Why time crawls and flies: how the brain warps your sense of time
David Eagleman explains why time seems to slow down during a fall, and Andrew Huberman answers a live audience question on why time speeds up and slows down and links blinking to time perception in his ADHD episode. Together they treat the sense of time as something the brain produces, which helps explain why the same hour can feel endless or vanish.
What did Eagleman's tower-drop experiment test? Show answer
Whether people see faster when falling in terror, using a wrist device flashing numbers just too fast to read normally.
What did the tower experiment find? Show answer
Volunteers could not read the numbers during the fall, so they did not see faster, but afterward they judged their own fall as much longer than someone else's.
Why does a frightening event seem to last longer, according to Eagleman? Show answer
The amygdala lays down a second, denser memory track, and when the brain reads back that much detail it infers more time passed.
Why does a child's summer feel longer than an adult's, in Eagleman's view? Show answer
A child writes down many new memories full of firsts, while an adult has seen the patterns before and has little new footage to anchor on.
What does Huberman mean by the brain's frame rate? Show answer
The rate at which the brain slices time, set largely by the visual system and by arousal.
How does where you look change your frame rate? Show answer
Close-up focus slices time more finely, while distant or unpredictable scenes such as clouds or waves slice it more coarsely.
Why does anxious waiting make time feel endless? Show answer
Stress raises the frame rate, so time seems to take forever even though it runs at the same rate.
What happens to time perception right after a blink? Show answer
It resets, according to the Terhune paper Huberman describes, much like a clapperboard marking a new take.
How does dopamine affect the sense of time? Show answer
Dopamine controls blink rate; higher dopamine leads people to overestimate how long something lasted, and lower dopamine to underestimate it.
What does Huberman suggest for people with ADHD who lose track of time? Show answer
Deadlines with real consequences help, since people with ADHD often perceive time well then; a diagnosis should come from a qualified clinician.