Subjectively? If so, what is this effect called?

It does - at 1 year old a year is 100% of your life at 20 it's 5% of your life etc.
It's called "getting old".

So it never ends?

So it never ends?

Only when you die.

Subjectively? If so, what is this effect called?

You've already mentioned the proper name - it's called "subjective time.":)

I know that time appears to move alot faster when you're really tired. Your brain doesn't capture as many 'frames per moment'. Perhaps old age has similar effects.

I know that time appears to move alot faster when you're really tired. Your brain doesn't capture as many 'frames per moment'. Perhaps old age has similar effects.

And that's not all. Sitting and waiting for a particular movie to come on TV can seem to take forever, yet while watching it, time seems to fly by. Another example of subjective time is waiting for a traffic light to change. Actual time may only be a minute or two but can seem like five minutes - especially if you are in a hurry.

it also speeds up at certain times. like when you are in danger.

Or on holiday.

Actually, time slows down when you're in danger, so that you can mentally preserve every awful moment.

I know that time appears to move alot faster when you're really tired. Your brain doesn't capture as many 'frames per moment'. Perhaps old age has similar effects.

Hmm.. you've got more than this I can tell.

the answer to the OP is yes, and I find it to be an incredibly interesting phenomenon. Every person I've ever spoken to about it - at least those old enough to have a perspective on the issue - has agreed 100% that as they age, years seem to pass faster. I agree with them as well. At 38 years are starting to seem like they squeeze by much more quickly.

I'm almost sure it's all about perspective.

As years pass and experience accumulates, one's perspective on the world solidifies to some extent. A framework underlying one's experience becomes more and more engrained with passing years. Habits form. Rituals ensue.

Perhaps simply put: The more years you experience, the more common they become.

Shit I dunno. Sometimes I think I understand it, but at the moment I can't quite find the words.

Wesmorris I agree with you and will have a go at trying to word it.

I think it comes down to the fact that we filter well trodden knowledge after we experience it a number of times. We do this to give the brain's limited capacity a chance to focus on the new, because the new could be dangerous or beneficial. Therefore, as we age we have little new to focus on so we filter so much more of our lives that time appear to go by faster.

So the question is if we move country, change relationnships, change sex etc would time perseption change again?

Try it and get back to us.

Hmm.. you've got more than this I can tell.


your psychic powers never cease to amaze me :)

I first noticed this phenomenon in Jr. High. It seemed that every year the subjective length of the school day shortened. I remember telling my Dad of my observations and then commenting that time must really be flying to him. :roflmao:

I've learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sings "Silent Night".
Age 5

I've learned that our dog doesn't want to eat my broccoli either.
Age 7

I've learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are doing and wave back.
Age 9

I've learned that just when I get my room the way I like it, Mom makes me clean it up again.
Age 12

I've learned that if you want to cheer yourself up, you should try cheering someone else up.
Age 14

I've learned that although it's hard to admit it, I'm secretly glad my parents are strict with me.
Age 15

I've learned that silent company is often more healing than words of advice.
Age 24

I've learned that brushing my child's hair is one of life's great pleasures.
Age 26

I've learned that wherever I go, the world's worst drivers have followed me there.
Age 29

I've learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it.
Age 30

I've learned that there are people who love you dearly but just don't know how to show it.
Age 42

I've learned that you can make some one's day by simply sending them a little note.
Age 44

I've learned that the greater a person's sense of guilt, the greater his or her need to cast blame on others.
Age 46

I've learned that children and grandparents are natural allies.
Age 47

I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
Age 48

I've learned that singing "Amazing Grace" can lift my spirits for hours.
Age 49

I've learned that motel mattresses are better on the side away from the phone.
Age 50

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
Age 51

I've learned that keeping a vegetable garden is worth a medicine cabinet full of pills.
Age 52

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you miss them terribly after they die.
Age 53

I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
Age 58

I've learned that if you want to do something positive for your children, work to improve your marriage.
Age 61

I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
Age 62

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.
Age 64

I've learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But if you focus on your family, the needs of others, your work, meeting new people, and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you.
Age 65

I've learned that whenever I decide something with kindness, I usually make the right decision.
Age 66

I've learned that everyone can use a prayer.
Age 72

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.
Age 82

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch-holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
Age 90

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.
Age 92

*faint retching*

i notice that alot of individuals, as they get older - "settle into" a particular time of their life - some think the height of their experience was high school and try to live "there" for the remainder of their days
some people seem to be afraid to get out of the zone of their age peers and just stop learning new things (why "oldies" radio programing exists)
this seems to provide them with a sense of "security" or superiority to the subcultures that follow - which may actually slow down time for them - but also eliminates the reason it's so great to have more time-
it occurs to me that this effect may give people who only stick with their own age group or in the circle of like thinkers the illusion that time is not going fast - because it all appears the same (waiting for the movie to start)
learning new things, ways and perspectives seems to make time go faster because it is an engaging adventure (being the movie :b)
- i say spend what you have liberally - and don't worry how much of it you have!!

It will be over sooner than most people think. It only seems like yesterday that I was having my 4th birthday party with my friends.

It does - at 1 year old a year is 100% of your life at 20 it's 5% of your life etc.
It's called "getting old".

Oli


you are completely correct the oder you bget the less proportion of your life a year is.

~~~~~~~~~
cheers
zak

I know that time appears to move alot faster when you're really tired. Your brain doesn't capture as many 'frames per moment'. Perhaps old age has similar effects.
Except when you are at work and you want to go home. Then time seems to really drag.

As I get older, my sense of periphery has widened —and a year is a crude and simplistic wrap-around.

I agree with the OP, time definitely seems to accelerate with age. I wonder if this might explain why old people drive so slowly? Since speed=distance/time, someone with a greatly distorted sense of the flow of time would think he was going a lot faster than he actually was.

Actually, esoteric science based on introspection tells you that the perception of time is related to many things. Some of which is biological and some is mental. Time goes slower when you focus, and it goes faster when your attention wanders. There are monks who said that time stands still when their focus reached maximum. Many baseball players have claimed that there have been time when their focus was so intense that a 90+ mph fast ball went so slowly that they can even see the thread of the ball, and they have all the time in the world to decide what to do with the ball.

I'm one of the oldest people here (64). I don't perceive time as flowing any more slowly now than I did earlier in my life. It's still just as long a wait from one meal to the next, from last Monday's episode of "Kyle XY" to tonight's season finale, from the Jean-Luc Ponty concert in June until "Zappa Plays Zappa" in November, from our last vacation abroad until the one we have planned for next year.

Rather than a time compression in the present, I notice a dilation in the past. I review the highlights in my life between 1997 and 2007, and I don't see much change. But if I look at the time slice from 1957 to 1967, it seems like I passed through three or four lifespans. I started at a new high school making all new friends in 1957. By 1967 I had graduated high school, learned to play guitar, got a driver's license, gone off to college and made another batch of friends, got a motorcycle, transferred to a different college and made another batch of friends, got married, and had just started my first real adult job. Also several milestones I don't talk about in public. :)

In retrospect things appear to have happened much more quickly when I was younger, but it didn't feel like it.

Time does seem to speed up when you get older, so I guess, subjectively, it's true..

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch-holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
Age 90

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.
Age 92

No old bugger is going to touch me...learn that!

No old bugger is going to touch me...learn that!

Do you have a disease of some sort that affects people?

There's a whole lot of people suffering tonight
From the disease of conceit.
Whole lot of people struggling tonight
From the disease of conceit.
Comes right down the highway,
Straight down the line,
Rips into your senses
Through your body and your mind.
Nothing about it that's sweet,
The disease of conceit.

There's a whole lot of hearts breaking tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Whole lot of hearts shaking tonight
From the disease of conceit.
Steps into your room,
Eats your soul,
Over your senses
You have no control.
Ain't nothing too discreet
About of disease of conceit.

There's a whole lot of people dying tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Whole lot of people crying tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Comes right out of nowhere
And you're down for the count
From the outside world,
The pressure will mount,
Turn you into a piece of meat,
The disease of conceit.

Conceit is a disease
That the doctors got no cure
They've done a lot of research on it
But what it is, they're still not sure

There's a whole lot of people in trouble tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Whole lot of people seeing double tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Give ya delusions of grandeur
And a evil eye
Give you idea that
You're too good to die,
Then they bury you from your head to your feet
From the disease of conceit.

Bob Dylan

Time is going by much faster than it used to.

When I was a kid I would complain about 'waiting', everything was so long in coming. An hour was forever. My Mother at some point, told me that when I got older, time would go by faster. I believed her.


I just didn't think it would happen this soon.

I hate to be the one to break it to you all, but it goes faster and faster. I remember my daughter - my firstborn - as a baby holding my finger and being fastinated with my nose. She's now thirty-one and my youngest kid is in the U. S. Army in Korea. The interim is a blur...