ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Conscious Experience: Speed of Life

Updated on October 26, 2010

1. Time. Speed of life.

This is the first item on the subjective experience inventory being developed. During different states of consciousness, time is experienced differently. When waking, often, music appears to be sped up.  When in a heightened state of wakefulness, music seems to be playing so slow as to be chopped up and disconnected. Traumatic or unexpected events sometimes appear to happen in slow motion. The obvious relationship is that when the mind is sped up and sensitive, events appear to happen slowly, yet when the mind is slowed down, events appear to happen quickly. This makes a kind of intuitive sense. To a slow computer, you are typing too fast for the letters to display as you type them, but on a fast computer, you can’t type fast enough to cause the computer to delay.

Thus, the first correlation is with wakefulness. The more awake you are, the slower events appear to happen. In various altered states, time changes. It may appear to speed up or slow down. Further, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the appearance of the timing of external happenings and the timing of one’s own reactions and these are sometimes inversely proportional. For example, in many depressive states such as alcohol intoxication, one’s own reactions are slowed down however, external events may actually be sped up; surely they are happening too fast for you to react in a timely manner. Yet, your decreased awareness and paradoxical relaxation may cause you to not notice things are sped up or at least be unable to react with wakefulness as you would while sober.

Some other quick correlations are with memory and sociability. Many nervous system depressives such as alcohol, GHB, and Clonazepam increase sociability and decrease memory. These may be related. Vigilance to one’s own social performance is clearly impaired by the inability to remember what just happened and probably reduces inhibition. Also, the decrease in focus and attention make it impossible to produce obsessive worry due to an inability to hold problem states in one’s memory. Mood and sociability are enhanced but with a clear trade off.

Different people naturally experience different speeds of life and these may be inversely proportional to how they appear to respond, that is, someone who appears very nervous and over-excitable is probably experiencing a slow, tedious life, and someone who seems unawares and hardly responsive may be experiencing a quick paced life. There may be natural correlations with happiness, extroversion, and sociability.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)