Have you given much thought towards the perception of time? I've experienced a few interesting time related events during my tenure here in this state we call being alive. Physics and science still predict others. Then there are the mysterious internet stories about time travelers. This post is dedicated to the topic of time. I hope that you enjoy it.

Our pin on the map of time

Most of my life I can say that time seems to flow at a specific rate. Yet to our minds this can be a very different thing. I have experienced compressed time, no time, and extended time through the perception of my mind. I bet that many of you reading this have also experienced these things. Measuring devices and the fact that time seems to move normal during them would indicate that this is simply a matter of perception. Yet I find thinking about these perceptions entertaining.

I was around the age of sixteen when I first experienced time compression while I was awake. This was during my brief sojourn into smoking marijuana and hanging out with friends. I am a control freak when it comes to my own mind, so while I did laugh a lot and enjoy myself it was ultimately the perception of time that made me quickly lose interest. My first time compression on marijuana.

My parents told me I needed to be home in two hours, and being former hippies and people who smoked marijuana themselves they did not really have an issue with me doing the same. That too may be partially why it was so easy for me to avoid any peer pressure on the subject. My parents were not saying YOU SHOULD DO THIS, or YOU SHOULDN'T DO THIS. It was left up to me. This was very near 30 years ago.

I remember hanging out with my friends for what seemed like maybe a half hour and three hours had passed and I was late getting home. I laughed a lot and there are only a handful of people that have seen me high on marijuana. Yet I also got a lecture from my parents about not being home on time. Generally I was very good about observing time and being where I needed to be.

The last time I smoked marijuana was with similar friends and I remember going to watch a movie I had seen before at the movie theater because someone that worked there snuck me and some friends in. I remember laughing and in about 15 minutes the movie seemed over and I couldn't really tell you what I watched during that time. This ultimately is what disturbed me. I realized that my perception of time was very skewed when I was high. This is not true of all people, but this is how it impacted me. Being a control freak of my own mind it was pretty much at this time that I gave up marijuana, and anything else. Since that time sugar or caffeine are really the only drug like substances I have been involved with except when prescribed by a physician for some illness.

The thing that disturbed me was that I realized that the first time it felt like thirty minutes and about three hours passed. That last time I'd watched a two hour movie in what seemed like only fifteen minutes. My mind kicked in and I started thinking that it was a pretty inefficient and wasteful form of entertainment. I didn't see 30 minutes as a good trade off for 3 hours. I didn't see 15 minutes at the movie as a good trade off for 2 hours. Instead I saw it as losing 2.5 hours and 1.75 hours of perception. I was there and could respond, so I was not in nothingness, but I certainly was not possibly as productive as normal.

I had declared war on boredom years before this phase and I'd gotten pretty good at keeping myself busy and entertained. I did not need to take the easy path to entertain myself and pay for that experience with compressed time. I call it compressed, because it was not lost. I just experienced less than I would have in the normal space of time. Less thoughts. I had 30 minutes of very amusing thoughts during the 3 hour period I normally would have experienced 3 hours worth of thoughts. In speaking to people this was not a very common side effect to smoking marijuana and the consensus was that eventually I'd likely become tolerant and it would go away. That is okay though I had decided I'd rather take the hard path.

By psyching myself up and with the assistance of music I could generally get myself into a state where I felt just like I was high but with some added benefits. I could stop it on demand if the need arose. I had no time compression so I was able to feel that way without any substances yet fully utilize my mind and perception of time. I was even accused of being stoned many times after this when I'd ceased use of anything beyond caffeine and sugar. I am still this way today, nearly 30 years later. I have never been drunk, never had a hang over, though I have been very high on another drug during hospitalization before.

No Time

I have experienced the perception of no time passing several times in my life. They all involved what would nearly kill me and had me hospitalized years ago for 23 days. During that time I went to the operating table a few times. I would count back to 10 and of course never get there before whatever anesthetic they had me on kicked in. I'd close my eyes. Then I would immediately open them.

Yet when I opened them I was in another room and my wife was there waiting for me. To me no more than a second had passed, yet apparently it was several hours later and I am awakening in another room. This version of perception is common on anesthetics. Time literally is not perceived to have passed. It is odd and can be disturbing.

Extended Time

I find the concept of extended time perception interesting. I find it thus because it is the opposite of time compression that I experienced when I was stoned. It seems much more time passes than actually passes in a shorter period of time. This is interesting because from a point of perception I seem to be able to think and do far more things during the perceived time than would be possible during the amount of time that has passed. This seems like a highly valuable thing and if I truly am thinking about more things in a similar amount of time then being able to harness this effect and do it on demand seems like it would be very valuable. The hitch...

This happens during dreaming. I like to hit snooze on my alarm clock and on my particular model I have at the moment snooze lasts about nine minutes. This makes a very clear amount of time between one snooze and the next and I can also open my eyes and glance at the clock to confirm the time. So how is it that sometimes I can dream during that nine minutes and do far more and think about far more than I normally would in a nine minute time frame. I find this a mystery, and it is very interesting. I like mysteries in life, history, reality, science, and our mind. The mystery of how time perception varies during dreaming and how I can seem to perceive and do more in a small amount of actual time will likely baffle me as long as I am able to continue perception of this thing called life, and its mysterious buddy TIME.

Bonus: Time Travelers

Occasionally I'll stumble upon images and videos on the internet reporting to be proof of time travelers. They are certainly fun to look at, and I do believe most (potentially all I know of) have been explained with a logical explanation. They are still fun to read about, watch, view, etc. Seeing is not always believing. Especially when it comes to images. With all the tools to manipulate images that we have these days we can literally make you see virtually anything we want you to see. How good we do at it all depends upon how much TIME and effort we want to put into doctoring or creating the image. That is not necessarily the case with these time traveler shots. Yet, it is always something I keep in mind. Today seeing on an image or video is not always believing.

Images from "PICTURED: The Staggering photos thought to 'PROVE time travel EXISTS' [Original source here].

I am only linking to the images, and some videos. If you are interested on details you can visit the original source that I provided and see what they have to say.

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