When Time stands still

[manitou]

There's something that happened to my husband and I a few years ago that still has my head spinning. I offer this experience up to see if others have had the same sort of thing happen.

 

We were driving a pick-up truck pulling a 5th wheel trailer on the freeway. There was an 18 wheeler in the lane to the right of us, about a half length ahead of us.

 

He apparently didn't see us, and he started pulling over into our lane. His trailers were dead set to wipe us out - we were all doing maybe 60 mph. There was no time to feel fear - I recall just feeling a type of acceptance as to what was about to happen. No doubt.

 

Then, all of a sudden, the world turned into slow motion, and the strangest thing happened. Sound seemed to stop (it had been very noisy), and it was as though some strange force 'picked up' both the 18 wheeler and our truck and trailer - and somehow arranged it so that our rig and his were in perfect alignment - and we all were 'moved' over to the lane to the left in a parallel way that defied Newtonian physics. Nobody struck anybody.

 

If I were my young religious self, as I was, I would have said it was the unseen hand of God that picked both rigs up and gently manipulated them. But I no longer live in duality.

 

The strangest thing of all was the slow-motion aspect of all of it. I realize that things will 'seem' slow motioned if an event captures our attention in a particular way. But in this case, it was as if Time HAD TO SLOW DOWN in order to physical cause the manipulation of the two rigs. Somehow, the normal time and space intersection was expanded to create the physical positioning of the trucks.

 

So - as I have come to realize in the years since then - that We are the Manifester. I'm wondering if the absence of fear in both Joe and I (didn't have time for it, I guess) somehow enacted a time warp that was 'real' in the physical sense.

 

Anybody had something like this happen before, where the ticking of Time changed radically?

 

 

[i am]

I have not, but I've read in a book called "Meditations on Violence" the phenomenon of time slowing down. Actually seeing bullets whiz by, etc. I'm sure there are lots of other places people have read about this sort of thing, if they haven't actually experienced it.

 

That's a very cool experience you had.

[Marblehead]

Good things happen to people sometimes too. Just the way life is.

 

But time waits for no one.

[Protector]

It's a very common thing that happens to people who are in extreme danger

 

 

[3bob]

two trucks and one with dualies sounds dualistic

Edited July 5, 2014 by 3bob

[fugue]

The sense of slowing down is an illusion. Your brain turned off all of its information filtering routines and you are experiencing a fuller reality and are utterly focused on the moment at hand. Your perception being altered is the only thing that is happening

[Spotless]

There is apparently a book about being in the "zone" and many athletes recount very similar stories - going into complete slowmo in the middle of some epic play.

[fugue]

There is apparently a book about being in the "zone" and many athletes recount very similar stories - going into complete slowmo in the middle of some epic play.

by practicing and reinforcing the neural pathways the same effect can be achieved as in athletics and martial arts

[manitou]

The sense of slowing down is an illusion. Your brain turned off all of its information filtering routines and you are experiencing a fuller reality and are utterly focused on the moment at hand. Your perception being altered is the only thing that is happening

 

Do you think that the slowing down of time is the illusion, or the speeding up of time is the illusion?

 

My first thought was that it was illusion too - the slo-mo effect. but it didn't explain the repositioning of both rigs to the degree that it did.

 

Right after it happened, neither of us said anything. About a mile down the road, i said "Did you see what happened back there?"

 

Joe answered that he did, and we were then a bit more verbal about our mutual amazement.

 

I'm so inclined to believe that it was just illusion. But it just doesn't explain the physicality changing as it did.

Edited July 5, 2014 by manitou

[manitou]

two trucks and one with dualies sounds dualistic

 

Two with dualies. It was quadriplistic.

[fugue]

Do you think that the slowing down of time is the illusion, or the speeding up of time is the illusion?

. Great observation. One of my favorite things my teacher ever said, "the tao is not what you think it is, it is the opposite. You see the effect but not the cause." -Master Chun Man Sit

[fugue]

Double post, lagging phone!

Edited July 5, 2014 by fugue

[fugue]

Do you think that the slowing down of time is the illusion, or the speeding up of time is the illusion?

 

My first thought was that it was illusion too - the slo-mo effect. but it didn't explain the repositioning of both rigs to the degree that it did.

 

Right after it happened, neither of us said anything. About a mile down the road, i said "Did you see what happened back there?"

 

Joe answered that he did, and we were then a bit more verbal about our mutual amazement.

 

I'm so inclined to believe that it was just illusion. But it just doesn't explain the physicality changing as it did.

I cannot explain that. But it wasn't necessarily an illusion.

[fugue]

Yet another double post, sorry

Edited July 5, 2014 by fugue

[GrandmasterP]

I have not, but I've read in a book called "Meditations on Violence" the phenomenon of time slowing down. Actually seeing bullets whiz by, etc. I'm sure there are lots of other places people have read about this sort of thing, if they haven't actually experienced it.

 

That's a very cool experience you had.

 

+1 Slow time is our friend sometimes.

 

I've been shot.

Time slows down.

Everything is in super slow motion.

But it isn't to anyone else.

Had time not almost stopped ( allowing me to get out the way of a bullet I could, and can; still 'see') when I was shot at then the enemy round would have taken off my head rather than the chunk of my leg that it did get.

[manitou]

I think we could go pretty far down the rabbit hole on this one - the world of opposites. Suppose for a moment that we really are The Manifester, as most paths would seem to end in that realization at their terminus. In that event, we would be manifesting Time from the inside of our communal brain (of which you and I are only a two-zillionth of the Whole) and should, under that theory, be capable of actually changing the speed of Time as we perceive it here on Earth. (It is no doubt perceived differently in different parts of the Universe, thanks to Einstein) So maybe that's why all observations made up to this point are correct!

 

So rather than the sense of slowing down being a total illusion, isn't it possible that we, at our base level, are capable of projecting the speed of Time to enable a physical reality that is not of Newtonian origin? And that fear or imminent death (we had no fear, no time for it) it was as somebody said previously....that the imminent death or great fear is the very thing that pushes us into this other modality?

 

How is it that the Sage is unharmed and protected, as a small child? maybe because he is the protector and the manifester, and he Knows It.

[GrandmasterP]

Maybe we move super fast in those dangerous situations and don't know it hence, to us; time is almost standing still.

I don't know - is the straight answer.

For sure it happens though as you and I can testify Manitou.

 

Edited July 5, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Nungali]

Anybody had something like this happen before, where the ticking of Time changed radically?

 

Oh sure .... a virtual standstill .... flying ... slowly rotating .... but then

 

- Motorcycle accident.

 

Another time on LSD (when I was young and real and pure stuff was available) friends 'hooning around a round-about in a car. It got slower and slower as did the people talking in the car, and their voices got deeper and deeper like a record player winding down to a standstill and then everything .... sorta stopped - freaky ... the weird thing was I could still feel the centrifugal force holding me against the inside of the car door ! Then I had a moment of half curiosity and half panic; what if it all slowly starts going backwards and then returns to normal speed in reverse ... but it didnt ... it slowly started moving again ... the voices started to bass rumble and rise in pitch and the car slowly moved forward and everything speeded up to normal. - Freaky Man.

[Nungali]

Do you think that the slowing down of time is the illusion, or the speeding up of time is the illusion?

 

My first thought was that it was illusion too - the slo-mo effect. but it didn't explain the repositioning of both rigs to the degree that it did.

 

Right after it happened, neither of us said anything. About a mile down the road, i said "Did you see what happened back there?"

 

Joe answered that he did, and we were then a bit more verbal about our mutual amazement.

 

I'm so inclined to believe that it was just illusion. But it just doesn't explain the physicality changing as it did.

 

Both are an illusion, time doesnt actually 'pass', it just 'is'. We pass through time, usually at a consistent and agreed upon rate, a bit like looking out a train window with your head still and forehead pressed against the glass and hands cupped around the eyes, so one only sees a small part of the view as it passes at a consistent rate.

 

Time 'itself' (without 'observation') however is a 'landscape'. When, for various reasons, we can move our head and focus on a point (track it) as we pass it, it seems like time slows down.

[Spotless]

I remember one time in stillness feeling this ping going around in my body - an electrical impulse moving about my body and I watched it for quite some time and then realized it was the impulse of shivering - I was shivering.

[manitou]

I know there's some bearing on the fact, too, that we aren't really solid matter moving through space. We are as a wave on the ocean - the water doesn't actually 'move' to the shore, but the force of the moving current underwater passes through the water molecules, although for the most part they stay in place. Quite mind-boggling, all this. Yes, it is all Here and Now, and this mechanism of our 'perception' of time and space, limited as it is, is somehow the anomaly.

 

It's like we're a bundle of little spark plugs that fire anew with each step as we move through space.

 

also - Nungali - similar to your LSD experience. I once smoked some weed that was so good that I was thinking and talking backwards. That must have been a folding of time somehow as well. It really frightened me at the time, I thought I'd lost it.

Edited July 7, 2014 by manitou

[joeblast]

time slows in an accelerated frame of reference - fact

 

the interesting part is the correlation to consciousness.

 

perhaps I've just had far too many experiences of slowed down time

[Daeluin]

I had a nearly identical experience once, where a care pulled into the exact position I was occupying without seeing me. It was rush hour on the interstate coming out of downtown Tampa. Packed... but we were actually going 50mph or so. No time to process, I simply trusted, and moved between two cars next to me... all happened in an instant... other car didn't even seem to notice.

 

As far as time slowing down.... not so much in this case. But there have been other times. I believe we reach a compressed state of perception, similar to what some drugs induce, but with more clarity. People really do have their life flash before their eyes at critical life or death junctures. This is part of taoist attainment as well.

 

Don't we slow time down as we dream? I've read of some taoists who might need to give a lecture the next day. They might intentionally dream for a 2 hours and have 5 hours worth of material for their lecture. Why not while awake?

[manitou]

Don't we slow time down as we dream? I've read of some taoists who might need to give a lecture the next day. They might intentionally dream for a 2 hours and have 5 hours worth of material for their lecture. Why not while awake?

 

 

Good point, this. Some dreams are of a very short duration but seem to cover so much material! Apparently our dreams aren't framed in the same linearity as our waking thoughts. Must be some sort of time-fold-warp-Here&Now thing happening in our dreams.

[Nungali]

time slows in an accelerated frame of reference - fact

 

the interesting part is the correlation to consciousness.

 

perhaps I've just had far too many experiences of slowed down time

 

Oh yeah for sure y o u r e a l l y h a v e t o o o o o o w h h a t c c c h h o o o u u u u t

 

f f f f f o o o o o o o r r r r r r t t t h h h a a a a a a a a t t t t

 

 

 

w w w w w w h h h o o o o o n n n n e e e .