为什么时间在不同意识状态下会变慢
2025-01-15 05:48阅读：
我们都知道，时间在不同情况下流逝的速度似乎不同。例如，当我们去陌生的地方旅行，时间似乎过得很慢。在国外度过的一周似乎比在国内的一周长得多。
无聊或痛苦的时候，时间似乎过得很慢。当我们全神贯注，比如听音乐、下棋、画画或跳舞，时间似乎会加速。通常情况下，多数人都说，随着年龄变大，时间似乎也过得更快。
然而，这些对时间的感知变化还算比较轻微的。我们的时间经验能够以极其剧烈的方式改变。我在新书中描述了我所说的“时间扩展体验”——在这种体验下，数秒可以延长成数分钟。
时间有时加速有时减慢，其原因有点不可思议。一些研究人员认为，时间感知的轻微变化与信息处理有关。一个普遍规律是：思维过程中处理的信息越多，时间似乎过得就越慢。小孩的时间过得慢，因为他们的世界充满新奇。
新环境因为陌生而拉长了时间。全神贯注会使时间缩短，因为我们的注意力集中，头脑平静下来，没什么杂念。相比之下，无聊会拉长时间，因为我们精神不集中，头脑里充斥着杂念。
时间扩展体验可能在遭遇车祸、跌倒或袭击等事故或紧急情况下出现。时间似乎能扩大很多个数量级。我在研究中发现，大约85%的人至少经历过一次时间扩展体验。
大约一半的时间扩展体验发生在意外和紧急情况下。人们往往对自己竟然有那么多时间思考和行动感到惊讶。
事实上，许多人确信，时间的扩展使他们免于严重受伤，甚至逃过一命——因为这使他们能够采取通常不可能采取的预防行动。
例如，一名女子报告了一次时间扩展体验：她驾驶汽车躲开了一个砸下来的金属栏杆。她告诉我，“时间放慢”使她得以“就如何躲开砸下来的金属做出抉择”。
时间扩展体验在体育活动中也很常见。例如，有人描述在打冰球时发生的时间扩展体验。当时“比赛似乎持续了大约10分钟，其实一
切只发生在大约8秒之内”。时间扩展体验也能出现在安静状态下，在冥想或自然环境中。
不过，一些最极端的时间扩展体验与迷幻药或死藤水等致幻剂有关。我收集的时间扩展体验约有10%与致幻剂有关。一名男子告诉我，在一次服用迷幻药所致的时间扩展体验中，他看手机上的秒表，“百分之几秒过得像正常情况下的几秒一样慢。时间极度延长”。
但这是为什么呢？在我看来，理解时间扩展体验的关键与意识状态的改变有关。一场事故的突然冲击可能打乱我们正常的心理进程，导致意识突然转变。在运动中，状态的急剧改变是由于我说的“超级专注”。
专注通常会让时间过得更快，但如果过于专注，在很长时间内持续专注，就会出现相反的情况，时间会急剧放慢。
意识状态的改变也会影响我们的认同感，以及我们与世界的正常分离感。就像心理学家马克·威特曼指出的，我们的时间感与自我意识紧密相连。
Time expansion experiences: why time slows down in altered
states of consciousness
Steve Taylor
We all know that time seems to pass at different speeds in
different situations. For example, time appears to go slowly when
we travel to unfamiliar places. A week in a foreign country seems
much longer than week at home.
Time also seems to pass slowly when we are bored, or in pain. It
seems to speed up when we’re in a state of absorption, such as when
we play music or chess, or paint or dance. More generally, most
people report time seems to speed up as they get older.
However, these variations in time perception are quite mild. Our
experience of time can change in a much more radical way. In my new
book, I describe what I call “time expansion experiences” – in
which seconds can stretch out into minutes.
The reasons why time can speed up and slow down are a bit of a
mystery. Some researchers, including me, think that mild variations
in time perception are linked to information processing. As a
general rule, the more information – such as perceptions,
sensations, thoughts – that our minds process, the slower time
seems to pass. Time passes slowly to children because they live in
a world of newness.
New environments stretch time because of their unfamiliarity.
Absorption contracts time because our attention becomes narrow, and
our minds become quiet, with few thoughts passing through. In
contrast, boredom stretches time because our unfocused minds fill
with a massive amount of thought-chatter.
Time expansion experiences
Time expansion experiences (or Tees) can occur in an accident or
emergency situation, such as a car crash, a fall or an attack. In
time expansion experiences, time appears to expand by many orders
of magnitude. In my research, I have found that around 85% of
people have had at least one Tee.
Around a half of Tees occur in accident and emergency situations.
In such situations, people are often surprised by the amount of
time they have to think and act. In fact, many people are convinced
that time expansion saved them from their serious injury, or even
saved their lives – because it allowed them to take preventative
action that would normally be impossible.
For example, a woman who reported a Tee in which she avoided a
metal barrier falling on to her car told me how a “slowing down of
the moment” allowed her to “decide how to escape the falling metal
on us”.
Tees are also common in sport. For example, a participant described
a Tee that occurred while playing ice hockey, when “the play which
seemed to last for about ten minutes all occurred in the space of
about eight seconds”. Tees also occur in moments of stillness and
presence, during meditation or in natural surroundings.
However, some of the most extreme Tees are linked to psychedelic
substances, such as LSD or ayahuasca. In my collection of Tees,
around 10% are linked to psychedelics. A man told me that, during
an LSD experience, he looked at the stopwatch on his phone and “the
hundredths of a second were moving as slow as seconds normally
move. It was really intense time dilation,” he said.
But why? One theory is that these experiences are linked to a
release of noradrenaline (both a hormone and an neurotransmitter)
in emergency situations, related to the “fight or flight”
mechanism. However, this doesn’t fit with the calm wellbeing people
usually report in Tees.
Even though their lives might be in danger, people usually feel
strangely calm and relaxed. For example, a woman who had a Tee when
she fell off a horse told me: “The whole experience seemed to last
for minutes. I was ultra-calm, unconcerned that the horse still
hadn’t recovered its balance and quite possibly could fall on top
of me.” The noradrenaline theory also doesn’t fit with the fact
that many Tees occur in peaceful situations, such as deep
meditation or oneness with nature.
Another theory I have considered is that Tees are an evolutionary
adaptation. Maybe our ancestors developed the ability to slow down
time in emergency situations – such as encounters with deadly wild
animals or natural disasters – to improve their chances of
survival. However, the above argument applies here too: this
doesn’t fit with the non-emergency situations when Tees
occur.
A third theory is that Tees aren’t real experiences, but illusions
of recollection. In emergency situations, so this theory goes, our
awareness becomes acute, so that we take in more perceptions than
normal. These perceptions become encoded in our memories, so that
when we recall the emergency situation, the extra memories create
the impression that time passed slowly.
However, in many Tees, people are certain that they had extra time
to think and act. Time expansion allowed complex series of thoughts
and actions that would have been impossible if time had been
passing at a normal speed. In a recent (not yet published) poll of
280 Tees, I found that less than 3% of the participants believed
that the experience was an illusion. Some 87% believed it was a
real experience that happened in the present, while 10% were
undecided.
Altered states of consciousness
In my view, the key to understanding Tees surrounds altered states
of consciousness. The sudden shock of an accident may disrupt our
normal psychological processes, causing an abrupt shift in
consciousness. In sport, intense altered states occur due to what I
call “super-absorption”.
Absorption normally makes time pass faster – as in flow, when we
are absorbed in a task. But when absorption becomes especially
intense, over a long period of sustained concentration, the
opposite occurs, and time slows down radically.
Altered states of consciousness can also affect our sense of
identity, and our normal sense of separation between us and the
world. As the psychologist Marc Wittmann has pointed out, our sense
of time is closely bound up with our sense of self.
We usually have a sense of living inside our mental space, with the
world “out there” on the other side. One of the main features of
intense altered states is that sense of separation fades. We no
longer feel enclosed inside our minds, but feel connected to our
surroundings.
This means the boundary between us and the world softens. And in
the process, our sense of time expands. We slip outside our normal
consciousness, and into a different time-world.
This is why time slows down or speeds up depending on your
state of mind
By Joshua Hawkins
A boring meeting drags on endlessly, while hours vanish when you’re
engrossed in a favorite hobby. This curious perception of time has
fascinated researchers for years, with explanations ranging from
information processing to altered states of consciousness.
Time seems to slow down in unfamiliar settings, researchers write
in an article published on The Conversation. A week abroad,
surrounded by new sights and sounds, feels much longer than a week
at home. Similarly, boredom or pain can stretch time, while states
of deep absorption, like painting or playing music, seem to make it
fly.
Interestingly, most people report that time speeds up as they grow
older—a phenomenon linked to the reduced novelty of daily life. Our
experience of time may hinge on how much information our minds
process. When confronted with new stimuli, like a foreign
environment, the brain works harder to process details, creating a
stretched perception of time.
In contrast, during focused activities, attention narrows, the mind
quiets, and time contracts, making it feel faster. In more extreme
cases, time radically slows down in what researchers call “time
expansion experiences” (Tees). These occur during emergencies, like
car accidents, or moments of heightened awareness, such as during
intense sports play or deep meditation.
Around 85 percent of people report having at least one Tee in their
lifetime. During Tees, people often describe feeling calm and
having extra time to think or act. For instance, an individual
avoiding a falling object might recount a slowed-down moment that
allowed them to make split-second decisions.
Tees are also common in sports, where a stretched perception of
time occurs during high-stakes plays and in peaceful settings, like
meditation or connecting with nature. Scientists have proposed
several theories for Tees.
A fight-or-flight response involving noradrenaline might explain
some cases, but it doesn’t account for the calmness people often
report. Others suggest Tees evolved as survival mechanisms or that
they are illusions created by enhanced memory encoding. Most
participants, however, insist these experiences happen in
real-time.
Altered states of consciousness may hold the key. In moments of
intense focus or presence, our sense of self fades, merging us with
our surroundings and reshaping our perception of time. Is time just
an illusion? Some think so. Either way, these moments remind us
that perhaps time is more than just a ticking clock—it’s a deeply
personal and fluid experience.
