In many altered states of consciousness, time slows down so dramatically that seconds seem to stretch out into minutes. A good deal of previous research – including my own – has suggested that our normal perception of time is simply a product of our normal state of consciousness. This could explain why some people are able to review the events of their whole lives in an instant.
This idea reflects the view of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued that time is not an objectively real phenomenon, but a construct of the human mind. The modern physicist Carlo Rovelli – author of the best-selling The Order of Time – also holds the view that linear time doesn’t exist as a universal fact. They argue we live in a static “block universe” in which time is spread out in a kind of panorama where the past, the present and the future co-exist simultaneously. Indeed, since Einstein’s theory of relativity, some physicists have adopted a “spatial” view of time. Why accidents and emergencies seem to dramatically slow down time But modern physics has cast doubt on this simple linear view of time.
Our commonsense view of time is as an arrow that moves from the past through the present towards the future, in which we only have direct access to the present. Thinking in ‘spatial’ timeĪn alternative explanation is to think of time in a “spatial” sense. And none of these theories explain how it’s possible for such a vast amount of information – in many cases, all the events of a person’s life – to manifest themselves in a period of a few seconds, and often far less. This could be related to “ cortical disinhibition” – a breaking down of the normal regulatory processes of the brain – in highly stressful or dangerous situations, causing a “cascade” of mental impressions.īut the life review is usually reported as a serene and ordered experience, completely unlike the kind of chaotic cascade of experiences associated with cortical disinhibition. A handful of theories have been put forward, but they’re understandably tentative and rather vague.įor example, a group of Israeli researchers suggested in 2017 that our life events may exist as a continuum in our minds, and may come to the forefront in extreme conditions of psychological and physiological stress.Īnother theory is that, when we’re close to death, our memories suddenly “unload” themselves, like the contents of a skip being dumped. Perhaps surprisingly, given how common it is, the “ life review experience” has been studied very little.
#FLASH BEFORE YOUR EYES SERIES#
In some cases, people don’t see a review of their whole lives, but a series of past experiences and events that have special significance to them. In the minutes after the accident, she hovered on the brink of death where, as she describes it: “my life was flashing before my eyes, flickering through every scene, every happy and sad moment, everything I have ever done, said, experienced”. More recently, in July 2005, a young woman called Gill Hicks was sitting near one of the bombs that exploded on the London Underground. In his account of the fall, he wrote is was “as if on a distant stage, my whole past life playing itself out in numerous scenes”. In 1892, a Swiss geologist named Albert Heim fell from a precipice while mountain climbing. The experience of life flashing before one’s eyes has been reported for well over a century. After all, this is where the phrase “my life flashed before my eyes” comes from.īut what explains this phenomenon? Psychologists have proposed a number of explanations, but I’d argue the key to understanding Tony’s experience lies in a different interpretation of time itself. Though Tony’s belief that he saw into his future is uncommon, it’s by no means uncommon for people to report witnessing multiple scenes from their past during split-second emergency situations. Now, Tony Kofi is one of the UK’s most successful jazz musicians, having won the BBC Jazz awards twice, in 20. He used his compensation money from the accident to buy one. Later, Tony saw a picture of a saxophone and recognised it as the instrument he’d seen himself playing. He felt that he was “being shown something” and that the images represented his future. Over the following weeks, the images kept flashing back into his mind.
When he came to at the hospital, he felt like a different person and didn’t want to return to his previous life. Then Tony landed on his head and lost consciousness. The thing that really stuck in my mind was playing an instrument”. Time seemed to slow down massively, and he saw a complex series of images flash before his eyes.Īs he described it, “In my mind’s eye I saw many, many things: children that I hadn’t even had yet, friends that I had never seen but are now my friends. At the age of 16, when Tony Kofi was an apprentice builder living in Nottingham, he fell from the third storey of a building.
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