When Time Slows Down

It's very real. I used to tell people about experiencing this
when I raced karts years ago. You're 6 inches away from other
racers at a high speed and everything around you outside the
immediate vicinity of the group of karts was just a blur. Yet
what was unfolding in front of and to the sides of you would
seem like a slow motion ballet. Like your brain speeds up it's
processing of info to the point it has to wait for things to happen.



"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
...
Do you ever experience the sensation that time is slowing down for you?
E.G. Your brain and motor functions are moving at normal speed, but
everything around you has slowed down?

I've had this sensation more than a few times. A couple of times when I
was in auto accidents (not my fault) and could see the whole thing slowly
unfolding around me. Another situation where things seem to move in slow
motion is when I'm riding as passenger in a light airplane and we're in
the landing phase. Approach and touchdown seems to be in slow motion when
someone else is flying.

Occasionally, like this evening, I get the slow-mo feeling when I'm
landing the airplane. The white stripes are passing slowly, the airplane
is gently settling towards the runway, and I can pick whether to land on
the left main, right main, tailwheel, all three at once, or any two of the
three, with the third to follow whenever I want, and the airplane seems to
be at taxi speed as soon as I touch down.

What's up with that, and where do I sign up for more?

Jim,

Do you mean like a common car starter?
Sounds like you blew out a bunch, of starters causing excessive explosive
dust and the water created the electrical pathway?

Holly bombs Batman!

Pat Thronson
Babb, MT

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...

snippage

Yep... been there. blowing out magnetic starters with an air hose... guess
there was a little water in the line.

Hmm... that feels funny.... what's going on? BANG!!!! wow, that was
loud... what the heck is that? funny how I can't see, but I can hear
everything....knocked off my feet... hmm, nothing hurts... flying through
the air... this is just weird.... landing on my ass... ouch... knew
something was going to hurt... took forever

On the other hand, I flew over the handle bars of a bike and broke my
shoulder and my collar bone, it happened in such a flash that I couldn't
figure out what happened.

It's very real. I used to tell people about experiencing this
when I raced karts years ago. You're 6 inches away from other
racers at a high speed and everything around you outside the
immediate vicinity of the group of karts was just a blur. Yet
what was unfolding in front of and to the sides of you would
seem like a slow motion ballet. Like your brain speeds up it's
processing of info to the point it has to wait for things to happen.

The brain is an amazing organ. When I was 15, I was involved in a car
accident that, by rights, should have killed me. We hit an oak tree
head-on at over 40 mph (and accelerating -- the driver mistook the gas for
the brake) and the tree didn't budge an inch. The car stopped in about 3
feet, with the tree touching the windshield frame, and the car's engine and
transmission shoved into the back seat.

When I close my eyes I can still see every nanosecond of that accident.
Each frame took several seconds, although, of course, that's not possible.
I can see my friend driving, I can hear myself shouting, I can see the tree
in the headlights... Here comes the windshield -- this is gonna
hurt...bang!

Next thing I know, I'm outside the car, trying to figure out if everyone
else is okay. The whole thing seemed to take a full minute, from up the
curb, down the curb, and into the tree.

Very occasionally I'll get this sensation while flying. When that happens,
I can set the left wheel, then the right wheel (or vice versa) onto the
runway, ala Bob Hoover. Everything seems to be happening much more slowly
than normal, and everything is very easy.

Less often (luckily) I've also had it the other way, where everything is
happening too quickly, and I feel behind the plane. This happened a lot
more often when I was a new pilot, of course.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Pat Thronson" wrote

Do you mean like a common car starter?
Sounds like you blew out a bunch, of starters causing excessive explosive
dust and the water created the electrical pathway?

I'm not sure, but with you saying, "car starter" I think you don't know what
type of device he was blowing out.

For starting devices, like large electric motors, which require lots of
voltage (480 is for a BIG motor2, and big motors use lots of amps, too) a
switch can not handle that much power.

The solution is to let the switch to start the motor energize an
electro-magnet, which pulls a set of contacts shut, which are sized to
handle that much power.

When you want to shut off the machine, you shut off the power to the
electro-magnet, which lets a spring pull the contacts apart, thus stopping
the massive flow of electricity.

The device is called a magnetic starter, and yes, when he blew it out, the
water in the air hose made a path for the voltage in the box to flow up to,
and through his body.

And yes, holly bomb, Batman.

I have had 120 volts use me for a wire many times, and 240 volts, a couple
times. I hope I never have 480 volts use me, because the 240 was WAY MORE
than enough!
--
Jim in NC

On 2005-09-14, Kyle Boatright wrote:
Do you ever experience the sensation that time is slowing down for you?
E.G. Your brain and motor functions are moving at normal speed, but
everything around you has slowed down?

It even has a name, "tachy-somethingorother" and it's really bothering
me that I can't remember the name given to this phenomenon. It is very
common during an accident.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

With your auto accident, you are more referring to recalling a
situation in more detail after it happens. During the accident, your
brain realizes this is an urgent/life threatening situation, so it
released chemicals into your blood stream and started taking in a lot
of input and rapidly storing it. Think of it like one of those high
speed cameras recording at thousands of frames per second. You don't
actually see/experience every 'frame' of the input. Later when you
recall the situation, your brain can go thru every frame of the high
speed recording in vivid detail.

This is very similar to what causes Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Another related phenomenon is what some refer to as being 'in the
zone'. It isn't triggered by a sudden extreme situation as the
above is, but by intense mental concentration.

When the subject's mental concentration gets high enough, the brain
releases chemicals as well, not only to record more input in higher
detail at higher speeds, but to have sections of the brain repurpose
themselves to process and act on this new detail. The chemicals make
the brain run at a higher speed, like over clocking your CPU from
500MHz to 750MHz. The parts of the brain that normally did other parts
now working on processing the information is like adding another CPU or
two to your system. Suddenly the brain has several times more
processing power to review and react to all the new input than it does
normally.

Another way the brain can increase the focus is by essentially
discarding input that it believes isn't critical to surviving in the
situation. Most people will say that they suddenly couldn't hear
anything during an extreme situation. The other effect (and the most
dangerous one) is the narrowing of the visual sense. This is commonly
referred to as 'tunnel vision'. The brain discards visual input
from the far sides of the field of view and concentrates on center. If
things get really serious, the vision will drop unnecessary colours
going all the way to black and white, if needed.

The truth is, the subjects aren't going deaf, but the brain is trying
to use the audio processing centers of the brain for extra visual
analysis and also to stop what it thinks are extraneous sounds from
interrupting the brain concentrating on the visual processing and
reaction. The same is happening with vision in tunneling. The brain
doesn't want visual distractions off to the side disturbing it while
it focuses on what is right ahead. The parts of the brain that used to
monitor / process the vision on the side can help process all the extra
input / frames coming in from the center of view. If there is still too
much information to handle, colour information will be stripped away to
reduce the 'size' of each visual frame in order to speed up
processing.

If one can get the brain into the right mix of running at higher speed,
repurposing certain parts, but not going so far as to discard sound and
visual input, significantly higher than normal performance is possible.

If you ever do find yourself in a situation with 'time slowing
down', turn your head and verify you can see everything around you to
keep your situation awareness. Also try and confirm that you can still
hear and react to sounds or commands given via audio. While you may
feel like a superman, getting tunnel vision can be disastrous.

These conditions are common in law enforcement, especially in a long
high speed chase. Tunnel vision can cause the officer to not see an
innocent car or pedestrian off to the side who is entering the chase
path unaware of the speeding cars. The 'going deaf' symptom can be
life threatening during the chase by not hearing radio communications
and also after the chase when the officer is approaching the suspect.
The officer doesn't realize he can't hear, and other officers
behind him are unable to get his attention.


d

"Dudley Henriques" dhenriques@noware .net wrote in message
link.net...
Serious answer this time.
I heard this discussed one night long ago at a dinner meeting with some race car drivers at a show I was doing .
I remember them saying it was a well known phenom, usually brought on by unusually high stress or extremely high
performance levels. I have no idea where or how to research it, but I personally believe I experienced it at least
once during a high school track meet where I was competing in the hundred. It happened near the finish line as I was
in a dead heat with the guy in the left lane next to me. I was straining and reaching for the stride. Suddenly,
everything seemed to fit into place somehow. My mind was suddenly as clear as a crystal bell. Everything slowed down
and my running become effortless.
Anyway, I won the heat, but lost the final :-)
It never happened to me during my tenure in aviation, and I spent most of that in a high stress environment to say the
least.
Dudley Henriques


I think some folks call it being 'in the zone'...

Bingo Batman
At least I didn't get the "clamped on and can't let go" effect, I wasn't
physically touching the box.
Jim

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
Bingo Batman
At least I didn't get the "clamped on and can't let go" effect, I wasn't
physically touching the box.

I'm told that problem is more prevalent in high voltage DC.\

Yes, getting "stuck" would *suck*. I would not want my experiences to had
gone on for one more "cycle" than they did. g
--
Jim in NC

Jim Burns wrote:
Hmm... that feels funny.... what's going on? BANG!!!! wow, that was
loud... what the heck is that? funny how I can't see, but I can hear
everything....knocked off my feet... hmm, nothing hurts... flying through
the air... this is just weird.... landing on my ass... ouch... knew
something was going to hurt... took forever

On the other hand, I flew over the handle bars of a bike and broke my
shoulder and my collar bone, it happened in such a flash that I couldn't
figure out what happened.

Sounds very familiar, but for me it did indeed happen while riding a
bike and falling down. Similar thing occured while skiing straight into
heap of fluffy snow.

Is this only triggered by adrenaline or do other components figure in
as well ?

- Marco