LEARNING TO STOP TIME!

[Guest guest]

How to Stop Time

 

Einstein demonstrated that time is relative.

 

But the rabbit-hole goes much deeper. Quantum physics discovered that

consciousness is entangled in matter in some inexplicable ways; but

other than the very fast, or very small, or very large, we tend to

assume our " ordinary " reality conforms more to the laws of Newton.

Simple cause and effect unfolding with clockwork constancy —well,

it's time to shatter this assumption. Let's stop time.

 

Find a clock with a smooth sweeping second hand.

 

After watching the second hand for a bit, look off to the side of the

clock box, and about 15 to 20 minutes ahead of the second hand. You

should still be able to see the second hand, but you won't be looking

directly at it. Now just relax and see if you can stop the second

hand. If it starts catching up to the point you are looking at, jump

ahead to another spot about 20 minutes ahead. With very little

practice you are extremely likely to make a most remarkable

discovery. You can stop time. Perhaps at first for only a second or

two, but with practice, you'll be able to freeze it for longer. If

you can't get it right away, try playing with your focus point, move

it further away or closer to the frame of the clock. Or look at one

of the hour markers on the clock about 20 to 30 minutes ahead. After

you get it, try counting internally. The count you reach is the

number of discrete thought processes you performed in zero clock time.

 

Once you've accomplished this amazing feat, what does it mean? Some

people think it's just a simple optical illusion, that they merely

stopped seeing the second hand which was actually still moving (which

gets entertaining with banishing incantations of blind spots, foveal

vision, saccades and such.) But if they ask themselves why it started

moving again from the point it stopped (and most won't), their

explanation doesn't quite pan out. Some will just dismiss it as a

curious blip that doesn't really fit into their radar about " reality "

and it won't be cause for further concern. But a few of us will

notice the crack between experience and beliefs and want to play.

Does it stop sound at the same time? For some people, for others not,

which is curiosier still.

 

Maybe consciousness can be more than a passive observer of

this " constant " called time?

 

WHY DID TIME STOP?

 

can I rule the world now?

 

Maybe. But first, some housekeeping. Before discussing what happened,

let's talk about some of the theories used to explain away the

effect. If you haven't done the experiment yet, please try it here

first. The rest of this will make much more sense.

 

The first natural assumption (besides suspicion that it may be a

screamer) is that it's an optical illusion. Through blind-spots,

foveal vision and other anomalies of sight, somehow we may have

missed the fact that the second hand was actually still moving. This

is easily discounted when you do the experiment successfully —the

second hand doesn't jump ahead, as if blocked from vision

temporarily, it starts precisely where it stopped.

 

The next pseudo-explanation that's locked onto, from those that have

read Mind Hacks (excellent book, btw), is an explanation in Mind Hack

#18 about saccades and suppression of vision. When we move our eyes

quickly over a relatively large span we retain a type of visual

constancy that may explain split-second freezes (which will sometimes

occur while you are reading the instructions and notice, as your eyes

flip over to the clock, that it is stopped.) This does not explain

how, without moving the eyes, and in fact fixing them on a specific

location, you can stop time for much longer than a subjective second

or two. Science has no viable explanation of our experience in terms

of physiology, sorry about that. (Although the dilation does occur

more readily with higher levels of theta brainwaves.)

 

But actually, something far more interesting may be at play.

 

Milton Erickson, the father of American medical hypnosis, performed a

series of fascinating experiments in 1948-1954 documented in the book

Time Distortion and Hypnosis. He used a metronome with subjects

imagining themselves doing various tasks under hypnosis, at a normal

pace, like counting beans or picking cotton (hey, this was the 40s

and 50s ) One subject counted 862 cotton bolls, taking her time,

brushing the leaves aside to insure she hadn't missed any, in a

period of 3 seconds in external clock time. Others had similarly

remarkable experiences.

 

Erickson also worked with author Aldous Huxley who could enter into a

light trance and develop writing themes; Huxley could subjectively

experience 6-7 hours in the period of a few minutes, an ability he

explored and further refined with Erickson.

 

Ultimately the clock doesn't " measure " time in any objective sense in

the way a thermometer measures temperature, rather it creates

something we can synchronize experience to. This synchronization is a

learned, cultural and social conditioning that is largely

unconscious.

 

Edward T. Hall, a cultural anthropologist, describes an experiment in

Dance of Life where one of his students surreptitiously filmed

activities at a playground. When they broke the film down later,

running it at different speeds, they found that one little girl who

was skipping and cavorting across the playground was synchronizing

the subtle movements of each group she came in peripheral contact

with, both with her and with each other. A student, recognizing

something familiar about the beat, found a particular rock song which

fit the soundtrack of her rhythm precisely. Hall theorized, in

discussing this with musicians, that music actually may form a type

of consensual rhythm for a culture, one of many mechanisms that

instruct and reflect how we experience time. But how can we re-

program this conditioning if it is largely unconscious?

 

When we see indicators of our stress levels on something like a GSR

meter (which measures skin conductivity) during biofeedback we

discover that, with such a device providing feedback, we can rapidly

learn to control our own physiology. By seeing internal changes

reflected in the external readings we can directly affect our

physiological arousal and relaxation. The mind sees the effect of its

adjustments to sensations that are more minute than we are typically

aware. In our experiment, the clock provided the feedback device,

even the smallest dilation of awareness in time is immediately

evident.

 

Now some of us are disappointed that we can't stop " objective " time

like a superhero and run around while everyone else is frozen in

place. But " merely " altering your own relation to time still has

several intriguing possibilities. A report in Erickson's book talks

of a subject who was able to bring about a slowing of observed

physical phenomena at will, and to have employed this ability to

advantage while boxing. Martial artists sometimes experience this, in

exceptional circumstances, with time slowing down so they have plenty

of opportunity to react to an opponent's moves. Time dilation has

applications in sports, video games, sensations you would like to

prolong, or just having an extra 5 minutes to think of a snappy come-

back in a split-second of clock time. Perhaps, with a little practice

and calibration, these possibilities are closer than we think.

 

I'm going to utter perhaps the greatest piece of knowledge anyone can

voice. Let me see what you can do with it.

Do you know that at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity?

And do you know that you can use that eternity, if you so desire?

- Don Juan, Tales of Power

 

Related reading

 

About Time

Stalking the Wild Pendulum

The Doors of Perception

Trances People Live By

Beyond Culture

 

 

...............neat eh?.........bob