
Why A Brush With Death Triggers The Slow-Mo Effect - johns
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129112147
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elblanco
For years I'd heard this and thought it was similar to being "in the zone".
I've done various martial arts since I was a kid and found "the zone" to be an
absolutely awesome state of mind to be in, it's like your brain is running in
super fast mode and solutions to complex problems seem obvious and come
immediately...but that state of mind doesn't seem to actually be the same as
Slow-Mo.

I discovered this after unfortunately finding myself on the periphery of a
very heavy fire fight in Baghdad in 2006 as an unarmed contractor without my
body armor handy. A co-worker and I headed for cover about 500 ft. behind a
wall to wait it out when _BAM_ a bullet penetrated the wall in front of us,
flew past us and struck a wall next to our heads.

I remember this clearly because as soon as the bullet broke through the wall
everything went super slow-mo. I mean, like 10,000 frames per second Slow-mo
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt6eyDYeJr0>). The bullet had obviously
slowed down and had started tumbling because it sounded like the most pissed-
off bee as it headed our way. More interestingly, and without any control of
my body, my eyes immediately went into tracking mode and I was able to follow
the bullet all the way across the space we were in -- about 500 ft. I honestly
have no idea how long it took to travel that distance, but it felt like a full
10 minutes even though it couldn't have been more than a fraction of a second.

The overwhelming memory though was how my body felt like it was stuck in
molasses as my brain desperately tried to tell me to hit the deck and I simply
couldn't move as fast as my brain seemed to be working. I remember being
absolutely frustrated with this little fact.

As soon as the round hit the wall with an appropriate _ping!_ sound, time went
back to normal and the adrenaline hit like a rocket and we high tailed it out
of there to better cover.

I also remember just being mentally tired the rest of the day after that.
Could have been the adrenaline rush but I think it's from the slow-mo effect.

~~~
c1sc0
Interesting that you point out the delay between your brain giving an order
and your body responding. I've had similar experiences where initially there
seems to be plenty of time for your mind to assess the situation & make
decisions. In my experience the slow-mo effect stopped immediately after I
started _reacting_ to the danger. I guess your mind gets in a kind of detached
mental state in order to build a window of opportunity to make the right
decision.

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felixmar
The slow-motion effect may be the result of the mind mapping the experience to
a single timeline afterwards.

I was at the Enschede fireworks disaster
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enschede_fireworks_disaster>) ten years ago and
experienced what the article calls turbo perception. It is not like
overclocking a single processor by pressing a turbo switch. A better metaphor
may be temporarily having access to more processors than normal that operate
in parallel. In a short time frame you make a lot more observations and
decisions than normal to improve your situation, apparently some
simultaneously. Because it is difficult for the mind to deal with parallel
timelines of observations it maps the observations to a single timeline which
results in the slow-motion effect that people recall afterwards.

~~~
elblanco
When it happened to me, afterwards, I remember my mind uncontrollably playing
back the event over and over again from different points, all in slow motion
for a day or two. It was exhausting and I couldn't get anything else done that
required any kind of thinking. It finally settled down like ripples in a pond.

Did you experience the same thing?

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nooneelse
I remember as a kid, I found a big, sloped tree stump in town that if I ran
and used it as a ramp, I could get enough height in a jump to be pushing my
landing abilities near their limit. I wasn't a big time thrill seeker, but
that became a habit for the wonderful free fall feeling and time effect. It
didn't happen every time, but the slow-down effect was common enough that I
got curious and wondered how it worked... was it just a trick of memory
afterward or was it something in the moment?

I realize it isn't really good science, as I have only the subjective
experience of the tests (so be it, I guess), but I did what I could on the
repeatability front (sprained ankles and scratches paid with the kind of
childhood zeal unhampered by considering possible consequences). When in that
moment, I had enough mental time to think "no, not just a memory effect, this
is really going on right now... and yeah, still going on, and still falling"
several times before landing.

As an aspiring rational empiricist, I will force myself to give up this belief
if need be, but a few tests aren't enough to do that. There are plenty of i's
and t's to dot and cross in the experimental construction and interpretation
first.

~~~
someperson
Jumping from playground swings is another good way to experience falling and
associated slow-down effect.

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Spakman
Of my numerous brushes with death, this has only happened once or twice for
me. The most memorable was when I was kite-mountainboarding. I had jumped
around 12ft in the air but a line had wrapped around my harness - instead of
acting like a parachute, the large kite was below me and pulled me violently
into the ground. Time slowed enough for me to reason about the situation and
realise that I had to absorb some of the impact with my legs if this was to
turn out well. I didn't get it quite right (should have taken more impact with
my legs) and I broke my back, but I've recovered now.

However, what I remember as much as the slowing of time is how calm I felt
during it all. Reasoning and decision-making were the only things in my mind
in a really dangerous situation. It was really nice feeling! When time slows
in these situations, I wonder if anyone ever panics. I guess it would be
rather counter-productive.

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nostromo
I've heard this is why time seems to pass faster as we age as well. Not
because we experience time as passing faster, just that fewer things are novel
as we have more experiences.

In other words, fewer memorable things happen to a 40 year old than to a 10
year old... unless that 40 year old is about to be hit by a bus.

~~~
sovande
Time really pass faster when you get older, subjectively speaking; When you
are 2 years old, the last year amounted to 50% of your whole life. The year
between 40 to 41 is 2% and from 80 to 81 only 1%.

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Terretta
This paper is from 2007, and has been written up many times since.

Including an alleged debunking from Feb 2008:

[http://express-press-
release.net/46/Eagleman%20%60Time%20Slo...](http://express-press-
release.net/46/Eagleman%20%60Time%20Slowing%60%20Experiment%20Invalidated.php)

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duncanbojangles
I've heard this from so many people and so many reputable sources that I feel
as if I'm the only person that has never experienced this phenomenon. In fact,
when I've been in an instance where I've feared for my life (and there have
been several) it seems to me that time speeds up and things happen so quickly
I only have time to react and not to think. I only seem to recognize something
happened after the fact.

~~~
c1sc0
I think there's a major difference between 'doing' and 'experiencing'. I know
e.g. that in a skydiving emergency my actions have always been automatic &
fast, but the experience of the situation made it seem like it lasted for
ages.

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zmmmmm
I've always thought most of this effect was in the second stage of memory
where it gets solidified into medium or long term memory instead of the few
seconds of real time memory that we use for executing all our daily tasks. The
reason I think this is that sometimes when this effect has triggered for me I
have remembered great detail about the few seconds _before_ the event actually
occurred.

For example, a few years ago my wife fell off a balcony while holding our
baby. At first I didn't know what was wrong, I only heard her call out and
wandered out curiously to see what she wanted. While wandering out I had no
idea how serious it was - but I have the "Slow Mo" effect for that precursor
time as well.

~~~
AndyKelley
What happened?! Was she okay? Did she protect the baby?

~~~
zmmmmm
Yes - thank goodness - they both had some superficial scratches and the wife
had bad bruises but she completely protected the baby (it wasn't a second
story balcony, more like a deck that protrudes over a steep decline). Of
course, we didn't know either of them were really ok until 8 hours in
emergency ward and scans were taken of spine etc. etc. One of the worst days
of my life.

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spacemanaki
I heard this in the morning, and I'm glad it got on HN, because Radiolab is so
great. If you liked this at all, you should really check out their long shows,
they are almost all gold. Their style works a little better in a long form I
think.

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malkia
Hmmm.. Makes me wonder, why we do the opposite in video games - slo-mo is in
effect when an enemy is about to die... But in fact it should be the opposite.

My father had exactly the same experience - he was in the car my grandfather
was driving along with my mother, something happened and they were nearly
going to crash, when everything turned slo-mo for my father and he was able to
pull the manual brake (it was in the middle of the car for the russian Lada
model, unlike my current Toyta Venza).

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xenophanes
bad title. article doesn't answer why. discusses two failed attempts to find
out how it works.

~~~
jcl
An interesting article nonetheless. The "failed" attempts at least suggest
that the perceived slowdown is not simply a matter of your brain processing
information faster -- that it instead stores more superfluous information than
normal.

So if we intentionally trigger "bullet time", it wouldn't allow us to perform
superhuman feats, but it might give us superhuman recollection of details.

~~~
Splines
I thought that was the explanation. Your brain has a normal data per unit time
ratio, and in these stressful situation it ends up recording much more than
normal. Since you're used to a certain data/time ratio, it feels like
everything happened in slow-motion.

~~~
raquo
It also works on a larger time scale. When I was working 9-to-6, weeks passed
like days. Now that I'm on my own, time passes much slower because there's so
much different stuff you have to do and learn every day.

~~~
jacquesm
Sitting in a dentists chair makes minutes seem like hours, sitting on a couch
chatting with an attractive member of the opposite sex makes hours seem like
minutes.

Mortgages make months shorter and years longer.

Time is pretty weird, our perception of it changes all the time depending on
the circumstances, it shouldn't be a surprise that extreme circumstances
change our perception of time in an extreme way.

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sdh
I want the switch that allows me to turn this on at will.

~~~
mirkules
I wonder if this ability is just a function of increased adrenaline in the
system or the sudden increase of adrenaline. If it is, it would be easy to
make a switch, but would probably be harmful for extended periods of time.

~~~
DifE-Q
I have often wondered why people would attribute this and other events where
one has super human strength or super perception (where time slows down) to
adrenaline. This is becasue it is a hormone that is released from the adrenal
gland..it would take some time to get to the parts of the body where it would
make things function this way would it not..at least longer than the times we
are considering would allow. So if I am right, what else could be the "switch"
to switch these functions on?

~~~
mirkules
First off, thank you for making me look this up, as I now learned something
new :)

If I understand this correctly, the immediate fight-or-flight response is
triggered by noradrenaline, which is very similar to adrenaline but released
by nerve cells directly to places all over the body, increasing blood flow and
pressure, alertness, etc (but not affecting muscles). Adrenaline gets released
into the blood via stimulation by the sympathetic system, but its effects last
longer.

So it seems noradrenaline, by the fact that it's released directly from nerve
cells, basically dictates how fast a person processes immediate external
stimuli, and could possibly explain "super perception"

~~~
DifE-Q
This is fascinating. Thanks for looking it up. I too have now learned
something new!

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crazydiamond
During moments of danger, the mind (which is normally active and thinking all
kinds of thought of past and future) stops. Thus there is a silent alertness,
a clarity of vision and other senses. For such a person, it is _as though_
time has stopped.

This is something which is quite common in the meditative practice of
remaining in the present moment. Eckhart Tolle talks about this in "The Power
of Now". The Buddhists (incl Zen) talk about being in the Now, too.

No, the brain does not speed up, and no, you do not start remembering each and
every detail of what you see and hear. However, the clarity of the senses is
remarkable. Its like one has been looking from behind a dirty window all one's
life, and now someone has washed the window.

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hkuo
Maybe unrelated, but I give a vote for the brain perceiving things in a hyper-
active state. When I go high-speed go karting, my brain needs to work
incredibly fast to keep up with every little thing going on. In between
sessions, if I play games on my iPhone, it is literally like the game is being
played in slow motion. Alternatively, if I wake up in the morning all drowsy
and I play those same games, it's as if the games are in fast forward and I
can't keep up. So it's obvious my brain is in different states of awareness in
these two scenarios, so it would make sense that in a near death experience,
the brain jumps into that hyperactive state and things appear slower. Just my
opinion.

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frazerb
You will love Nicholson Baker's book "The Mezzanine", and Ian McEwan's book
"The Child in Time". Both capture this phenomenon of the relativity of
perceived time wonderfully.

McEwan's book will just eat at your heart. If you haven't read it I implore
you to at least read the first chapter.

Of Baker's book, Wikipedia says: "On the surface it deals with a man's trip up
an escalator in the mezzanine of his office building during a lunch-time
sojourn from his building. In reality, it deals with all the thoughts that run
through our minds in any given few moments – if we were given the time to
think them through to their conclusions"

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mattmanser
I've had this happen to me, falling roughly the distance of the article's
subject.

Over the years I really thought time slowed down, but I guess I can see what
he's saying. Still, I doubt we'll ever definitively know until we have some
way of measuring thought.

This does bring the interesting follow up question of why we're remembering so
much more? To avoid the same fate in future (seems a little late, in a
Darwinian argument).

Or are we perceptually processing so much more in order to try and find a way
out of imminent death (which does suggest faster brain processing and is
actually the opposite of what he is suggesting).

It seems to me his interpretation of the data could be wrong, there are more
than one way to read his results. We may not be processing more 'frames per
second' in order to read the watch but we may be consciously assessing more
items in our vision than normal in order to try find an escape route.

Instinct hasn't worked and now the brain is trying higher order conscious
brain power to find an escape route from imminent death? Now _that_ you could
easily argue from a Darwinian perspective.

I'm just guessing here.

~~~
maushu
Actually, this might be a result of natural selection. The beings that can be
in 'the zone' have a higher probability of surviving and so they did.

Regarding the 'frames per second', I think just because your brain just hit
nitro, it doesn't mean your eyes will 'see' faster. It just increases the
information gathering ability of each 'frame' you see.

~~~
nopassrecover
Higher than those who try and avoid life/death situations though?

~~~
maushu
No plan survives contact with the enemy. No matter how much you try you can't
avoid life/death situations.

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muyyatin
Wouldn't finding that the watch was still a 'blur' lead one to conclude that
brushes with death don't speed up the Human Visual System?

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runT1ME
Si if I read a book with a gun to my head, I might actually retain more
knowledge...

~~~
devinj
Yes. But not quite for that reason. A gun next to your head will make it
stressful, and stress in general improves memory (even more than other
emotions, thanks to the amygdala's dual role in memory and stress responses).
But maybe instead of doing that, you should put your feet in ice-water or
something.

~~~
philwelch
Short term stress responses improve cognitive function (including memory).
Long term, chronic stress reduces it. Cortisol is a hell of a drug.

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c00p3r
Put it simple - in a very stressful situation your brain use less deletion and
distortion, or even more simple - the internal spam filtering turns off. ^_^

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gowiththeflow
I could have told him that 10 years ago from years of experience in cramming
just a few hours before tests and exams.

