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"Slow motion perception is a subjective perception of time in which things are perceived as passing by slower than the normal perception of time. To a bystander watching a life-threatening situation such as an accident, time is moving at a normal speed. However, to the individual in the accident, time seems to have slowed down. As a result, the individual in the accident may be able to think faster and act faster during these events. However, even though individuals commonly report that time seems to have moved in slow motion during these events, it is unknown whether this is a function of increased time resolution during the event, or, instead, an illusion of remembering an emotionally salient event." Personally, I've heard of it happening in passing, but never gave it much thought. I have always thought it to be more like a figure of speech or literary device used to emphasize the intensity of an experiences or situation. A couple hours ago I had borrowed a friends motorcycle and had a bit of a close-call. Fortunately, I managed to avoid an accident and nobody got hurt. I did however, experience a little more than a case of butterflies in my stomach. What I had was a very real "wow, so that's what it feels like" experience with slow motion perception. I did over a quick Google search on it, and skimmed over some stuff, but I didn't anything all that interesting. Most explanations I've found so far are fairly dismissive of the phenomenon. Wikipedia article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_motion_perception I'm interested to see if any of you have had an oh poo poo! moment in which "time slowed down," or have a good explanation of what's going on in one's head when it happens.
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Feb 5, 2015 23:26
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I routinely feel like that when drunk. So, uh, there's that.
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Feb 14, 2015 00:18
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Once, I was the victim of a home invasion. I had just finished work and was driving home around sunset. Anyway, I pulled into my driveway (we lived in the suburbs, a nice all-American front lawn-and-garden place) and noticed that our front door was open a bit. This is unusual, because I'm in a kind of dangerous line of work, so I always tell my wife to leave the door closed and locked, even when she's home. So I go up to the door and the lock's been kicked in, and when I got into the hallway, I could hear noises upstairs, and my wife was screaming my name. I took out my service pistol and made my way upstairs. The bedroom door was locked, but I could get around by going through the ensuite bathroom, so I stopped in there, grabbed some of the painkillers from the mirror cupboard in case I needed them, and then burst into my bedroom. A man was holding my wife at gunpoint, and as I burst into the room, time seemed to slow down. It was like the scene in The Matrix, where everything moves like molasses. I remember seeing my bullets move through the air, I was so adrenalized. I managed to shoot the invader, but he shot my wife at the same time. I found out that they had killed my infant son as well, and that I had been too late. Anyway, since then I changed career paths – I couldn't deal with the loss. I worked undercover on drugs cases, and I developed a painkiller addiction. I still have nightmares about that evening. In them I'm running through a maze of blood trails, and in the background, I can hear my baby crying endlessly. Time seems to slow down a lot more for me now.
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Feb 14, 2015 01:37
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Do some research into the Sympathetic Nervous System, and how it regulates the body during a flight or flight situation. The technical term you're looking for is Tachypsychia Also another good place to check out is books that document officer involved shootings, they have lots of good info. Other effects that people suffer from are tunnel vision, and auditory exclusion. Both super interesting to read about, and science can only understand so much of what is happening; Example I often use is a shooting, wheres normally people wear hearing protection to avoid damaging their ear drums... when cops etc get into shoot outs they don't walk around wearing any hearing protection, and yet they usually escape from the encounter with next to no hearing loss. If you've ever been in a car accident chances are you experienced the slowing down of time as well, and your memory for very specific parts of the event are vivid. I have a 1 1/2 hour lecture I give on SNS and stress responses, videos are great for helping people understand the effects Brain In A Jar posted:Max Payne 
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Feb 14, 2015 04:06
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I had that twice. Time was so slow that I not only had time to do everything perfectly, I was also able to contemplate how weird that was and how slow time was going. First time I was assaulted (fought him off). Second time a car going full speed nailed a pedestrian about 10' from me (called 911 and made others get help).
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Feb 14, 2015 04:15
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i like nice words
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Without a shitload of extraneous details, I used to work on nuclear reactors, and during training had a valve that was containing hundreds of pounds of steam pressure unseat and begin dumping steam about 5 feet away from me. It was hands down the most terrifying experience I've ever had. I remember the sound (a bang, followed by the sound of a freight train roaring at full speed). I remember beginning to shut the valve, I remember my vision being obscured by steam, I remember feeling my overinstruct grabbing the back of my coveralls, and I remember the feeling of being physically lifted off my feet and thrown as he took control of the evolution. I've had a couple of other run ins with time slowing down. Most were as a result of me driving too fast and losing control for a moment (because I was stupid as gently caress as a kid) or just getting really, really high. None of them compare to the steam incident though.
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Feb 14, 2015 21:23
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What you describe corresponds to my experience. Very different to the standard 'Oh poo poo!' of some adrenaline-squirting shock or mishap. When I was thirteen and on a family package holiday in the Med, I was kidding around with my little brother around the resort pool, and at one point he tried to push me in – so I swung round hilariously at last minute, grabbed him and threw him into the water. I also slipped slightly as I was doing so, and had the treat of watching my seven-year-old brother's occiput miss the hard edge of the pool by about a centimetre, in exquisitely slow motion. Until that moment, I too had thought slow-motion perception a device from film, but it absolutely happened to me then, along with a clear rundown of exactly what things would be like if he struck the base of his skull and died, or survived in some hideous half-alive state. Even writing about it now brings up a nastily fresh memory. No-one else saw this happen and it took me at least ten minutes to stop trembling afterwards, which felt like the passing of the Cretaceous, but was fast compared to watching the potential accident unfold (I don't know if this happens to everyone, but if it's common then it's possibly a reason why the brain doesn't activate this system more readily). My brother naturally threatened to tell our parents that I'd chucked him in, and I felt so guilty that I promised to help him with his giant Meccano project when we got back. We built a weird crane that sat gathering dust for the next couple of years, and even that benighted thing gave me the cauld grues to look at. Years and years later, I told him all about it and he said he couldn't even recall the incident, though he did remember how keen I'd been about the Meccano.
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Feb 15, 2015 01:36
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Does this always happen during life-threatening events? I can only think of twice when something dangerous happened to me, and I definitely didn't feel "time slow down" or anything. 1. Soon after learning to drive, I took a left turn that I should not have, and noticed a car from oncoming traffic just as I entered the middle of the road. I heard the tires squealing from the oncoming car slamming on its brakes, I heard my mom's car crunching during the impact, and I spun 180 degrees. It happened in an instant, practically all at once and I don't really have a clear memory of it. 2. I was figuring skating as a teenager and learning to jump for the first time. My instructor told me to always jump the same way (e.g., if you jump right-handed, *never* jump left-handed). I got comfortable jumping the proper way and decided to start jumping the opposite way. Soon afterward, I suddenly noticed I was on the ground, my head hurt a lot, and I was bleeding near my temple and I was really confused and had no memory of how it happened. I assumed that I had fallen doing stupid poo poo, since I was doing stupid. Anyway, I never felt "time slow down" even though falling would be something that scared me quite a bit and it was clearly life-threatening.
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Feb 15, 2015 04:22
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EB Nulshit posted:Soon afterward, I suddenly noticed I was on the ground, my head hurt a lot, and I was bleeding near my temple and I was really confused and had no memory of how it happened. I assumed that I had fallen doing stupid poo poo, since I was doing stupid. Anyway, I never felt "time slow down" even though falling would be something that scared me quite a bit and it was clearly life-threatening. I'd assume that "slow motion perception" is really memory-related, rather than an actual increase in perception, and so if you gave yourself a slight concussion then it probably would prevent any experience of "slow motion perception". Really I'd just expect that all perception is this precise, but usually it's immediately compressed into the salient details before being stored as short-term memory.
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Feb 15, 2015 20:46
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Happened maybe twice. Once, was road biking, hit a pothole, flipped over my handlebars. It happened in slow motion. I had time to think, oh, really, this is happening? At least I have a helmet. Then somehow my subconscious took over, I did a backflip, and ran it out and came out without a scratch. Looked back at the mangled rim of my new bike, and was kinda at a loss for words. Another time, was running full speed playing tennis, tripped on a tennis ball like a dumbass, went flying. Did jiu-jitsu in the past for a year, those white belt break falls really have saved my rear end at least several times. I can sorta feel something half as powerful when snowboarding, doing harder runs. You end up really focusing, planning the path down, looking for obstacles, and trying to do everything as perfectly as possible. It's a neat feeling. It's probably just a combination of adrenaline and focus, though. You can absolutely exceed your own limits in terms of reaction time and perception of details. 99.9% of the time you are not operating in that mode, and if you do fall into that mode, it certainly does feel like time is slowing down. The reality is you're just processing faster to try to figure out what to do to prevent whatever situation is triggering it. SSH IT ZOMBIE fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Feb 15, 2015 |
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Feb 15, 2015 21:09
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It happens to me most work mornings around when I wake up. I glance at the clock, maybe go back to sleep, get lost in thought, glance at the clock, and only a minute or two has passed. Well, it used to happen a bunch. It hasn't in the past few years. Maybe that's not really what you mean, but it's certainly a way to lose track of time. And possibly to think more than you normally could. I think it's usually exaggerated. Like, there are times in video games you can do insane things and it feels like it's going slow while you're doing it. Then you watch a first person view of it later and everything is going crazy fast. It's probably because as observers we are passive and just observing, but as participants we are focused and looking for specific details and have future actions and things planned out in our heads. As a participant you want to do this, then this, then that, unless this happens. As a passive observer, you are watching what's going on. You're even watching the subject's actions and wasting time parsing them. So instead of thinking ahead you're parsing what has already happened while things continue to happen. Khorne fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 00:29
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Khorne posted:It happens to me most work mornings around when I wake up. I glance at the clock, maybe go back to sleep, get lost in thought, glance at the clock, and only a minute or two has passed. Well, it used to happen a bunch. It hasn't in the past few years. Maybe that's not really what you mean, but it's certainly a way to lose track of time. And possibly to think more than you normally could. No I think you just have dementia. Are you a 90 year old pensioner by any chance?
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Feb 17, 2015 01:48
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Sappo569 posted:No I think you just have dementia. That absolutely happens to me too. Ie, alarm goes off. Screw work, more sleep. *snooze* It might only be 5 or 10 minutes, but it feels much, much longer sometimes. Enough time to immediately fall back asleep and have a dream where like a whole day passes. Before the snooze alarm goes off, you jolt out of bed thinking it hosed up, you slept for hours, and now you're late for work. But only 5 minutes has passed.
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Feb 17, 2015 02:08
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SSH IT ZOMBIE posted:That absolutely happens to me too. Ie, alarm goes off. Screw work, more sleep. *snooze* That's really not what the OP was about at all, though. You're talking about time being distorted when you're sleeping/dreaming, not when you're wide awake and pumped full of adrenaline because you're life is in danger.
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Feb 17, 2015 02:15
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I hit a couch that was lying on the interstate. The guy two cars up dodged out of the way just in time for the guy in front of me to be able to see it and dodge but by the time he'd dodged it I was like four carlengths away from it, going 65. I had enough internal time to debate between cutting over really hard (I was in a jeep, bad idea), slamming on my brakes (would still hit it and likely get rear ended too), or just plowing through the bitch. I decided to plow through it then formulated the plan to let off the gas until I was just about it hit it, then floor that poo poo so I'd be hitting it with the least speed possible but then powering through in the hopes it wouldn't gently caress up my tires or undercarriage. This whole thought process was like an internal conversation and it took 4 seconds max realtime. My friend and gf of the time were in the car with me, and their version of events was that in the few seconds between when we could see the couch and when we hit it, I said, "oh poo poo, hold on." and gripped the steering wheel harder. I don't remember saying that. I was busily estimating odds and trying to get us over around or through that couch in one piece. Thing came apart like nothing, by the way. Thank god for modern, flimsy furniture construction. Car was fine, zero injuries. hooray! The other time I had time slow down on me it was much less useful. I got debiked in midair during a sicknasty ramp jump. It took a very long time to come down and there wasn't anything useful to think to myself in the meantime except "ohshitohshitohshit this is gonna hurt probably really bad I hope I don't break something that would suck rear end please god not the legs. or arms. and what is my bike doing? is it gonna come down on top of me!? FUUUUCK!"
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Feb 17, 2015 02:29
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SSH IT ZOMBIE posted:That absolutely happens to me too. Ie, alarm goes off. Screw work, more sleep. *snooze* Yeah this is just called 'dozing off'
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Feb 17, 2015 02:31
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I got robbed at gunpoint nearly 7 years ago, and even though the whole thing only lasted maybe 5-10 minutes, it felt like hours. Certain parts of it I have blocked out (the gun itself, the people doing it), but the order of events, what was said, the floorboards I stared at during it, when they pulled my phone out of my pocket, counting backwards in my head to try and calm myself, I remember in clear, clear detail. Also I remember exactly what loving episode of Nip/tuck we were watching (episode 11, Gina's funeral), the scene it was on (Gina falling off the balcony), and the cheap beer we had bought earlier in the day (bud light, 3 point, from Oklahoma on a Sunday). Conversely, it also felt like it went by quickly because of trying to block poo poo out. I don't know how to explain it. It felt like it lasted forever because it sucked, but it also was over before I knew it because holy poo poo I didn't want to feel.
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Feb 17, 2015 02:49
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I think this is called or a component of being "in the zone" in regards to sports, theres a ton of books on it that are available on it. I have a few sports related ones I can post when I get back from lunch. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) talks about it
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Feb 17, 2015 18:16
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Waroduce posted:I think this is called or a component of being "in the zone" in regards to sports, theres a ton of books on it that are available on it. I have a few sports related ones I can post when I get back from lunch. That red text? 
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Feb 17, 2015 18:28
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