[HN Gopher] How can you make subjective time go slower?
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How can you make subjective time go slower?
Author : panic
Score : 64 points
Date : 2020-09-05 19:13 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (theoryengine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (theoryengine.org)
| dx87 wrote:
| I don't know how true it is, but the reason I've heard that
| routine makes it seem like time goes faster is because your brain
| condenses similar experiences. If you have a lot of similar days,
| your brain will interpret them mostly as the same day, making it
| feel like you don't know where the time went.
| [deleted]
| dstick wrote:
| Yup, when you constantly do new things time does seem to last a
| lot longer! Great way to make a 6 day holiday feel like 2
| weeks!
| mbank wrote:
| Be somewhere you don't want to be and where it is not much (work)
| to be done. Seriously: Few years back, we had the draft in
| Germany and these were the longest 9 months of my life.
| Especially the first 3 (bootcamp style) seemed never to end: Days
| felt like weeks! Even though later on the people around were kind
| of ok, the time kept dragging on... You often hear the same kind
| of story from prisoners. In all seriousness: My time there really
| got me thinking especially if I compare it with how fast a year
| passes by nowadays...
| pegasus wrote:
| Meditation can make subjective time slow down, both in the
| negative, being bored way, while struggling to enter absorbtion,
| but also in the opposite way - and that, to a degree that is
| otherwise unimaginable. Almost like stepping out of time into
| timelessness.
| throwaway45349 wrote:
| Can you explain more? This is such a foreign concept to me but
| I'd love to try and understand.
| dillon wrote:
| It's different for everyone and there's multiple methods to
| meditation.
|
| To naively summarize, it's kind of like counting sheep but
| instead of sheep you're counting breaths. You take the time
| to notice things that you don't normally notice. Your chest
| rising and falling with each breath. What do you smell.
| Notice how much force you exert on your seat as you sit, etc
| etc.
|
| Ironically, if you are bored then meditation is the absolute
| best way to find something to do. 10 minutes easily feels
| like 40 minutes. Your brain will naturally drift and start
| prioritizing the most important things you need to work on.
| Maybe you've been procrastinating and all of a sudden you
| have an urge to go deal with that stuff.
|
| After meditating you have a good sense of what you need to do
| next, which unfortunately can then make time speed up as you
| get busy.
| jordanbeiber wrote:
| I turned to mindfulness/meditation as a tool when I was about
| to burn out. My brain seems sensitive in general to any kind
| of stimulation I should add... At my fourth or fifth attempt
| at a so called "body scan" my mind just "dropped" - it was as
| if everything went silent and I could not decide whether I
| was asleep or wake.
|
| The best way I can describe my experience in this state, that
| I'm able to reach from time to time, is like being in between
| frames of film - I'm in the dark part after one frame, not
| reaching the next, and everything is just still.
|
| Controlled but yet completely uncontrolled and a few minutes
| feels much much longer, but nothing makes me want to leave.
|
| After the first time it happened I ran out to my wife and
| yelled "holy expletive! Now I get what this thing is about!".
|
| It really made a change for me and it makes my brain/mind
| feel about the same as it does after a run. Fresh.
| pegasus wrote:
| It ultimately has to be experienced, since it's about
| dropping/representational out of the discursive mode in which
| we spend most of our waking time (the default mode network in
| cognitive science). For me it feels like returning to reality
| after a VR session. Or like exiting a hall of mirrors.
| Experience gets imbued with a feeling of stableness,
| stillness, contentment and appreciation of the simple fact of
| just being. There's a podcast that talks about these things,
| for example this episode:
| https://deconstructingyourself.com/dy-014-diving-deep-
| jhanas... Zen and the Brain is a good book on the connections
| with neuroscience.
| balls187 wrote:
| Mindfulness can likewise be used to slow down subjective time.
| llarsson wrote:
| Plank exercise. A minute or two seem to last forever. Or waiting
| for a microwave to heat your food.
|
| Kidding aside, meditation can help, as can just being out in
| nature without keeping your mind busy by stressing out with a
| screen in front of you.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| This person planks.
| plmpsu wrote:
| "Dunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it
| and the time passed so slowly. He had figured out that a single
| hour on the skeet-shooting range with people like Havermeyer and
| Appleby could be worth as much as eleven-times-seventeen years."
|
| Catch-22
|
| The full quote is worth your while:
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/496826-dunbar-loved-shootin...
| holyknight wrote:
| Good idea, but the whole text could've been summarized in like 2
| sentences...
| shannifin wrote:
| I honestly kinda like time seeming to pass faster... Time going
| slow tends to imply a negative experience for me. Faster, faster!
| vanviegen wrote:
| The article makes a few interesting points, but fails to make the
| distinction between the two modes in which one can assess the
| slowness of time: in the moment, and looking back.
|
| Doing something dull, repetitive, routine will seem to take a
| long time in the moment. However, looking back it won't leave the
| impression of a lot of time having pased, as your brain will
| compress similar experiences into one.
|
| The article argues for trying to slow down time looking back
| (which makes sense to me), but some comments in this thread
| (bringing up things like meditation) are talking about slowness
| it the moment.
| vermilingua wrote:
| The author spends nearly a quarter of this piece forgetting that
| not the whole world shares the same seasons.
| advertising wrote:
| Easy - hold a plank
| User23 wrote:
| I don't think I've experienced boredom in any meaningful quantity
| since I got a smartphone. I've often had my doubts about this
| being a good thing.
| meiraleal wrote:
| I feel like the opposite. I think internet is more boring every
| passing day, so even if I'm doing something (like reading
| hackernews right now), I'm very, very bored. But having HN to
| read I don't engage in a real activity that could be an
| interesting physical or social interaction.
| asimjalis wrote:
| This is why I loved traveling for work. Each week felt different.
| Time slowed down compared to a job with the same daily routine.
| nestorD wrote:
| Milton Erickson did some interesting studies on using hypnosis to
| get subjective time to go slower for his subject (Time Distortion
| in Hypnosis: An Experimental and Clinical Investigation).
|
| The interesting part is that it works and has measurable results.
| From memory, subjects that have been made to feel that times goes
| slower would be able to count more objects in the same
| (objective) time.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| When I deeply meditate, I can sometimes make subjective time go
| faster, so that I can look at clouds and they look time-lapse.
| barbs wrote:
| > _I'm sure you've noticed that 2020 has seemed longer than other
| years. I argue this is because of a disruption to so many of our
| routines._
|
| I would have thought most people would be feeling the opposite.
| After the initial disruption, life in lockdown has become a
| monotonous routine. I find it strange to be in September already.
| codeulike wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronostasis
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Just do new things. Go to new places, talk to new people, try new
| things. It can be as simple as not taking the same route to
| work/grocery store/etc every time. Mix it up.
|
| Some claim that time feels quicker as you get older because each
| passing minute is a smaller and smaller portion of your life(e.g.
| summer for a 6 year old is 5% of their life, whereas it is only
| half a percent of the life of a 50 year old). But I don't buy
| that.
|
| Time goes quicker as you get older because people get stuck in
| the same routine, and it is quite easy to compress memories
| together when you do the same thing every day. So, go explore,
| every day, even if it is just mental exploration through books or
| music, and time will surely slow down.
| novaRom wrote:
| Emigration to completely new environment/society. Another
| language, people, culture. Lots of new things to learn.
| manoj-nathwani wrote:
| I could not agree more!
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Try camping, even with all the work to do, you'll be surprised
| how (pleasantly) slow 20 mins can go! :)
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| An individual's peak alpha frequency can determine whether two
| closely spaced flashes of light will be viewed as a single flash.
| People with faster IPA (individual Peak Alpha) have a faster
| frame-rate, a faster sampling frequency [1].
|
| In principle, one might use TACS (transcranial alternating
| current stimulation) or other rhythmic stimuli to entrain IAP and
| boost one's frame rate. Present work shows that TACS can lower
| the frame rate, making people more likely to fuse flickers than
| distinguish them [2].
|
| [1]
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.089771v1....
|
| [2]
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.0176...
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| Or use neuralink
|
| Prediction: Pro gamers will soon need to be divided between
| normal and "implant enchanced" categories in leagues
| amelius wrote:
| "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies (...) The man who
| never reads lives only one."
|
| -- George R.R. Martin
| [deleted]
| cloud_surfer wrote:
| I wonder if noticing time going by so quickly is an indicator to
| start doing less. I think boredom could help with self-reflection
| about how you're living life, and really notice what makes you
| happy/unhappy. Doing smaller lifestyle correcting could be better
| than holding it all and having a mid/quarter/yearly-life crisis.
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(page generated 2020-09-07 23:00 UTC)