Time Slow Down

[Leo Volont]

Time Slowing Down Many of us have had dreams where it seems that time slows down. I had always thought that such time Slow Downs were linked to high stress adrenaline producing situations, and that time slows down in order to give us the advantage of seeming to have more time to react to crucial and dangerous situations. And now I seem to have some verification in a recently published best selling book, “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. In one chapter Gladwell tells of instances where police officers in extremely dangerous situations had experienced time slowdowns. Also, he tells that even some athletes during important playoff games had experienced these slow downs, thus giving them an extra edge in their game. I had always suspected that the best martial artists employed some control over their adrenaline in order to induce these time slow downs, as we can see clearly enough that they could not possibly be thinking as fast as they are moving – they must either be thinking faster or finding a way to slow down time in order to keep up with their perceptions. However, there is a catch to these adrenaline rushes. It seems that this Time Slow Down occurs with the release of adrenaline but only when the heart rate stays at just a moderately high rate. If the heart rate climbs from the optimum rate of about 125 to 150 to 175 and 200 beats per minute, then this apparent time slow down, which aids us in the best “fight or flight” reactions, instead begins to paralyze us – it channels blood flow away from the surface skin and external muscle groups and conducts it rather down into the deep musculature transforming it into a kind of armor which helps one to take a beating with the least risk of broken bone or external bleeding with its danger of excessive blood loss. Also, as the heart rate climbs to the extreme, the brain’s activity changes. Awareness and Consciousness depart from the higher centers and retreat back into the more residually animal sections of the brain. People in these panic attacks lose the ability to articulate their thoughts – they can roar or scream, but they cannot speak. So, it probably takes more than just a release of adrenaline to induce one of these optimum experiences of Time Slow Down. Now, when I have had dreams of Time Slow Down, and when I have had motorcycle accidents in which Time Slow Down had been instrumental in helping me to preserve my life, or the few times I had engaged in hand to hand combat and ax fights, what I have noticed was that I was able to maintain an emotional neutrality. One may suppose that one needs ‘fear’ in order to release Adrenaline, but actually one only requires ‘danger’. The police would say that all it would take was a suspect drawing a gun – they felt no fear, but were certainly aware of the extreme danger into which their situation had plummeted. There is a difference – fear is emotional, while danger is discerned instinctively and is emotionally neutral. I suppose one needs to be able to feel a degree of detachment. If one is too present, then fear might revolve into panic, and then one can only roll up into a solid little ball and hope to survive with the strategy of being a tortoise in a shell. But with just a little bit of distance, depersonalization – the thought of “this really isn’t happening to me” – one can hit that adrenaline rush with enough peace of mind to keep the heart rate controlled and one’s faculties present, so that the Time Slow Down can be used to most advantage – where, ‘Matrix’ style, one can see the bullets coming and get out of their way.

[Gwendolyn]

This is an interesting topic, Leo. The things our bodies do and have the power to do are interesting to almost no end.

[Slacker]

I've always though of it as sort of an "overdrive" mode, where your brain speeds up only for a short amount of time. This always happens to me when something sudden and unexpected happens, like someone comes up from the side or behind me, or something comes flying at me, i always feel like i have some extra time to react, and people always comment on my reflexes. Time distortion is an interesting idea, and i believe we are capable of it to some extent. Take people who see flashes of the future in dreams, obviously if that really happens time can be manipulated.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Slacker I've always though of it as sort of an "overdrive" mode, where your brain speeds up only for a short amount of time. This always happens to me when something sudden and unexpected happens, like someone comes up from the side or behind me, or something comes flying at me, i always feel like i have some extra time to react, and people always comment on my reflexes. Time distortion is an interesting idea, and i believe we are capable of it to some extent. Take people who see flashes of the future in dreams, obviously if that really happens time can be manipulated. Well, although Time can be plotted on a chart, it is only a function joining Rate and Distance... and really has no Real Existence of its own. Our Consciousness can perceive the experience of Time, and our Memories are scanned against the charted dimension of Time. But Time, as a Real Dimension, simply does not exist in any Real way. For instance, the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as close to God as She is has no absolute picture of the Future. She only knows what God Will do, in the same way that we know we will go to work in the morning only because that is what we have planned to do. If God has any insight into the Future it is only from having a more complete knowledge of the Present, which he can project forward, as we can guess where a boat will go by seeing by its wake where it has been and infer from that its future course. So, if indeed people have had valid premonitions, then this must reflect not a real view of a future moment, as Time does not exist as a Real Dimension, but it must indicate that a Will or Intent has been communicated. It must be that some Angel has communicated his plan to intervene with such a scheduled action, or imparted the knowledge that somebody has some will or plan to implement what we would have a vision or prophecy of.

[ModestMouse]

In one of the Dune books by Frank Herbert there is a guy who is being tortured and is able to make time move so slow he moves through the entire complex and snaps everyone's neck before they have time to react. Herbert was interested in what effects stress has on the human body.

[ModestMouse]

Originally posted by Leo Volont Well, although Time can be plotted on a chart, it is only a function joining Rate and Distance... and really has no Real Existence of its own. *Our Consciousness can perceive the experience of Time, and our Memories are scanned against the charted dimension of Time. I once had a physics proffessor in ask the class. "What is time?" he received many answers like this, that described time , but did not answer the question of what IS time? The answer? Time is what a clock measures.

[nesgirl119]

Yeah, I have slown time down in many of my dreams, but in one of them.....it was incredibly weird...time slows so much, I get really distorted!! Here was the dream I had that night!!: Now, this one was awfully weird last night, as usual, I leave the bed I was currently sleeping in at about 12:30AM. I went to meet Cody, and I met him in this unusual place, which shined like a star, but wasn't as much beautiful and high (as I could sense) as the first other dimension I went to. It was kind of parallel to XP5, and seemed to share the same feelings as that place (though I am sure there are reasonable areas we could have been). He asked if I still wanted to go to a movie, and I told him no. We then talked for what seemed like 11 hours in this weird dimension full of many other ...?ers, and some dead people, who seemed to be flying higher. I tell him I have got to get back to bed now, or I am going to miss recording a show for my niece. He accepts this, as I leave the area, I note that I am not far from home. It is as if in a ...?, you can teleport between dimensions....er something. I got back at 1:30AM, and I thought to myself, "Wait a minute? How come it seemed like I spent a half day out there in +5PX (parallel to XP5), while it was really only 1 hour?" I go back to bed wondering over these things.[/b] Luckily, I knew I was totally dreaming, so it wasn't that bad, except I kept on trying to struggle out of SP in real time afterwards...

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by ModestMouse In one of the Dune books by Frank Herbert there is a guy who is being tortured and is able to make time move so slow he moves through the entire complex and snaps everyone's neck before they have time to react. Herbert was interested in what effects stress has on the human body. We need to understand that here TIME is a subjective impression, and a matter of perceptual resolution -- like in the way a Slow Motion Camera operates by exposing film at a greatly increased speed, while playing it back normally, giving only the impression of slow motion, but not actually slowing down TIME. In a Time Slow Down the best one can do is to focus one performing every action most deliberately and efficiently. That will give the athlete or martial artist an incremental degree of swiftnest, and their increased resolution in perception would make them difficult to beat unless one was on the same level (which would be turning the Game or Battle into something akin to a chess match). But the body would still be held within the limits of its own possibilities, and would still be subject to strains and fatiques. You see, that is the problem with Sci Fi. Everyone of serious mind has abandoned that genre, and everyone who is left is willing to accept the silliest crap, which only encourages the authors, who are selling enough books to feel satisfied with themselves, to write more of the same. Really, one should completely dismiss that entire field of literature, not as some harsh critic, but one who feels that they had all chosen their own exile when they turned their back on solid common sense.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by ModestMouse+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ModestMouse)</div> <!--QuoteBegin-Leo Volont Well, although Time can be plotted on a chart, it is only a function joining Rate and Distance... and really has no Real Existence of its own. *Our Consciousness can perceive the experience of Time, and our Memories are scanned against the charted dimension of Time. I once had a physics proffessor in ask the class. "What is time?" he received many answers like this, that described time , but did not answer the question of what IS time? The answer? Well, jeez, that is what I and all of his students have agreed upon, isn't it, that TIME has no separate reality of its own... it is NOT a dimension. And if some silly Professor thinks he can torment a class until somebody DOES come up with some prevaricating and too inventive explanation, then he is doing a disservice. However, on further consideration, I can suppose that the Professor only wished to demonstrate the point that nearly everybody understood, except yourself, that the only wrong answer regarding TIME would be the positive answer that you go on continuing to expect. Time is what a clock measures.[/b]