Teach Yourself to Stop Time

by phil on Wednesday Apr 2, 2008 12:54 AM

Ray Kurzweil talks about how time is the distance between change. And we're also aware how some days it seems like time can fly while as other days it seems like the days last forever.

Well, I tried an experiment one day, to see just how far I could stretch my perception of time. Could I make an hour feel like a year? And so the way to do this was to keep thinking about thoughts that are increasingly interesting. This is an example I just wrote now:

I'm going to die tomorrow. No I'm not. Wait, what am I'm doing. Ok, I'm here. In this moment I'm thinking, I'm man thinking. That's interesting. Is there a heart beat between my thoughts. Is there a universal tick. What if you fall in between those ticks. OK, the last 3 sentences are very Star Trek. My first kiss, remember that. What was that all about. How did the tongue feel. What was the shape of the buttons on my shirt. What did my dad say to me that day. What side is my dad's hair parted on. Okay, no more random free association. Let's get serious here. Okay, tomorrow I need to deposit some money in the bank, then I need to get my haircut.

As I wrote that paragraph above, that stretched time for me. You can make the feeling stretch out more by trying to become a different person in a short period of time. If you spend one hour trying to really deeply challenge your assumptions about your life, every time that you hit an epiphany you will extend the sensation of time.

Comments

rmxplay said on April 18, 2008 7:47 PM:

How about accelerating time?