Stopping time?

This is so cool, I had to post it somewhere on ATS....

How to Stop Time

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. The one on this page might work, but depending on how much is running on your computer, it may or may not be completely smooth. If it appears relatively smooth, it will still work, you’ll be able to factor out what you are controlling.

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

A clock appears on the website...

I was able to do this for several seconds, after a few attempts....

Any thoughts on what is really happening?

I tried but I couldn't understand the instructions.

Simple....look at any position about 20 seconds ahead of the actual position of the second hand....then relax and try to stop it in your peripheral vision...

I found this to be quite interesting and even a bit perplexing. Of course, this is an illusion (isn't it)? Nevertheless, what I found most interesting was that when I perceived the second hand to have stopped, I began counting, you know, "one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi", etc. I made it to four seconds while I perceived that the second hand had stopped.

Of course this is an optical illusion of sorts. Still, it feels a bit unnerving when you do it.

I remeber Angelus Silesius, a sixth-century philosopher and poet, believed the flow of time could be suspended by mental powers:

" Time is of your own making;
its clock ticks in your head.
The moment you stop thought
time too stops dead. "

You should look him up, he's very intersting.

Unconquerable time. It perplexes everyone. One of the unachievable scientific achievements at this present time. I do agree it is an illusion. However it is quite interesting.

It would be interesting if relativity would come to life, then we would have conquered time. The challenges that may lie ahead may come along with the wisdom which we as a human race would have gained in the process of conquering time. A simple concept not proven yet, though many have tried and maybe somewhere we on this planet someone would be working on it right now. The thought of this materialising would change times altogether. Think of the possibilities is what perplexes me? The applications could be innumerous. Could such an achievement make teleportation the next phase? Dnt know or is teleportation, the step before conquering time?

I think this is a great article and a great read to understand as evolving humans, the reason to call ourselves evolving humans, is because as we learn more we tend to think more and a clarity gets established within us conciously or unconciously. I hope all who read this article enjoy it as I have. Thankyou

I, too, assume it is an optical illusion. However, as the article points out, it is hard to account for the fact that the second hand continues from its original stopped position and does not jump to the resuming position as one might expect from an optical illusion.....Why is that?

Uhm, maybe this is just a random thing that only I will ever ever see... buut. It's worth a mention in the sense that time is relative.

I listen to techno, psy-trance to be exact, and I drive A LOT. But one thing that I've noticed that happens EVERY time, is that when I yawn... the beats speed up. Maybe I'm just fruity, but I just did it like 10 seconds ago before I made the post and it did it. lol.

Very cool find though, I just spent way too much time playing with it.

Originally posted by loam
I, too, assume it is an optical illusion. However, as the article points out, it is hard to account for the fact that the second hand continues from its original stopped position and does not jump to the resuming position as one might expect from an optical illusion.....Why is that?

Holy carp, you're right. I'm all confused now! How's it possible????

This is actually NOT an illusion... at least not a visual one.

When you watch the clock, you start a mental tick-tock based on the second hand passing by the markers of the clock. When humans watch clocks or listen to metronomes or view/hear/feel and steady repeating event, we can create a rhythm in step with it.

But when you look away you lose that rhythm!!!

You brain reverts to it's natural tick-tock which you THINK is the same but it is not. So it seems like time is slowing down when you look back over. Our internal tick-tock is much faster than 1 second, but still feeling as if you are in sync with the clock, it feel like time is slower, but the truth is, your brain is faster.

The reason you look 20 seconds ahead is so you don't refocus on the second hand and reset your internal tick-tock to the clock again.

This REALLY IS you seeing time differently. This is a temporal illusion....not a visual one.

There are many studies showing this effect including sensory deprivation and circadian rhythms. Time is in our heads already, and it is MUCH faster than most of our clocks and world events.

Here ya go!

www.grasshopper.com...

There was a discription of what is going on with this temporal illusion on the main page!

The Quest is right ^^

This kind of effect has been known for some time now. Not only do we see the seconds hand stop but sometimes we can even see it moving counterclock wise.
The entire trick to this is sensory misalignment to the real world.

There is yet another wierd trick through self hypnosis that could help you wake up at any given time of your choice without an alarm clock simply by programing your subconcious with the length of your sleeping cycle.

Originally posted by IAF101


There is yet another wierd trick through self hypnosis that could help you wake up at any given time of your choice without an alarm clock simply by programing your subconcious with the length of your sleeping cycle.

Can you tell me what it is? I hate alarm clocks.

Interestingly enough, it is completely possible. Let me try to explain.

If anyone was lucky enough to catch the part 2 of "time" on bbc 4, it explained that, in cases of extreme peril, excitement etc, often time seems to slow down.

This effect has been described anecdotally since the dawn of time, but never until recently has it been scientifically studied.

Basically, When your body releases large amounts of adrenaline into the body, your mind effectively speeds up, you effectively see, hear, touch etc at a higher "frame rate". This causes you to be able to see time pass much slower. It is useful say, if you had to fight a wooly mammoth, if he suddenly goes very slowly (or more accurately your body significantly speeds up)

BBC - Time out of mind (3rd article - "Does time fly?")

Normally the flicker would be so fast Jesse could only see a blur. But if time slowed down for him, he might be able to discern the two different screens and read a random number on one of them.........

When Jesse landed, he noted he had seen "98". Dr Eagleman checked. In fact the number was 96. Not quite spot-on, but the two numbers look very similar on a digital screen.

[edit on 15-3-2006 by Shadow88]

I'm not convinced that this isn't just a simple optical illusion. For me, the "stopping" seems more pronounced when the second hand is at certain angles. It seems more difficult to stop the second hand when it is nearly horizontal.

Moreover, I have a real clock in my room here that ticks every second. When I watch the "smooth" clock on the web page, and hold the ticking clock to my ear, the smooth clock still appears to stop for a few seconds even though the ticking persists at a steady pace. The clocks must be moving at the same rate, so I suspect this is just a visual trick. If anyone else has a watch or clock that ticks handy, I'd be interested to know what happens when you try this.

I don't deny that our perception of time is fluid, and some good examples of this fluidity are mentioned in the linked text and in this thread. I just don't think this exercise is a real demonstration of the fluidity of time.

I can't do the clock trick or whatever it is, when I keep my music playing. Ticking sounds like it'd ruin the effect, if it were an optical illusion.

Originally posted by Nventual

Originally posted by IAF101


There is yet another wierd trick through self hypnosis that could help you wake up at any given time of your choice without an alarm clock simply by programing your subconcious with the length of your sleeping cycle.

Can you tell me what it is? I hate alarm clocks.

It is called Self Hypnosis or Power sleep and it is quite well known.
Here is excerpt from a link for athelets who use self-hypnosis.

www.brianmac.demon.co.uk...
We have all, at some time in our lives set an alarm clock to wake us up in the morning only to find that we awake a few minutes before the alarm goes off. So how or why does this happen. When we set the alarm, say to wake up at 6:00am, we also program our subconscious to wake us up at that time. By looking at the clock whilst setting the alarm we also synchronise our own body clocks with the clock. Most people's body clocks run slightly faster than a normal 24-hour clock so our subconscious wakes us up those few minutes before the alarm goes off. You can easily do without an alarm clock by repeating to yourself a few times over that you will wake at a certain time or after so many hours sleep. The important thing is when you do this, as it works best when you are passing through a state of hypnosis on your way to sleep. So the time to do it is when you are settled in bed, turned the lights off and are starting to drift off to sleep. We will come back to this method later and use it in other ways.

This is more to the point :
www.stevepavlina.com...

How is your subconcious meant to know when it's 7 o'clock or whenever you programmed it to wake you up, if it can't read the time on the clock without your eyes being opened?

Originally posted by Nventual
How is your subconcious meant to know when it's 7 o'clock or whenever you programmed it to wake you up, if it can't read the time on the clock without your eyes being opened?

Internal Clock in our bodies that we program through hypnosis to help us come out of our sleep when we want naturally without external stimuli. It takes some practice though but it is possible.

Read that link above and also if you want google self hypnosis, hundreds of sites out there.

Originally posted by Saltman
When I watch the "smooth" clock on the web page, and hold the ticking clock to my ear, the smooth clock still appears to stop for a few seconds even though the ticking persists at a steady pace. The clocks must be moving at the same rate, so I suspect this is just a visual trick.

It might be also possible that your brain has isolated the ticking from your real clock and the web clock as two separate things and thus when you try to "stop" one the stimulus form the other is considered as un related to your stopping the seconds hand.