
The man who saw time stand still - bootload
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140624-the-man-who-saw-time-freeze?ocid=twfut
======
tomaskazemekas
This reminded me the description of Tibetan Buddhist teachings about the
nature of the mind from the book "The Joy of Living" by Yongey Mingyur
Rinpoche:

"Later, when I came to the West, I heard a number of psychologists compare the
experience of 'mind' or 'self' to watching a movie. When we watch a movie,
they explained, we seem to experience a continuous flow of sound and motion as
individual frames pass through a projector. The experience would be
drastically different, however, if we had the chance to look at the film frame
by frame.

"This is exactly how my father [Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche] began to teach me to
look at my mind. If I observed every thought, feeling, and sensation that
passed through my mind, the illusion of a limited self would dissolve, to be
replaced by a sense of awareness that is much more calm, spacious, and serene.
And what I learned from other scientists was that because experience changes
the neuronal structure of the brain, when we observe the mind this way, we can
change the cellular gossip that perpetuates our experience of our 'self'."

~~~
nota_bene
And since we always require scientific proof, here's the relevant study
regarding "mindful meditation" and its benefits:

[http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-
to...](http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-
brain/)

------
vanderZwan
I'm surprised they don't cite the research of David Eagleman. He's done very
solid research to untangle the questions of subjective time perception:

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/the-
possibilian](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/the-possibilian)
(posted here before I believe)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkANniH8XZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkANniH8XZE)
(A talk by him on subjective time)

------
mcguire
" _Reviewing the case studies and available scientific research on the matter,
Arstila concludes that an automatic mechanism, triggered by stress hormones,
might speed up the brain’s internal processing to help it handle the life or
death situation.[1] “Our thoughts and initiation of movements become faster –
but because we are working faster, the external world appears to slow down,”
he says. It is even possible that some athletes have deliberately trained
themselves to create a time warp on demand[2]: surfers, for instance, can
often adjust their angle in the split second it takes to launch off steep
waves, as the water rises overhead._ "

That might possibly be true for life-or-death situations, but I believe the
second statement is overreaching. I don't believe that the individuals have
"trained themselves to create a time warp on demand", but rather that it is an
effect of having learned the specific skills involved.

Having learned new skills several times over the years, one thing that I have
constantly noticed is that, initially, things happen _fast_. Events appear
quickly and it is not apparent what is important and what is not. On the other
hand, after you have some experience and can recognize what events are
important and which are about to occur, and have the skill to respond
appropriately, the speed of events is no longer a problem for performance.

In fact, at some point common events cease to be consciously perceptible---the
reaction to them is instinctive.

[1]
[http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00...](http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00196/full)

[2]
[http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00...](http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00209/full)

~~~
austinjp
The bit about surfers really is reaching. No time warp necessary. The brain
emulates musculoskeletal movement in parallel to actual movement, and compares
performance against goal attainment, and against the emulation. This takes
milliseconds, quick enough for very rapid musculoskeletal adjustment, before
conscious awareness.

------
ars
This does not in the slightest sound like time standing still.

Instead it sounds exactly like the symptoms when the motion-detection parts of
the eye are not working.

The brain does not detect visual motion, instead the eye does that. It is one
of the "layers" of information sent, and this is the symptom when it doesn't
work.

More info:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinetopsia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinetopsia)

------
rikkus
I used to suffer from Alice In Wonderland Syndrome [1]. The first time I
noticed symptoms was when I thought my CD player was broken because it was
playing music slowly.

I asked other people if it sounded slow to them and they didn't think so.
There was nothing wrong with the CD player.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysmetropsia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysmetropsia)

------
nickpsecurity
A while ago, I saw a course offering to improve use of the brain. One trick it
claimed to teach was meditation that taught people to control perception of
time. The idea was that you could slow time down to have more reaction,
training or thinking time. I wrote it off as a snake oil thing with far-
fetched possibility of happing to some degree somewhere else.

Seeing these cases makes me wonder, though. Research into neuroscience or
neuro-engineering might be able to tap into this effect to do things similar
to other claim. My first thought as a former martial artist was combat
applications. There's gotta be a DARPA lab working on this exact thing
somewhere.

So, applicable questions to this are (a) does their brain just slow down where
it takes time to catch up to what happened in reality; or (b) do our brains
actually waste effort to preserve a specific, temporal experience. If it's
(b), then there's a possibility of re-training or modifying the brain to get
more usable time to think or act. I can't be sure from the article if it's
(b), though. Anyone have an idea about that?

~~~
deckar01
I think the best way to think about this is in terms of frame rate or really
thought rate. If only the subconscious portions of your mind were operating at
a heightened frequency you would likely only remember making decisions quickly
like the pilot in this article. If only your consciousness was operating at
the heightened frequency you would likely remember time slowing down without
being able to move like "a deer in the headlights." As the article points out,
the natural mechanism for this sensory modulation is a complex soup of
hormones that increase blood flow and neural activity in your brain. The
question is not how fast or slow is the brain relative to one second per
second, but how many decisions and perceptions can the brain make in one
second.

~~~
nickpsecurity
That's a better way of framing the subject than I was even expecting.
Excellent and thanks! Yes, my question does boil down to "how many decisions
and perceptions" per second plus if these event indicate it might be modified
to be beneficial. So, decisions and perceptions per second might be the
natural starting point for research field.

------
johw
I once experienced something similar in a beach volleyball match. We were up
to a pair of much better...and much larger... players, but we were highly
motivated and had a lot of fun.

Suddenly I noticed that everything slowed down A LOT and I could easily
receive full blown attacks that were 3m away...not always clean though, as my
body did not move fast enough.

It is very pleasing to read something about it here and remember this
experience. I hope this "feature" will be researched more, so that everybody
could unlock it at will.

~~~
austinjp
This sounds like two phenomena: flow during the gave, amplified by time-
dilation during later recollection.

On mobile, references awkward. Flow is easy to Google. See my previous comment
re time-dilation during recollection.

Incidentally, none of this is meant to disparage your comment. In fact, it
sounds awesome.

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titzer
SWIM had a very intense experience of time looping which they can't explain
brought on by unfamiliarity with a certain substance...they described it as
reliving the same few minutes over and over, having the same conversation over
and over, and their friends repeating the same bits of dialogue at different
spatial locations over a 1.5 hour period...like the _exact same_ bits of
dialogue with the same hand motions, intonation, sarcasm, etc.

Could be explained by certain neurotransmitters being disrupted by a drug,
replaying short term memories at different times, brain incapable of
integrating time correctly.

SWIM isn't sure.

~~~
98Windows
What is SWIM?

~~~
eutectic
Someone Who Isn't Me. A particularly silly way to refer to yourself while
maintaining the illusion of legal deniability, especially popular on certain
forums devoted to recreational substances.

------
superpanic
The example refering to rotating car wheels seeming to stand still can only be
seen in "artificial" street light and not in direct sunlight. It is the lights
Hz (refresh rate) that causes the illusion and not some "frame rate" in the
brain.

~~~
herendin
I also thought so, but the research abstract linked from the article suggests
there is a real perceptual effect.

I would be curious to know if they had any estimate of the 'frame rate'

[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0002911)

~~~
jacquesm
~18 Hz by my own imperfect measurements.

~~~
herendin
Seriously, or only joking? That's interesting. How did you measure it?

------
sethammons
perception of time is interesting. I saw something years ago, I believe the
discovery channel, where a researcher put a watch-like device on particpants
wrists. its refresh rate was such that you could not see the number it
displayed. when a person the was dropped from a height on a bungee, they could
see the number. the explanation was the adrenaline serge causing the
perception of time to become enhanced, thus the refresh rate was no longer too
fast to prevent one from seeing the number. I can relate; I had a car fly in a
barrel role towards my car in a near head-on collision all action-movie like.
Time slowed and I could make out the driver and passenger with high clarity.
their facial expressions, the passenger's 49'ers jacket and her necklass
dangling in the air... it was quite the experience! (please ignore typos as my
phone is not giving me spelling corrections for some reason)

~~~
bostonpete
It seems like you managed to completely reverse the findings of the bungee
study to match your own expectations...

[http://m.livescience.com/2117-time-slow-
emergencies.html](http://m.livescience.com/2117-time-slow-emergencies.html)

    
    
      "Instead, the scientists found that volunteers could not read the numbers at faster than normal speeds."

~~~
sethammons
ha! wow, thanks for the reality check. I woulda sworn that several people made
out the number. well, that is memory for you I guess. going through the link,
i like the explanation that you "record" more data over the period of time
which in retrospect makes it feel like time slowed.

~~~
qznc
Ok, let's do this right:

Research is by David Eagleman [0], who has written about it on the web [1] and
originally in: Stetson, Fiesta, Eagleman (2007). Does time really slow down
during a frightening event? PLoS One. [2]

[0] [http://www.eagleman.com/research/time-
perception](http://www.eagleman.com/research/time-perception) [1]
[http://www.eagleman.com/research/110-time-and-the-brain-
or-w...](http://www.eagleman.com/research/110-time-and-the-brain-or-what-s-
happening-in-the-eagleman-lab) [2]
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001295)

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hippo8
Not sure if this is the same thing, Around 12 years ago I was playing on the
street with my friends, and got hit by a speeding motorbike, I remember seeing
the motor bike coming towards me, I remember all the details it was so slow,
but I was frozen, I felt as if I had all the time in the world, and then
suddenly I snapped and the bike hit me on the shoulder. Fell to the ground and
luckily managed to escape with just a few scratches on my leg.

I always wondered if this memory was something the younger version of me made
up in my head or if it actually happened. Never experienced it again
unfortunately.

------
kinleyd
The experience described in the article is, imho, quite common. The
spontaneous positive ones are of the type you experience in sports, when you
are in "the zone". Priceless experience. And the negative ones occur in times
of danger - you want to forget these, but that's nearly impossible. Meditation
gets you there as well, and with some side-effects, I'm told drugs do too. I
read a hilarious account by PJ O'Rourke of how still time stood during an ill-
advised drugs and dynamite experiment with some of his buddies.

------
goblin89
If perception of space-time emerges as simplified interface to the dynamics of
interacting conscious agents[0], then such ‘time glitches’ can be explained as
abnormal states in the combination of conscious agents that comprise one’s
mind.

(Can’t help trying to look at this through prism of my limited understanding
of that research.)

[0]
[http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00...](http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577/full)

------
virtualwhys
Surprised the article doesn't reference the stroke of enlightenment [0].

Makes you wonder how much awakening (as described in linked video) is more
accident than act of volition/determination (e.g. dedicated
meditation/spiritual practice). Perhaps the latter sets the stage for the
ultimate accident to occur.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU)

~~~
nwatson
The presenter brought out a real deceased person's human brain to parade
around in front of a TED talk -- ultimate disrespect, trivializing someone's
life where slides or video would have done as well.

~~~
virtualwhys
In what way is presentating a brain "ultimate disprespect"? Do you honestly
think the deceased took offense at their brain being put on public display?

Talk about missing the forest (content of presentation) for the trees. Maybe
watch the video, it's extraordinary. Presenter had a massive stroke (8 year
recovery) and, for some reason, awakened as a result.

Anyway, the wiki [0] may help explain why the presenter, a scientist
specializing in the "postmortem investigation of the human brain as it relates
to schizophrenia and the severe mental illnesses", would bring a brain on
stage at a TED talk ;-)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Bolte_Taylor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Bolte_Taylor)

~~~
harryjo
Related: [https://soundcloud.com/the-story-collider/bradford-jordan-
th...](https://soundcloud.com/the-story-collider/bradford-jordan-the-brain-in-
the-trunk)

------
karmakaze
This once happened to me. I'd been up for a few days clubbing and then
everything changed so slowly as too seem to stop. It was excruciatingly
boring. I could examine the entire scene in as much detail as I cared then
there was nothing new to see, and all I could do was wait, and wait, for the
next time quanta for something new. Thankfully it didn't last long (in clock
time anyway).

