Just some observations about the brain and time.

[blike]

This is just a few things I've noticed recently regarding my brain and time..

 

1) Has anyone ever glanced at a ticking clock and thought just for a few moments that the clock was stopped because the second hand did not appear to be ticking regularly? Then, what seems like a few seconds later, you sort of snap out of it and realize that it is ticking normally? It only seems to happen when your attention quickly changes to something with regular intervals. I find myself at a lack of words to describe the feeling accurately, perhaps someone else will have a better description.

 

2) Does it ever seem that your dreams are not in sync with real time? For example, you may fall asleep for a brief 5 minutes and have a dream that seems to span hours of experience. I notice that when my alarm clock goes off, it is often integrated into my dreams. I dreamed that I was in a submarine when suddenly an odd alarm started sounding. We looked all over the submarine for the source. Then I woke up and realized it was my alarm clock. It had not been going off for long, because after 5 seconds it starts beeping rapidly. When I woke up it was still in the first five seconds of ringing. In the dream, it seemed like we had been searching for minutes.

[Dapthar]

1.) Yes, I also find that time appears to progress more slowly when I'm concentrating on something, like homework.

 

Also, I have found a way to reliably reproduce the effect you describe. Find a clock with a second hand that doesn't move smoothly, i.e. the hand jerks each second. Now, look at the clock for a moment, just to get the timing of the second hand down. Then, look away from the clock, keep counting, and look back at it right after a second ends.

 

2.) Nope, never happened to me.

[Kedas]

1) I think I know what you mean but I just explained it as the small chance that you have to just look at it after it changed meaning it will take a full second but generaly when you look at the clock it's less than 1sec.

so it's more the diff. of what you expect to see and what you really see.

(you don't expect having to wait 1 full second)

 

2)It would better be is there someone that is dreaming in sync with realtime.

but I would think it's more the other way around: sleeping for 1hour waking up and remember a 5min. event.

otherwise I would explain it as time jumping like in a movie.

[ydoaPs]

1.) it often seems like i am moving normally, but time is slower. that is when i am doing a test or something like that.

 

2.)it happens all the time. sometimes i am between sleep and awake. time passes in a very odd manner. i can see in seconds what happens in hours and vice versa.

[LucidDreamer]

I have experience 2. Dreams draw on memories that span a lifetime. This plethora of content allows your dreaming mind to paste together and reorganize whole sections of memories together to create a sequence of events that would take a very long time in reality.

 

I have experienced 1 as well. Normally when you just glance at the clock your eyes would be unfocused, taking in the whole face of the clock. So the non-moving numbers are your reference points in which you determine the speed of the second hand. When you are staring at the second hand your focus is on just that hand. So as the second hand moves around the face of the clock your attention moves with it. In this case your reference point is moving with the clock and your eyes only partially take in the other objects of the clock and the hand appears to be moving more slowly.

 

Also, maybe relativity plays a part as well: not the technical concepts of relativity but the layman’s explanation where things that are very unpleasant or boring seem to take forever. What can be more boring than watching a clock?

[Wotanaz]

1) Never had that experience.

 

2) Yes. I've noticed that my dreams generally have a plot - or rather, they are like Clive Barker's short stories, where one discrete short story bleeds into another.

 

Just like in a movie, the plot moves faster than in real life because the time it has to develop is shorter.

[BrainMan]

I dreamed that I was in a submarine when suddenly an odd alarm started sounding. We looked all over the submarine for the source. Then I woke up and realized it was my alarm clock. It had not been going off for long, because after 5 seconds it starts beeping rapidly. When I woke up it was still in the first five seconds of ringing. In the dream, it seemed like we had been searching for minutes.

 

Interesting. A pet theory of mine is that dreams are primarily made up after the fact (as or after a person is waking up) rather than experienced primarily during sleep. An after the fact interpretation, if you will, of otherwise incoherent experiences. In other words, dreams (mostly) happen when we wake up.

[coquina]

1. No, I never had the experience with the second hand. What does happen to me is that I will start getting ready early to go somewhere, and time starts to "slow down" - I've done half of what I need to in order to get ready and only a tenth of the alloted time has passed. So I tell myself I don't have to rush so fast. The next time I look, I have done a tenth more of what I need to get ready and almost the whole remaining time has passed. So, in that respect, I have had experiences when time appeared "variable" rather than "constant".

 

2. I often assimilate something going on as I am waking into a dream. I also get confused - the telephone starts to ring and I think it's the alarm clock going off. I beat the hell out of the alarm clock and can't make it stop.

 

The most frightening dream I ever had... a had woke up and realized I forgot to lock the front door, and thought I'd better get up and do it. Before I could move, I heard the doorknob turn and the door open and close quietly, I heard footsteps coming down the hall and into my room, I saw a shadowy figure with a knife approaching the bed. I tried to scream and jump out of bed, I was paralyzed. Just as the guy started to stab me, I woke up. I had dreamed the whole thing.

[5614]

well the explanation of the submarine dream, alarm thing is that;

 

dreams are effected by your environment. dreams are to do with you, your life, your thoughts, or you surroundings/environment.

 

when you here your alarm, your brain includes that into your dream.

 

read: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5451

especially post #8

[jordan]

I have experienced the first part all the time. It only seems to be when I'm thinking about something. I'll zone out and think through what seems like a lot and then snap out and look at the clock, only to find that it hasn't changed. More frequently though, when I really am concentrating on something, lots of time can pass and I don't even realize it.

 

The dreaming part happens once in a while too. I don't dream a whole lot though. What happens more often is that I am asleep (I lose track of time) but in my mind I can sense everything that's going on around me like normal. Then, I seem to pick out the stuff that's important (the phone ringing or someone calling my name) and I wake up. I can remember everything that happened in the last 30 sec or so but after that it just feels like I know what happened but can't remember. Then I have to look at the clock because I have no clue how much time has passed.

 

That is how I sleep a lot. But what really has me confused is that when I do fall asleep, I fall asleep really deep. For a few hours each night I can hardly be awoken. Funny story: last New Years we had some company over. It was late (I don't think it was New Years Eve though) and most everyone went to bed. My dad was still up when there was a knock on the door. It was a teenage kid dressed in black but not very heavily despite the cold and snow. He said he was lost. My dad woke someone else up, and then went back to the door. The other guy called the cops. Then we had a bunch of cop cars at our house. The took the kid and searched him for weapons, then handcuffed him until they could sort things out. Finaly, they took the kid back home I think. Despite the fact that they had awoken the entire house and the whole thing was going on just outside my window, I never heard a thing. Everyone else got up, but I wouldv'e never known if they didn't tell me.

[MolecularMan14]

1) absolutely

2)Its strange because when the phone rings in the middle of the night, it is integrated into my dream that makes every bit os sense. (I was dreaming something about going into space when an alarm for something like oxygen stirrers is supposed to go off, and suddenly the phone rings. As if I knew in my dream that the phone was going to ring.) Its hard to explain, but so true.

[jordan]

I don't really get that "reality integrated into my dream" deal. I either hear it and know it's ringing and wake myself up or I don't hear anything at all.