Accelerated time

[SlavaOn]

Hello.

Over the last several years I keep having the feeling that the time is accelerating. It could have been attributed to the fact that aging changes the time perception naturally and this is what I was noticing. Then from conversations with younger people and my daughters, I gathered that they also noticed that time is "flowing" faster.

Provided that there is no time and it is only an artificial construct, so that there is nothing to feel; and it is just the rate of changes that we call time, what is it then that we sense?

Did you have that feeling too?

SlavaOn

 

[shijing]

Did you have that feeling too?

Yes. I also wondered if it had to do with altered perception of time due to aging, but I've talked to several people who have the same perception in the past year, some of whom are much younger than me, so I don't think it's that. One thought I had was that it might have to do with the total amount of information we're having to process at various levels relative to 'constant' time -- if the computational load is becoming greater relative to the amount of time in which a certain amount of computation is usually done, it could give the the subjective impression of time speeding up. In any case, things are supposed to be "quickening" -- who knows exactly what that means or why.

 

[Siberia]

Hello.

Over the last several years I keep having the feeling that the time is accelerating. It could have been attributed to the fact that aging changes the time perception naturally and this is what I was noticing. Then from conversations with younger people and my daughters, I gathered that they also noticed that time is "flowing" faster.

Provided that there is no time and it is only an artificial construct, so that there is nothing to feel; and it is just the rate of changes that we call time, what is it then that we sense?

Did you have that feeling too?

SlavaOn

I have this feeling too. Curious, I'm currently reading a book on the same subject (time perception, time anomalies, etc. :).

I interpret this phenomenon to myself as a rapidly raising awareness. About one year ago I was living a routine life when suddenly I decided to scan my belief system for 'bugs', so to speak. Nobody advised me to do so, it just happened. I was jumping from one author to another very quickly (a bit of Gurdjieff, a bit of Castaneda, Ra Materials in full, and then - The Wave). I have never heard of any of these books before. Nobody advised me to read them. Why I read these particular books in this particular order - I don't know. But when a few months ago I suddenly came across The Wave series, a felt like I was sleeping for the most part of my life and then I woke up. When you are sleeping, all processes run slowly, and when you wake up, time 'accelerates' for you - this is how I feel.

And I am immensely grateful to everyone here for waking me up :)

 

[Siberia]

Also curious, that at the time when I saw this thread and paused to write a reply, I was reading the following part of the Cs' transcripts:

Session 4 March 1995:

Q: (L) What can we do to accelerate this process, this uniting, this moving from STS to STO?

A: 8 Questions at once.

Q: (L) Maybe I will just say a little bit of what I think it is.

A: Okay.

Q: (L) Part of my perception of this is seeing that whatever that whatever I have or receive is shared with the group in terms of my time, my energy, my thoughts, my finances, and everything that is related to that, is that correct?

I stopped here and started writing my reply :).

 

[Gawan]

Same here and I recently had a talk with someone who had a similar feeling about it that time flies, also when he was several years younger. There was a post/topic on the forum which discussed time and that it is sometimes subjective how we perceive time and it went also in a similar direction a Shijing described about age, but I couldn't find that topic and post unfortunately.

 

[Keit]

Yep, definitely experience the same and also heard other people (younger than me) noticing it. There is so much going on, the feeling is like being in a free fall, and you just try to make the best on your way down. But who knows what will happen in the end. :)

Some time ago I read something about experiences and perception of time. Don't remember where exactly, maybe even on the forum. And it said (if I remember correctly) that perception of time depends on the intensity and novelty of the experience. Perhaps new experiences that require more involvement and more attention (those that create new brain pathways) would feel as "longer" than those that are "routine"? They need more time to be "digested" and integrated.

In my personal case, there was a period in my life when I went through a pretty serious crisis. My whole system was in a state of major friction and shock. And one of the things that characterized this period, was that time passed extremely slow, while in reality, in the world outside my mind, everything remained and progressed the same as before.

Using both information theory and computer analogies, it's like my system was introduced with a large amount of information and was trying simultaniously both "unzip" and analyze this information, and in the same amount of time. Maybe it is similar to dreaming, when we think that we dreamed for an hour, while in reality it took only couple of minutes.

So maybe this time we experience "an outside" acceleration. A massive influx of information into the system that is our reality/outside world. And we are parts and elements of this system, that is like a river that gradually accelerates its flow. Maybe we basically face a sort of challenge here of who will be able to adapt to the changes and in what way. And maybe increasing receivership capability may play a role with being able to "read" the changes and thus avoid dangerous turns and pits, or use it to sail through the waters more quickly and smoothly.

 

[Nević Nenad]

I noticed the same in a last few recent years too.

And with that, in a way related, I noticed that some people are aging very fast lately. I know that it is very individual and genetic related but you almost can see them looking significantly older day by day. That people also seems to be less conscious and deep into 3D way of life, just like if they are following the accelerated time flow. Just few days ago I met school friend, we didnt met some 5-6 years, he is now bald, with fat stomach, with health problems etc, he now looks at least 10 years older than me. His response was "what do you want, life is hard!". By the way, his life was easier and much more in order (by all the 3D rules) than for example mine . . .

I'm probably blabbing again, but there it is :)

 

[sacriface]

I also have that feeling. And would even say that most people I know have it too, which methinks, out rules the idea of sole suggestion as a result of acquiring information from the C's, reading the Wave, etc. and generally having a different outlook on the idea of linear time and such.

Once I tried to detect this change through analyzing my everyday schedule, the amount of things that have to be done and whether it's continuously increasing in density over the years, but that seems to fluctuate, and the impression of this quickening is rather steady.

Also related to this, there is a feeling I get sometimes like something's different, that something "in the air" changed from lack of better term. Had it again a couple of weeks ago, just upon waking up and looking out the window which is always the first thing I do.

This too was mentioned in the C's communications, although first I encountered this idea in Barbara Marciniak's "Bringers Of The Dawn" few years ago and had an "aha!" moment, because I wondered about that at times, before knowing that it was even ever addressed in any way.

 

[obyvatel]

Here are a few other threads where the perception of time have been discussed.

The modified time
Professor write ups: "Why time appears to speed up with age"
What is the brain's timing/clock mechanism?

In my experience, a high degree of immersion in an activity while staying relaxed (parasympathetic nervous system dominates) is accompanied by a sense of time slowing down. It may seem like 10 minutes when a couple of hours have passed by. Conversely, a state of high arousal (sympathetic nervous system dominates) is accompanied by a sense of time getting faster. When there is a sense of being overwhelmed, events appear to be happening faster.

[quote author=Keit]
Maybe it is similar to dreaming, when we think that we dreamed for an hour, while in reality it took only couple of minutes.
[/quote]

During dreams, I have no perception of time duration. When I remember dreams, it appears as a sequence of events only - like slides in a projector. I guess I can infer some duration based on the content of the dream but there is no intrinsic sense of time associated with the dream itself.

 

[Carl]

Yep, definitely experience the same and also heard other people (younger than me) noticing it. There is so much going on, the feeling is like being in a free fall, and you just try to make the best on your way down. But who knows what will happen in the end. :)

Some time ago I read something about experiences and perception of time. Don't remember where exactly, maybe even on the forum. And it said (if I remember correctly) that perception of time depends on the intensity and novelty of the experience. Perhaps new experiences that require more involvement and more attention (those that create new brain pathways) would feel as "longer" than those that are "routine"? They need more time to be "digested" and integrated.

In my personal case, there was a period in my life when I went through a pretty serious crisis. My whole system was in a state of major friction and shock. And one of the things that characterized this period, was that time passed extremely slow, while in reality, in the world outside my mind, everything remained and progressed the same as before.

I can relate to what you say Keit, about crisis and novelty tending to slow down time in the moment subjectively. However there is another point I've noticed, that of the difference between the "experiencing self" and the "remembering self" (covered in Thinking Fast and Slow).

For the experiencing self, time can be very subjective, strange, and "bendy", and whenever in a kind of crisis situation I notice that my 'in the moment' experience of it it slows down to a grinding crawl. The remembering self doesn't actually remember this lasting very long, and only remembers certain key points. This comes back to the part in the book where they describe the studies showing how duration of a painful event does not matter, and it is more about the peak level of pain, and especially the level of pain received right at the end of the experience.
However, looking back, it seems that my life before the new year 2014 was just that: A different life. A different reality. It feels like it could have happened years ago instead of only 3 months

To take another personal point of reference, the few months around spring/summer 2013 were packed with novelty, and it was a fairly exciting time. The sun was shining, things were moving, I was very busy and very engaged. Looking back, this roughly 6 month period feels like it did not last very long at all, and back then I remember commenting often on how time felt like an ever-accelerating train, to the point where it was quite scary.

Obyvatel's suggestion of parasympathetic vs. sympathetic arousal is a good basic model regarding the subjectivity of time. It also most definitely includes the magnitude of choices currently being made, thus the 'speed' at which you are 'changing realities'

 

[luc]

Same here, in fact, I spoke with my wife this morning about how last week has "flown by"!

What I find interesting is that my perception is a bit contradictory in the sense that on the one hand, time "flies by", on the other hand when I think of last week-end, for example, or of other events in the last weeks/months, I feel they are much more far away...

Some time ago I read something about experiences and perception of time. Don't remember where exactly, maybe even on the forum. And it said (if I remember correctly) that perception of time depends on the intensity and novelty of the experience. Perhaps new experiences that require more involvement and more attention (those that create new brain pathways) would feel as "longer" than those that are "routine"? They need more time to be "digested" and integrated.

That is my thinking as well - maybe the more we start to perceive/become aware, the less "routine" there is and this increased intensity changes our perception of time?

Same here and I recently had a talk with someone who had a similar feeling about it that time flies, also when he was several years younger. There was a post/topic on the forum which discussed time and that it is sometimes subjective how we perceive time and it went also in a similar direction a Shijing described about age, but I couldn't find that topic and post unfortunately.

Maybe you mean this thread: Age and "Time" ?

 

[Gawan]

Same here and I recently had a talk with someone who had a similar feeling about it that time flies, also when he was several years younger. There was a post/topic on the forum which discussed time and that it is sometimes subjective how we perceive time and it went also in a similar direction a Shijing described about age, but I couldn't find that topic and post unfortunately.

Maybe you mean this thread: Age and "Time" ?

Thank you for the suggestion Luc, but Obyvatel found it:

The modified time

And especially the post from Zadius I remembered.

 

[theos]

What I find interesting is that my perception is a bit contradictory in the sense that on the one hand, time "flies by", on the other hand when I think of last week-end, for example, or of other events in the last weeks/months, I feel they are much more far away...

I feel the same way. I just moved and all the preparation that took place to organize that seems like it took place long, long ago.

from: _http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jan/01/psychology-time-perception-awareness-research

Gil and Droit-Volet have also worked on the perception of time when the face of someone close expresses a secondary emotion such as shame. Seeing someone looking ashamed prompts the observer to understand the cause of this feeling. "This reflective activity distracts attention from time-processing, so that estimated time seems shorter than it really is," Droit-Volet says. Only after the age of eight, when children have learned the meaning of shame, does this tendency to underestimate time appear.

The theory of embodied mind (or cognition) helps explain how the perception of other people's emotions changes our sense of time. Embodied cognition hinges on an internal process that mimics or simulates another's emotional state, enabling us to tune in and understand their feeling. Accordingly, when a teenager spends time with a senior who speaks and walks more slowly, the young person's internal clock slows down. There is also a subjective slowing of time, which enhances social interaction between the two people.

Droit-Volet and her colleagues have shown that inhibiting this mimicry process by freezing the facial expressions of the observer – simply by putting a pen in their mouth – prevents this empathetic shift. The internal clock remains steady, regardless of the emotion perceived in the other. Other studies have shown that a person who has been "botoxed" has greater difficulty recognising other people's emotional expressions and is less empathetic towards them.

"Our perception of time is very revealing of our emotional state," says Droit-Volet, pointing out that temporal distortion caused by emotion is not the result of a malfunction in the internal clock, but on the contrary an illustration of its remarkable ability to adapt to events around us. She adds: "There is no single, uniform time, but rather multiple times which we experience. Our temporal distortions are a direct translation of the way in which our brain and body adapt to these multiple times, the times of life."

Pertaining to the part in bold, maybe this perception of time flying is related to the hystericization of society and people seeming to be "freaking out" in all manner of ways. Tuning into this hyper-emotionality on a societal level could lead to the perception that time is speeding up. Plus, factor in the approaching Wave and the hyperkinetic sensate that comes along with it and time could really be perceived to by flying by.