These past few weeks, time has run out of meaning. Days feel like weeks. Weeks feel like months. Although a few weeks have returned since the World Health Organization announced that this was it the plague, to many of us, it sounds like this has been going on for years now.
As it turns out, this time frustration has a deeper meaning in how our brains record memories in times of intense fear and pressure. The most famous experiment showing this effect was carried out by neurologist David Eagleman, a a neurologist
As Eagleman explains in the first part of his PBS series, to answer the question of whether our perception of time diminishes when we are afraid, he started research when volunteers jumped on the 150-foot platform. As they collapsed, he asked them to watch a digital show tied to their wounds that changed the numbers that were changing at a much faster rate.
The idea was that if their perception of time actually dropped, they would be able to read the numbers. But they could not, suggesting that our perception of time does not change in times of extreme fear.
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Instead, the answer seems to lie in how our brains record memories in these moments and how we evoke these memories. When we are scared, our minds are kicked into high gear, all focused on taking care of every little detail, in an effort to keep us alive.
As Eagleman explains in this post video, "People don't notice the time slower during an event." Instead, when you're in a life-threatening situation, your mind records this information in great detail. Then, as you recall this memory, your mind becomes confused with all this additional information, and then you are misled into thinking that the event has been going on longer than you did.
Currently, in the COVID-19 era, we are all on alert. All our attention is focused on one thing and one thing: to keep ourselves and our loved ones healthy. This means monitoring the news of rehabilitation issues, as well as being hyperaware of anything and everything we do that can spread disease. We were all very focused on handwashing programs, checking our health to find out if we might be ill, and following the updates on a new number of cases.
So the idea is you have, that time has gone into something new perverted? It freaks out your brain, doing what it is meant to do in times of fear and uncertainty.
