Time is Elastic: Mental Relativity

Einstein’s theory of general relativity proved how time is relative to any observer, depending on their frame of reference.  It appears to also have a psychological aspect, in that time seems to slow down or speed up in certain situations.  Our experience of time tends to slow down in situations like accidents, emergencies, drug use, meditation, and listening to music.  Body movement has little to do with the experience of time slowing down; therefore, it’s probably not a physical manifestation the same way relativity is.  

Furthermore, time seems to speed up in other situations.  The phrase “time flies when you’re having fun” applies to almost everyone, no matter what they’re doing.  Time seems to speed up drastically during sleep as well.  There’s a nearly universal experience of people not feeling like they slept for x number of minutes when they really did.    

Author Steve Taylor thinks these experiences are related to altered states of consciousness, and I would have to agree.  Altered states during drug use and dreaming seem to have the ability to slow down or speed up our perception of time.  This is remarkable when you consider how ingrained the dimension of time is in the current scientific paradigm, as a linear variable or constant.  

I don’t think it strictly has to be an altered state of consciousness that creates mental time dilation.  It’s quite possible that there’s a spectrum of it, depending on the degree of variance experienced, just as the degree of variance would depend on the observer’s frame of reference in general relativity.  These are two sides of the same coin.  In the physical realm, the speed of an observer is probably a function of time to the same degree that the severity of an altered state is in the mental realm.  For example, a state of extreme shock or pure joy would have a higher effect on our experience of time than a less extreme one.    

I also think that somehow the degree of time dilation in the mind depends on the rate of neurotransmitter transmission in the brain, or certain combinations of them.  The greater the altered state of consciousness, the greater (or lesser) the amount of neurotransmitter activity.  

This would make for an interesting study that neurologists should have a crack at.  Obviously, there would be no way to measure such mental variance, since it’s an immaterial quantity.  But in social sciences, surveys can be just as effective in discovering the truth as experiments.  If the hypothesis is correct, it would suggest that time elasticity exists in both the material realm and the mental one.  The dimension of time would prove to be elastic on multiple planes of existence, which I don’t think would surprise very many of the spiritually inclined people who also follow science. 

 

Taylor, Steve.  2005.  Making: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It.  Icon Books.