A Living Magazine - Day 104 - Extending the Perception of Time

I was up a little earlier and walked to the library...

One fine willow tree.

A view of one end of the Cub shopping center in Plymouth, along Route 9.

I can dig it! Or, in these case I guess not.

Autumn colors are fading in. 

I worked there, publishing my post for the day and then did some mixing on my musical project. 

I went to the Cub supermarket by the library, bought a two ounce $0.69 Hormel bag of black forest ham, two ounces of cheese for $0.87 and a fresh bunky roll for $0.39. Total cost for a good sized sandwich: $1.95...

View from the Cub supermarket parking lot, across from the library.

The library closed earlier on this day and I walked back to the Burger King near Allyson's, where I continued to work until about 10:30 pm.

Nothing extraordinary happened on this day. It was really just a creative work day. So, in lieu of a list of the boring things I did, I've decided to include a short - if dense - essay about some hypotheses I've been trying to combine into a theory about the perception of time during different states of consciousness, and during different experiential activities.

Like "The Spark" post, this may be very dry to folks who aren't interested in philosophy, psychology, physics, metaphysics or entheogenics. For those who do find these subjects as fascinating as I do, I'd love to read your reactions and your own ideas about time and consciousness. Please leave a comment here or come to my Facebook page to discuss these things!

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EXTENDING THE PERCEPTION OF TIME

I have been noticing a real difference in the way I perceive time, between the activities of my life while actually traveling and sleeping outside vs. staying in one place for multiple days. Now, a few years back, I studied the difference between how I perceived time during "non-ordinary" states of consciousness. These two sets of insights are beginning to form into a rational general theory that I would like to discuss here.

It is my belief that what we consider to be "time" itself is an exclusive experience of human mind. Furthermore, if the human mind is not functioning, time ceases to exist. This doesn't mean that there is nothing in reality besides the functioning of human mind. Rather, it places limits on our kind of time.

We know from Einstein's General Relativity that all points in our perception of the material world exist within their own reality frames. This means every point in the universe has its only time frame--as if each were wearing its own watch. True, points may be somewhat synced up and traveling through very similar timelines; making them appear to be all in the same reality frame. But this clustering of similarly timed points is always temporary. And, as the cluster is divided, its subsequent pieces begin to function under their own individual times. All of this occurs because we say it does, and observe its reliability and predictability. Minds creating time.

As a thought experiment, imagine holding a piece of sandstone about the size of a baseball. As a single rock, it is a cluster of similarly-timed points (sand, molecules, atoms and subatomic particles) and moves through time as a cluster. Chip a piece off, and you now have two rocks, each of which are existing in less-similar time frames than when they were combined as one rock. Keep dividing the rock until it is a pile of sand. Each sand grain now has its own little time frame. Take a grain and crush it into smaller and smaller pieces. Were you able to simply extract one silicon atom (for example), it too would be a cluster of similarly timed points (objects sharing very similar time frames).

If you were to break up that silicon atom into its subatomic constituents (particles that are impossible to further divide), first you would have the 14 electrons from the shells of the atom (these are called leptons--negatively charged particles), and then you'd have the 84 quarks (positively charged particles--there are three quarks in each of the 14 protons and three in each of the 14 neutrons), or 98 point particles in all. These cannot be further divided, and they represent the smallest pieces of matter that can have their own time frames.

We also feel that time goes slower when we are doing something we don't like and faster when we're having fun. Similarly, it is a well-known anecdote that as we age time seems to go by more quickly. These are good starting points for this theory.

What I discovered experimenting with Salvia divinorum, and have thus confirmed variously with other substances, is that time is perceived not as a succession of moments, but through the velocity of the passage of thought concepts. In other words, the number of things you can comprehend in a set amount of time (thoughts per second, if you like), determines your perception of the passage of time. Under the influence of a psychedelic like Salvinorin A (the principle psychoactive constituent of the plant, Salvia divinorum), I found that I perceived time as going by more quickly than the clock on the wall was telling me. I wrote up my study of the phenomenon here...

A SALVIA DIVINORUM EXPERIENCE

[Downloadable PDF]

Now let's talk about light. Light is said to have a "speed". But, it doesn't. All light is one thing. It is eternal. If you were to travel at the "speed of light" you would be where all light is--in an eternal place (a place without time). The so-called "propagation of light" is actually a time-measure of the world's passage through this eternal place. I realize this is difficult to visualize, and I'm at a bit of a loss to find words to describe something so nearly indescribable. If you were in a pitch black room and you lit a match, in essence, you are tearing open a tiny hole in eternity and letting bits of it illuminate spacetime. We say light is made of little packets of energy, called "photons". But what is not as well known is photons are also the transmitters of all electromagnetic force in the electronic shells of all atoms. By this, I mean to say that light (electromagnetic energy) is also non luminously what makes up the material world we see around us. When you touch the table in front you, you are quite literally touching a form of light.

Of course, the same thing can be said of your fingertips as well. Light touching light. More precisely speaking, the surfaces of material things never actually "touch" each other, because they are covered with negatively charged outsides (the shells of the atoms). And, just like what happens when the negative poles of two magnets are pushed together, they repel each other. If this were not so, we would sink right into the earth. The Universe would not be able to exist.

The laws governing the human mind are somewhat similar to those of light itself. Conceptually, you might think of it as "moving". It is dynamic, not static. And, like any moving object, it is in its own time frame. Additionally, it follows Einstein's Relativity, when associating with other minds. Some formula like the Lorentz Transformation could be used to express the perception of time by one mind, compared with another, or compared with the generally accepted local time (the more objective time expressed by the clocks on our walls). Human minds do not "move" at the "speed of light". If they did, they would be able to perceive eternal realities--were our minds capable of comprehending such things. Instead, they move very near the speed of light.

In the study linked to above, I believe I finally realized that the rarefied psychedelic state moved my mind closer to the speed of light. Due to the density of the new or more novel concepts being experienced and dealt with, I was able to fit more thinking into each moment. In this same way, when I'm traveling from town to town, and always being confronted by new experiences, night and day, I truly feel that my perception of the passage of a week is more like what I would expect after going through a whole month of experiences living in only one place.

This would mean that the density of new experiences can lengthen an individual's sense of time. Consequently, when I am settled in somewhere, time just flies right by. Along these lines, time is perceived in an opposite way. A month feels like only a week. Perhaps, you have intuited this as well in your own experience?

With all of this in mind, I would like to propose that having more experiences is like a way of expanding one's life span. It is a way of extending the classical perception of time; like being given little bits of bonus time to spend in your life. I think that's pretty cool. It means that being out here and doing whatever it is that I'm doing, is like getting a life extension. If I were still in Maine or maybe Livermore California (where I lived for four months earlier this year), and was used to a routine - to a majority of the same sights, sounds, tastes, smells and other sensations each and every day - I'm pretty sure it would already be 2016 for me. Instead, I bought myself an extra six months of life (by choosing a higher density of experiences to walk through).

I'm not sure if anyone else realizes just how important that can be? In this way, my post-heart attack years - no matter how many or few there may be as the calendar is replaced on the refrigerator over and over again - are turning out to be a whole second lifetime. As a tangential effect, I've found that it doesn't take a negative experience (e.g. doing something I don't like) to lengthen my perception of time. Rather, I can actually have an enjoyable experience, with plenty of "time" during that experience, to really feel the satisfaction of it, without that "time" running away from me.

There are other avenues and subcategories to all of this that I could go into at great length (you know my long winds by now!), but I will keep this open for future discussion you guys.

Do you feel that your life is flying away you? Are the years going by too quickly? Chances are you may be stuck in a routine that has now turned into an involuntary habit--one that is keeping your personal time frame equal to the time frame of the clock on your wall. You are getting old, because the clock says so. The calendar is telling you so. Rather than saving you time, the conventional world of supposed "conveniences" - taking the same route to work each day, in the same car, from the same house, etc. - may be costing you much a big chunk of your life.

The complexity of modern day life forces habits to arise in order to cope with said life--and puts us in form of automatic propulsion; being half asleep when we think we're fully awake. While, simplicity still allows for comfort of routine, if chosen, while offering the potential of partially freeing the mind from its time-bound constraints. Perhaps this is just another good reason to simply?

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I returned to Allyson's house, and hung out with them, before the comfy-couch pulled me into unconsciousness.