 4y ago

Adrenalin experience have that effect. I had same time slow up in sports where I was in very little real danger, but in stress and subjective fear (white water kayaking and falling while climbing). And yes, also car crash. I think it is typical effect of adrenaline.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

I think there's also some effect if the flood of adrenaline and other chemicals causes your body and brain to essentially accelerate. Like a slowmo camera. Time didn't slow down, but you're acting and recording at a higher framerate for lack of a better analogy. So the recording (memory) feels like time slowed down.

retrac 4y ago

I once found a loved one in grave condition, without a pulse. What followed was like a surreal movie that has its frames out of order. I remember a thought of surprise at basically flinging furniture out of the way. Very much a passenger in my body at that point. I began CPR. Muscle memory is right. I was not really conscious throughout most of it. One of the few things that resembles a thought during the entire episode is something like "you cannot think about this right now if you do you will collapse". A jumble of eternal instants. It dragged on. And on. And on. Eventually, very eventually, the paramedics arrived. I had another thing resembling a thought. I can collapse now. I can look away now. I have no basically no memory until the next day when I saw her, awake, in the hospital. I know the day and time it happened. I checked the logs after. The paramedics took less than 5 minutes to arrive. But it was outside the normal linearity of my experience. It doesn't fit between the day before and the day after. For a while, the jumbled movie would play in my head, involuntarily. I think I was trying to make sense of it, fit it in, when it really doesn't fit. Experiences and memories I couldn't easily process because I didn't really experience them consciously when they occurred? Maybe something like that. It went away with time, and does not bother me these days, but descriptions of PTSD do make a lot more sense to me now.

somrand0 4y ago
> I was not really conscious throughout most of it. I disagree. hear me out. I think you were just using a non-linguistic mode of consciousness. We are far too accustomed to thinking and being (and imagining that we are) made out of words, or things that can be put into words. But I have chosen to believe that this is merely one amongst various others ways to think. Language is a tool. A human being is not made out of words (from a language). Nonetheless, a lot of what we imagine ourselves to be is made out of words (from a language). Let's not keep on making the mistake that what we are is something that can be *completely* put into words.
- parthianshotgun 4y ago
  Any further reading for the uninitiated?

JadeNB 4y ago

> In those sorts of situations time truly does slow down. I replay those times endlessly in my dreams/nightmares but either way it seemed like both at the time and in my mental replaying of the events that time slowed down to a crawl. Interestingly, in at least one measurable, quantitative sense, time does not slow down, not even subjectively: > Using a hand-held device to measure speed of visual perception, participants experienced free fall for 31 m before landing safely in a net. We found no evidence of increased temporal resolution, in apparent conflict with the fact that participants retrospectively estimated their own fall to last 36% longer than others' falls. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001295 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

c22 4y ago

When my car got T-boned at 60mph and rolled over two times I definitely experienced this slowing of time. I recalled the random factoid that people instinctively stiffen up during car accidents and tend to break their legs so I grabbed tightly to the steering wheel and allowed the rest of my body to go completely limp. Despite being over in a matter of seconds it felt as though I had ample time to analyze the situation and react. Despite not having a seatbelt on at the time I emerged with barely a scratch. The driver of the other car, which was going much slower, got out with a broken arm. Since then people have told me that I only experience this slowed time in my memories and in reality there's no way I was reacting to the moment, but I'm not sure I completely believe them. It definitely felt like my brain was working in double-time, noticing and processing details that I'd never notice in normal situations.

gumby 4y ago

This slow down is real. I still clearly remember, 40 years ago(!), waiting to turn left across oncoming traffic, seeing in my rear view mirror the car behind me being rear-ended, and, looking forward, deciding I could just make a quick left turn. I particularly remember seeing what looked like plastic from the tail light flying away from that car. Yay teenaged adrenal gland! I made the turn and immediately pulled over. I was shaking. The only other times I knew my life was at risk it was slow and embarrassing. Nothing like NickRandom's experience.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

When people experience this I wonder if time really does slow down relative to your decision making -- you're able to make more decisions in the same amount of time or make a decision earlier -- or if you just perceive time to have been slower when you experience or recall it, perhaps because more or stronger memories are being created during that time.

coldtea 4y ago

I've read that a sudden splurge of adrenaline does that...

macdust 4y ago

This mental dilation of time makes physical torture worse than murder. The pain turns sideways to time, occupying an infinitude of paralyzed desperation.

suzzer99 4y ago

Falling off a roof was the slowest time I ever experienced.