• Education
    • Higher Education
    • Scholarships & Grants
    • Online Learning
    • School Reforms
    • Research & Innovation
  • Lifestyle
    • Travel
    • Food & Drink
    • Fashion & Beauty
    • Home & Living
    • Relationships & Family
  • Technology & Startups
    • Software & Apps
    • Startup Success Stories
    • Startups & Innovations
    • Tech Regulations
    • Venture Capital
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cybersecurity
    • Emerging Technologies
    • Gadgets & Devices
    • Industry Analysis
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy
Today Headline
  • Home
  • World News
    • Us & Canada
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Middle East
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • Political Parties
    • Government Policies
    • International Relations
    • Legislative News
  • Business & Finance
    • Market Trends
    • Stock Market
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Corporate News
    • Economic Policies
  • Science & Environment
    • Space Exploration
    • Climate Change
    • Wildlife & Conservation
    • Environmental Policies
    • Medical Research
  • Health
    • Public Health
    • Mental Health
    • Medical Breakthroughs
    • Fitness & Nutrition
    • Pandemic Updates
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Basketball
    • Tennis
    • Olympics
    • Motorsport
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV & Streaming
    • Celebrity News
    • Awards & Festivals
  • Crime & Justice
    • Court Cases
    • Cybercrime
    • Policing
    • Criminal Investigations
    • Legal Reforms
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • World News
    • Us & Canada
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Middle East
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • Political Parties
    • Government Policies
    • International Relations
    • Legislative News
  • Business & Finance
    • Market Trends
    • Stock Market
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Corporate News
    • Economic Policies
  • Science & Environment
    • Space Exploration
    • Climate Change
    • Wildlife & Conservation
    • Environmental Policies
    • Medical Research
  • Health
    • Public Health
    • Mental Health
    • Medical Breakthroughs
    • Fitness & Nutrition
    • Pandemic Updates
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Basketball
    • Tennis
    • Olympics
    • Motorsport
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV & Streaming
    • Celebrity News
    • Awards & Festivals
  • Crime & Justice
    • Court Cases
    • Cybercrime
    • Policing
    • Criminal Investigations
    • Legal Reforms
No Result
View All Result
Today Headline
No Result
View All Result
Home Science & Environment

Altered States of Consciousness Can Distort Time, And Nobody Knows Why : ScienceAlert todayheadline

January 5, 2025
in Science & Environment
Reading Time: 6 mins read
A A
0
hand holding a watch
5
SHARES
10
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


We all know that time seems to pass at different speeds in different situations. For example, time appears to go slowly when we travel to unfamiliar places. A week in a foreign country seems much longer than a week at home.


Time also seems to pass slowly when we are bored, or in pain. It seems to speed up when we’re in a state of absorption, such as when we play music or chess, or paint or dance. More generally, most people report time seems to speed up as they get older.


However, these variations in time perception are quite mild. Our experience of time can change in a much more radical way. In my new book, I describe what I call “time expansion experiences” – in which seconds can stretch out into minutes.


The reasons why time can speed up and slow down are a bit of a mystery. 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. Time passes slowly to children because they live in a world of newness.


New environments stretch time because of their unfamiliarity. Absorption contracts time because our attention becomes narrow, and our minds become quiet, with few thoughts passing through. 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 percent of people have had at least one Tee.


Around a half of Tees occur in accident and emergency situations. In such situations, people are often surprised by the amount of time they have to think and act. In fact, many people are convinced that time expansion saved them from their serious injury, or even saved their lives – because it allowed them to take preventative action that would normally be impossible.


For example, a woman who reported a Tee in which she avoided a metal barrier falling on to her car told me how a “slowing down of the moment” allowed her to “decide how to escape the falling metal on us”.


Tees are also common in sport. For example, a participant described a Tee that occurred while playing ice hockey, when “the play which seemed to last for about ten minutes all occurred in the space of about eight seconds”. Tees also occur in moments of stillness and presence, during meditation or in natural surroundings.

Seconds can stretch on some psychedelics. (Jaelynn Castillo/Unsplash)

However, some of the most extreme Tees are linked to psychedelic substances, such as LSD or ayahuasca. In my collection of Tees, around 10 percent are linked to psychedelics. A man told me that, during an LSD experience, he looked at the stopwatch on his phone and “the hundredths of a second were moving as slow 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 a 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.


Even though their lives might be in danger, people usually feel strangely calm and relaxed. 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 ultra-calm, unconcerned that the horse still hadn’t recovered its balance and quite possibly could fall on top of me.”


The noradrenaline theory also doesn’t fit with the fact that many Tees occur in peaceful situations, such as deep meditation or oneness with nature.


Another theory I have considered is that Tees are an evolutionary adaptation. Maybe our ancestors developed the ability to slow down time in emergency situations – such as encounters with deadly wild animals or natural disasters – to improve 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 become encoded in our memories, so that when we recall the emergency situation, the extra memories create the impression that time passed slowly.


However, in many Tees, people are certain that they had extra time to think and act. Time expansion allowed a complex series of thoughts and actions that would have been impossible if time had been passing at a normal speed.


In a recent (not yet published) poll of 280 Tees, I found that less than 3 percent of the participants believed that the experience was an illusion. Some 87 percent believed it was a real experience that happened in the present, while 10 percent 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 normally makes time pass faster – as in flow, when we are absorbed in a task. But when absorption becomes especially intense, over a long period of sustained concentration, the opposite occurs, and time slows down radically.


Altered states of consciousness can also affect our sense of identity, and our normal sense of separation between us and the world. As the psychologist Marc Wittmann has pointed out, our sense of time is closely bound up with our sense of self.


We usually have a sense of living inside our mental space, with the world “out there” on the other side. One of the main features of intense altered states is that sense of separation fades. We no longer feel enclosed inside our minds, but feel connected to our surroundings.

This means the boundary between us and the world softens. And in the process, our sense of time expands. We slip outside our normal consciousness, and into a different time-world.The Conversation

Steve Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Leeds Beckett University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Previous Post

Pregnant Santa Barbara teacher dies while hiking in Greece

Next Post

Even before US alcohol warning, younger Americans were turning to mocktails todayheadline

Related Posts

A Case Report of Delayed, Severe, Paroxysmal Muscle Cramping After Chilean Rose Tarantula (Grammostola rosea) Envenomation

A Case Report of Delayed, Severe, Paroxysmal Muscle Cramping After Chilean Rose Tarantula (Grammostola rosea) Envenomation todayheadline

May 31, 2025
2
SpaceX to launch Bandwagon-2 rideshare mission on Falcon 9 rocket from California – Spaceflight Now

West Coast Falcon 9 to launch 27 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink internet service – Spaceflight Now

May 31, 2025
5
Next Post
Even before US alcohol warning, younger Americans were turning to mocktails

Even before US alcohol warning, younger Americans were turning to mocktails todayheadline

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Family calls for change after B.C. nurse dies by suicide after attacks on the job

Family calls for change after B.C. nurse dies by suicide after attacks on the job

April 2, 2025
Pioneering 3D printing project shares successes

Product reduces TPH levels to non-hazardous status

November 27, 2024

Hospital Mergers Fail to Deliver Better Care or Lower Costs, Study Finds todayheadline

December 31, 2024

Police ID man who died after Corso Italia fight

December 23, 2024
Harris tells supporters 'never give up' and urges peaceful transfer of power

Harris tells supporters ‘never give up’ and urges peaceful transfer of power

0
Des Moines Man Accused Of Shooting Ex-Girlfriend's Mother

Des Moines Man Accused Of Shooting Ex-Girlfriend’s Mother

0

Trump ‘looks forward’ to White House meeting with Biden

0
Catholic voters were critical to Donald Trump’s blowout victory: ‘Harris snubbed us’

Catholic voters were critical to Donald Trump’s blowout victory: ‘Harris snubbed us’

0
A Case Report of Delayed, Severe, Paroxysmal Muscle Cramping After Chilean Rose Tarantula (Grammostola rosea) Envenomation

A Case Report of Delayed, Severe, Paroxysmal Muscle Cramping After Chilean Rose Tarantula (Grammostola rosea) Envenomation todayheadline

May 31, 2025
SpaceX to launch Bandwagon-2 rideshare mission on Falcon 9 rocket from California – Spaceflight Now

West Coast Falcon 9 to launch 27 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink internet service – Spaceflight Now

May 31, 2025
Founder of New Hampshire addiction center charged in scheme to intimidate journalists

Founder of New Hampshire addiction center charged in scheme to intimidate journalists

May 31, 2025

Who could be the next face of DOGE?

May 31, 2025

Recent News

A Case Report of Delayed, Severe, Paroxysmal Muscle Cramping After Chilean Rose Tarantula (Grammostola rosea) Envenomation

A Case Report of Delayed, Severe, Paroxysmal Muscle Cramping After Chilean Rose Tarantula (Grammostola rosea) Envenomation todayheadline

May 31, 2025
2
SpaceX to launch Bandwagon-2 rideshare mission on Falcon 9 rocket from California – Spaceflight Now

West Coast Falcon 9 to launch 27 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink internet service – Spaceflight Now

May 31, 2025
5
Founder of New Hampshire addiction center charged in scheme to intimidate journalists

Founder of New Hampshire addiction center charged in scheme to intimidate journalists

May 31, 2025
3

Who could be the next face of DOGE?

May 31, 2025
3

TodayHeadline is a dynamic news website dedicated to delivering up-to-date and comprehensive news coverage from around the globe.

Follow Us

Browse by Category

  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Basketball
  • Business & Finance
  • Climate Change
  • Crime & Justice
  • Cybersecurity
  • Economic Policies
  • Elections
  • Entertainment
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Environmental Policies
  • Europe
  • Football
  • Gadgets & Devices
  • Health
  • Medical Research
  • Mental Health
  • Middle East
  • Motorsport
  • Olympics
  • Politics
  • Public Health
  • Relationships & Family
  • Science & Environment
  • Software & Apps
  • Space Exploration
  • Sports
  • Stock Market
  • Technology & Startups
  • Tennis
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Us & Canada
  • Wildlife & Conservation
  • World News

Recent News

A Case Report of Delayed, Severe, Paroxysmal Muscle Cramping After Chilean Rose Tarantula (Grammostola rosea) Envenomation

A Case Report of Delayed, Severe, Paroxysmal Muscle Cramping After Chilean Rose Tarantula (Grammostola rosea) Envenomation todayheadline

May 31, 2025
SpaceX to launch Bandwagon-2 rideshare mission on Falcon 9 rocket from California – Spaceflight Now

West Coast Falcon 9 to launch 27 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink internet service – Spaceflight Now

May 31, 2025
  • Education
  • Lifestyle
  • Technology & Startups
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy

© 2024 Todayheadline.co

Welcome Back!

OR

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Business & Finance
  • Corporate News
  • Economic Policies
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Market Trends
  • Crime & Justice
  • Court Cases
  • Criminal Investigations
  • Cybercrime
  • Legal Reforms
  • Policing
  • Education
  • Higher Education
  • Online Learning
  • Entertainment
  • Awards & Festivals
  • Celebrity News
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Health
  • Fitness & Nutrition
  • Medical Breakthroughs
  • Mental Health
  • Pandemic Updates
  • Lifestyle
  • Fashion & Beauty
  • Food & Drink
  • Home & Living
  • Politics
  • Elections
  • Government Policies
  • International Relations
  • Legislative News
  • Political Parties
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Middle East
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Cybersecurity
  • Emerging Technologies
  • Gadgets & Devices
  • Industry Analysis
  • Basketball
  • Football
  • Motorsport
  • Olympics
  • Climate Change
  • Environmental Policies
  • Medical Research
  • Science & Environment
  • Space Exploration
  • Wildlife & Conservation
  • Sports
  • Tennis
  • Technology & Startups
  • Software & Apps
  • Startup Success Stories
  • Startups & Innovations
  • Tech Regulations
  • Venture Capital
  • Uncategorized
  • World News
  • Us & Canada
  • Public Health
  • Relationships & Family
  • Travel
  • Research & Innovation
  • Scholarships & Grants
  • School Reforms
  • Stock Market
  • TV & Streaming
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy
  • About us
  • Contact

© 2024 Todayheadline.co