Can We Alter Our Perception of Time?

Einstein once remarked that "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second, but when you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour." In other words we don't always perceive the passing of time in the same way.

Of course, Einstein was famous for his theory of relativity that shows how space and time are really part of the same thing. It shows that time is completely dependant on movement: without the rhythms of the Earth and moon, the movement of light and other sensory information entering our bodies and brain, and the oscillations of our brain's neurons we would not be experiencing time.

Time is not something that exists in any real way; it is merely the endless flow of movements and changes. Another quote from Einstein: "People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubborn persistent illusion."

Another physicist, Richard P. Feynman, wrote: "What we mean by 'right now' is a mysterious thing which we cannot define... 'now' is an idea or concept of our mind; it is not something that is really definable physically at the moment."

Our perception of time is created by our brains. Certain drugs can alter this mechanism and make time seem to pass slower or quicker. If you think this is weird, it gets weirder. Experiments have shown that your decision to do something, such as make a 'conscious' movement comes before you have actually consciously decided to make that movement!

In other words, our unconscious mind is more or less in control of our actions, but we have the illusion that it was our consciousness that drives them. Some psychologists say that the only way that this illusion is maintained is that we have a system in our brains that gives us a false impression of time, so that we think we decided something a fraction of a second earlier than we really did.

Our perception of time also depends on our culture. The way we experience time in the West is different to that of people who lived in other cultures in the past. We have what has been called a 'linear' perception of time: we basically think of time as like a line that stretches from the past into the future. Most people, to some extent, seem to visualise time. They might not even realise they are doing it, but when they think of the past, they think of something to the left, or behind them, while when they think of the future they think of something to the right, or something in front of them.

Of course, we are a highly visual species. Perhaps dolphins - whose brains are more specialised at processing sound - think of time more in terms of the flow of noises. We will probably never know how other animals perceive time but it is unlikely they experience it in exactly the same way as us. Ever wonder why that fly is able to fly off so easily every time you try to swat it? Maybe what you perceive as the quick movement of your hand is perceived as extremely slow by the fly, giving it plenty of 'time' to respond.

Equally, past cultures did not develop the same view of time as us. The Chinese and Indian civilisations developed a different conception of time from what we have in the West. While the Chinese developed meticulous time-keeping, they placed more of an emphasis on the past - or 'ancestral time' - than the present. The immediate ancestors were revered and people worked hard and tried to do good, in memory of their ancestors. Indian civilisation developed a more subjective view of time, and didn't keep such objective records of when things occurred. Similarly, the Australian aborigines have a concept of time that has been called the 'dreamtime'. This is not actually a reference to a mythical past, as most people seem to think it is, but it's rather a sort of view of eternity, or of all times co-existing at once. In other words both the Indians and the Aboriginals didn't develop the idea that we in the West have of time existing as a real thing, outside of ourselves.

There is another fact about our perception of time that not many people consider: our consciousness is forever trapped in 'the present'. Time may appear to be going slowly or quickly, but we are always in the present. This fact about consciousness does not apply to anything else in the universe. Even a computer's 'thinking' (i.e. its calculations) can in theory be re-wound and replayed in exactly the same manner. It's not tied to the present moment like we are. This suggests that somehow, in ways we don't yet understand, our consciousness is very closely connected to what we call time.

Yet even if our inner clock cannot be 'rewound' like that of a computer, it can run at different speeds. As mentioned before, certain drugs can change our perception of time. Psychologists call such an effect 'tachypsychia', while martial arts experts call it the Tachy Psyche effect. Maybe in the future safe, non-addictive drugs will be developed to allow us to deliberately change our perception of time. These effects can also be induced by a traumatic event of physical exertion, such as involvement in a violent confrontation. It may even be a natural response that our ancestors evolved to help them escape danger. If you can slow down your perception of time, then you can react quicker to being attacked by a predator. Another example of our perception of time being altered is as we age: most people report that as they get older, time seems to pass more quickly

Most people also find that time 'flies' when they are absorbed in doing something, and drags when they are bored. Recent experiments have looked into this, and it seems that when we are absorbed in a task we are less likely to be paying attention to time, therefore we don't notice it passing so much. This implies that the speed at which time seems to be passing for us depends on how regularly we are keeping check on it.

But such experiments have also found a paradox: if someone looks back on a time when they were busy, they will estimate that it was a longer period of time than it really was. Yet when someone looks back on a time of boredom, when not much was happening, they will estimate it was shorter. Therefore if you keep busy time will seem to go more quickly, but looking back you will feel that you had more time than if you had done less.

So perhaps the best way to live life is to keep busy doing lots of things, but also keep track of the passing of time. Maybe keeping a diary is the best way to do this. That way time won't seem to fly past quite so quickly, and you will also have plenty to look back on.

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." - Buddha

For more lost arts of the mind, please read my book: The Lost Arts of the Mind

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