Psyche Topic
Sunday's Rose. Photo captured downtown Sioux Falls in late fall 2005.For my paper in psyche this semester I think I will do time perception. We are currently studying memory, capacity, sensory store and attention. Right now I am fascinated by the perception of time. When you are young, time goes so slow. A day lasts forever. Especially a bad one. When you are busy, time goes especially fast. When you are having fun, there is no time - it is already gone, thus the cliche... I thought this would be a great topic for a blog.
When I rolled my car, I remember dirt and glass slowly flying at me. In that short amount of time, I could feel every speck of dirt and glass. Since I was rolling upside-down my perception of reality was really skewed, but it was slow. I remember the speedometer when I was on the ground and the helplessness after. The dirt and glass kept flying but there was no pain, no panic, no sound, just sight and feeling. Then when the car finally landed on its wheels again, I remember it taking a second to adjust and then trying to start the already running car and drive. When I got out, I started walking. I was walking into a cornfield.
I had the same kind of slo-mo experience once again going into the ditch with my lame date a few years ago on New Year's Eve. I was slowly going around like in the tilt-a-whirl, but incredibly slower. I am such a high strung person that I surprised myself with my calmness. "here I go again", I thought. Wee!! I was even thinking about how nice it was that I was able to maintain my straight posture throughout the whole thing. I also remember thinking that I was glad it was his vehicle not mine... (can you tell how much I liked this guy?) I was also thinking that I was done with this idiot. Well, that's all beside the point. The point is that I was very rational and calm and I thought a lot of stuff when we were spinning into the ditch.
What apparently happens is that all your attention is devoted to the one event. When you are busy or having fun you focus on different stimuli. The amount of stimuli is increased and time speeds by. When you are in a situation where you are alarmed, whether a car accident, a robbery, some dire situation, your attention is highly focused on all that is going on. When you have a bad day, I believe it probably is focused on the the minutia and time stands still.
So, my question to all my readers is: Have you had a time when time slowed down? A slo-mo situation...? What do you remember? At what point did time slow down and when did it go back to normal? What senses did you experience? Seeing, feeling, smelling, etc.?
9 comments:
Some might read your post and go "ho hum." I am fascinated by it. It rings familiar but I can't think of an incident off hand.
I do remember times when time was missing. When I was ten or eleven I fell into the horses' manger in my grandpa's barn. The next thing I knew I was walking up the road with someone and a car came along and then I was in a doctor's office. (I had fallen on a spike that somehow hit me in the back although it wasn't logical that I would have done a flip in that short distance.)
I remember thinking how odd this all was.
I really love your brain.
POOKA
One thing comes to mind for some reason. An inch-worm being dropped from a car window, silhouetted against the sunlight.
(wavy flashback effect here)
We were kids all stuffed into the back of the Volvo on vacation to somewhere. It seems we were traveling east in my mind. ?! I think we'd gotten fast food and had McD's fries and such. We found the aforementioned worm in the back seat or something, and I think we each took turns playing with it. At some point either you or Renee (I think this may have been before Becky or she was in the front seat (safe back then because there were no airbags!)), got bored with the little fella and wanted to throw him out the window of the moving car. I yelped "No" or something similar and you (or Renee) asked if I wanted to hold it until we stopped next. I didn't and out he went. I remember his back arching as he was set loose from the finger.
(end wavy flashback effect here)
Not exactly Sophie's Choice, but something I felt guilty about, frozen in time.
You are bordering on the metaphysical which often happens when psychology is taken to its limits. Time is hard to define. I used to try to trap "now" for just a moment. I thought I could somehow enter it and stay there long enough to be able to see before and after clearly without being swept along.
POOKA
Eric - Unusual, yet unusual. Have you thought of therapy? Kidding, of course.
Pooka - your son needs therapy... I, find myself afraid that I will think myself into myself. I am afraid that I will be sucked into my own thoughts. A metaphysical fatal loop. In programming we had to be careful not to program a fatal loop. Such a loop would result in the program endlessly processing with no stop. This I would like to avoid. It is the mirror reflection in a mirror, etc.
Does it seem to you that things are more like they are today than they have ever been?
No, I want to avoid those loops. Have you seen "What the bleep?" I know it has a lot of critics but it does stimulate some new perspectives.
I keep think that time is reachable and that if I just had the right formula I could move into the past or future.
Given that distances in space are so huge maybe the only way we can travel is by thought. Physics can only take us so far.
POOKA
Have you ever known anyone to have a double major in physics and psychology? Perhaps there have been, but they just went *-poof!-*
Great post, and I know what you're talking about but nothing comes to mind. Sorry.
nice to meet u.
what does Morticia means?
my name is yesin.A sophomore in china.
it's realy nice to visit your blog.
it's interested and is helpful for me to improve my english~~
yesin,
Thanks for reading!! Morticia is a woman in an old television show that was macabre. She would get roses from her husband and cut the tops off, leaving the stems in a vase. I use Morticia as my "name" for my blog, because I find the world funny and sometimes dark, like Morticia.
I am glad that my blog is helping you with your English! Keep reading and I hope I won't disappoint you!
Ande
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