No human being is born with an internal clock built in. Children learn to keep track of time thanks to their parents, daily routine, school. Sometimes the habit of synchronizing your behavior with the rest of the world takes months, sometimes it takes several years. Ultimately we all adapt. And now standard time units are becoming our faithful companions. This system is ideal: minutes flock to hours, hours to days of the week, days of the week to months and years. But there is a big difference in how we perceive the passage of time.
Can time move at different speeds?
Sometimes it seems to us that time flies like a jet plane, and sometimes that it moves with the speed of a turtle. Suddenly comes the realization that the next January has come, but now it has almost come to an end. It seems that the older we get, the faster the years pass each other. On the other hand, you're standing at a red light crosswalk and can't wait for those long 90 seconds to elapse. It's like an eternity separates you from crossing to the other side of the road.
Research on the perception of the passage of time
Scientists have always been interested in this problem. Why do short periods of time seem to us infinitely long, and long ones replace each other at a dizzying speed? Some of them devote most of their lives to studying the issue. Let's try to figure out what is the reason for this distortion.
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Basic conditions under which time dilation is observed
If you put together the many stories of different people, you can trace that everyone's circumstances are different. But they all entailed the sensation of slowly creeping hands on the dial. Conventionally, experts have divided all these conditions into six main categories: intense suffering (danger), intense pleasure, anticipation (boredom), altered state of consciousness with the help of drugs, meditation and novelty. Below are some illustrative examples.
Intensity of sensations and permanent boredom
Violence and danger are separated into a separate category due to the intensity of mental and physical sensations. For example, it will always seem to a wounded soldier lying on the battlefield that help will never come. Also, the military often describe that the very picture of the battle is seen by them, as if in slow motion filming. But sometimes strong feelings can be associated with pleasure and ecstasy (here time really gives us the opportunity to enjoy the moment.) The state of permanent boredom is also highlighted in a separate category: a queue for an appointment with a doctor, a 15-day arrest, a salesman without an influx of customers. On the one hand, these situations are sharply limited in time, but when a person is placed in waiting conditions, it seems to him that the hands on the dial do not move at all.
Based on altered state of consciousness or novelty
People often experience a distortion in their perception of time when they experience an altered state of consciousness. This is facilitated by drug-induced experiences with LSD or mescaline. High levels of concentration or meditation can also affect the subjective perception of the passage of time. This is often told by athletes who are in the waiting area. Finally, there is shock or novelty. This happens every time you start learning some difficult skills or are on vacation in an exotic location.
What is the paradox?
There is a clear pattern in all these categories. All of them distort time at a time when either almost nothing happens to the observer, or too much happens. But you will never feel this in your usual activities. In other words, time slows down when the situation can be assessed as too easy or too difficult.
With regard to the dial or calendar, each time block has its own standards. They are no different from each other. Each minute is 60 seconds, and a day is 24 hours. Standard time units make a significant difference when they begin to be perceived in terms of "the density of human experience." Thus, perception can be influenced by objective and subjective information.
High density of experience
The density of experience is high when a lot of things happen in a short period of time. War veterans know this firsthand. On the other hand, the density of experience can be equally high even when almost nothing happens hour after hour. People who are in solitary confinement will tell you about this. It would seem that this time is completely empty, but people with a stable psyche are able to completely change their worldview, and people with a weaker nervous system go crazy with obsession. All these circumstances place people in unusual conditions. The paradox is that people tend to focus on strange circumstances that only increase the density of experience that affects the perception of the standard time unit. This is how distortion is generated.
When time flies by
We found that time moves slowly when the density of experience is extremely high. It is logical to assume the opposite. Time will fly by unnoticed when the density of the experience, related to the standard time block, is abnormally low. When you tend to look back (to the near or distant past), life periods seem to shrink. Time compression is provided by two general conditions. Let's consider them in more detail below.
Routine tasks
Adults in the workplace are surrounded by many daily responsibilities. All of them are repeated from day to day with only minor changes. But the implementation of each of them requires increased attention and concentration. The period of familiarization and training has already passed, now you can perform many of the standard tasks and assignments without focusing on them. Experienced motorists who simultaneously perform several actions will tell you about this. A person who has a busy day at work will tell you about this. Despite the overall workload, there was no high density of unique experiences.
In the end, the busy employee was pleasantly surprised when the time in the office flew by so quickly. With a clear conscience, he goes home the usual route. And on the way, he will do all his usual things: he will call his relatives, go to the nearest supermarket for bread. In the evening there will be a familiar dinner and a familiar TV series. Every day is like another. That is why they replace each other so quickly.
"Erosion" of episodic memory
The second basic condition for the rapid passage of time is the "erosion" of episodic memory. And this also applies to each of us. Our memories of routine events fade over time. Can you remember what you did on December 17th? If no significant events took place on this day, you are unlikely to remember the whole chain. But a little more than a month has passed since that moment! And memory is already trying to make room for more needed information.
And the further back you look, the more "forgetfulness" you will demonstrate. One scientific study revealed a striking pattern: people thought that last year flew by more imperceptibly than last month, and last month was faster than yesterday. Objectively, this does not make sense, but our memory eats away at the density of experience within a standard time unit.
conclusions
All the situations that we described above can be considered anomalous. Typically, under normal conditions, we perceive 10 minutes as 10 minutes. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we have learned to synchronize our experience with standard time units, and vice versa.
Inga Kaisina