3 ms·
I am reminded of an incident relayed to me by an office worker in the early 2000s. A colleague had left the building at lunchtime and had been witness to some k
by jl6 3y ago
I am reminded of an incident relayed to me by an office worker in the early 2000s. A colleague had left the building at lunchtime and had been witness to some kind of shooting incident where robbers or gang members on motorcycles had opened fire on someone or something else - I don’t think it was ever discovered what the target or cause was. This was in South America, so not a wholly unusual scenario. But the debrief of the employee was eye-opening. He described everything that had happened from his perspective: he heard gunshots, hid behind a bin, and waited until it was over. He said there were dozens of gunshots and he had stayed in hiding for about ten minutes, until he heard the bikes speed away.
However, upon reviewing the CCTV footage, it became clear that the whole incident, from bike arrival to employee emerging from behind the bin, lasted about 11 seconds.
The colleague was astounded to see the footage and couldn’t explain why he had felt it was so much longer.
I think there’s a good chance that stressful situations play havoc with human memory formation.
- tasogare 3y agoMy theory is that in a really stressful situation the mind hyperfocuses and "processes more frames per second" to react quicker. Just like with movies this mean that replayed at normal speed the movie serms very slow, hence the long timespan memory.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoI believe this is also responsible for so called dad reflexes.
- nradov 3y agoTime dilation is well known to occur in dangerous situations. https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fpsyp.12836 https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fpsyp.12836
- jonplackett 3y agoTime dilation is pretty amazing. I experienced it one time when I accidentally put the car into a a skid at 70mph. I remember calmly realising the car was moving sideways. Having time to ponder that for a few moments. Then deciding to start steering into the skid. Then think about that for a while. Release the break a bit. Finally we did a full 360 and ended up in the middle of the road again. It seemed like it took a minute or more but was probably a few seconds if that. Brains are awesome! (My younger self driving ability, much less so)
- alasdair_ 3y agoMy understanding of time dilation is that at the time the event is actually happening, things occur at normal speed, it's just that our memory of the event is time-dilated and so we remember everything slowing down and taking a long time.
- tmnvix 3y agoA really interesting example here in a PBS doco of someone's experience of time 'stretching out' in a dangerous situation. It includes footage of the entire event, the individual's recollection, and a possible explanation: https://youtu.be/7eCniXtM__g?si=26Gbd2w8PEozKL0i&t=2768 https://youtu.be/7eCniXtM__g?si=26Gbd2w8PEozKL0i&t=2768
- Waterluvian 3y agoIs it an issue with forming memory, or did the person experience ten minutes worth of 11 seconds?
- moritzwarhier 3y agoThere's an interesting dialog about this in Catch-22, the novel, but it intentionally revolves around boredom, not fear (which of course also is a primary subject of the novel) I assume you were also aiming at a point of absurdity, because I don't want to imagine that you'd like to lenghten your perceived lifespan i.e. by being tortured...