Accident stories...

**stingman123** · 23 April 2009, 10:37

Agreed...

On holiday in Zante in my youth and after a night of drinking me and my mates thought it would be a good idea to race back on our mopeds to another bar along the beach. All was well till I hit a dry patch of sand and yes time suddenly slowed......My bike was already grounded, but I was still going, in the distance I could hear Free fallin' by Tom Petty ( I kid you not, it still makes me wince till this day) i managed to work out how I was going to land and my left shoulder took the impact, white pain followed by a few sumersaults and I come to a halt. Shoulder was hurting, but we continued drinking for another few hours.

Later on in the hospital the doc said that I has dislocated my shoulder and whilst rolling it had popped back in again!!!

**BlightyBoy** · 23 April 2009, 10:39

Originally posted by realityhack View Post

Bizarre how time seems to slow down like this.

I have a theory that the otherwise dormant part of your brain languishing in the sub-conscious kicks into action and that things seem to run slower simply because you are that much more aware of your surroundings.

I suspect (and have had a number of incidents where this has happened) that this occurs when the incident is either potentially fatal or the extent of possible injury is high.

It's the same when you are driving your car and moments before an accident you can see everything that is happening, or is going to happen, and yet you largely feel powerless in preventing it.

Guess it's that self-preservation thing - not unlike the go-faster "Turbo" button on older PCs.

**chef** · 23 April 2009, 10:40

time doesnt slow down, your brain simply works faster to compute what's happened as it's received an

"errr no seriously something isn't right at the moment and it's really not in a good way" type message from various parts of the body's senses

similar thing happened to me when I had a car crash, in short it involved me trying to "power slide" a mk 1 ford fiesta around a snow covered housing estate corner

results were a 720 degree spin followed by an abrupt stop into a neighbours brick wall... all I could think was "ooo this is going to hurt" as the wall very slowly span towards me.. a spiderman dodging punches moment

**sasguru** · 23 April 2009, 10:43

Back in 'Nam, Danang I think it was, I was trying to shoot these gooks, but I had left my safety on. Dang! and Blast! Then in all the excitement I shot my buddy Brad in the bum cheek. Blast! literally!

Threaded.

**Moscow Mule** · 23 April 2009, 10:43

Originally posted by BlightyBoy View Post

I have a theory that the otherwise dormant part of your brain languishing in the sub-conscious kicks into action and that things seem to run slower simply because you are that much more aware of your surroundings.

I suspect (and have had a number of incidents where this has happened) that this occurs when the incident is either potentially fatal or the extent of possible injury is high.

It's the same when you are driving your car and moments before an accident you can see everything that is happening, or is going to happen, and yet you largely feel powerless in preventing it.

Guess it's that self-preservation thing - not unlike the go-faster "Turbo" button on older PCs.

Have you seen Wanted? If you could tap into that the possibilities could be endless...

**realityhack** · 23 April 2009, 10:50

My theory is (and I'm sure there'll be a link out there) that the perception of time is relative according to the variance in processing cycles of the brain and the corresponding change in the interval of visual persistence.

So say, if through the effect of visual persistence we perceive approximately 30 'frames' or processing cycles per second this will become our baseline - but the elevated levels of adrenaline in such an incident may increase the 'intervals per second' we process and thus the perception is that time slows.

**snaw** · 23 April 2009, 10:50

Doing a backside 360 off a big park tabletop on my snowboard, hit the kicker at speed, started my rotation and caught a back-edge, flipped up into the air and landed on my head and shoulder - shattered my collarbone in two places and had a bone sticking up making my skin look like a little tent pole ...

Reckon that's my best, rest are stupid drunks things like too many absinthe's in Amsterdam and barely avoiding falling backwards into a canal by some drug dealer grabbing me by the front of my tee shirt as I was lent backwards over the canal ...

**BlightyBoy** · 23 April 2009, 11:32

Originally posted by realityhack View Post

elevated levels of adrenaline in such an incident may increase the 'intervals per second' we process and thus the perception is that time slows.

If that is the case (and I am not disagreeing with you, as my theory is similar), would it not mean that the same "effect" would be experienced during other periods of elevated adrenaline levels?

I am sure that the levels of adrenaline must relate to the way that neurons fire, and thus, as you say, we perceive time as slowing down?

Would the inverse (i.e. time speeding up) be true if the levels of adrenaline were very low? I don't think so. I am bored out of my skull at work today, adrenaline is very low and yet time just seems to be dragging on and on and on and on ....

**realityhack** · 23 April 2009, 11:34

Yep, not sure if the theory holds up, as when it's a slow day it just draaaaaaaaags on. Also - the adage 'time flies when you're having fun' wouldn't make sense.

Hmm.

Accident stories...