TIME FLIES WHEN YOU'RE HAVING FUN... AND SLOWS WHEN YOU'RE NOT!

Have you ever been in "The Zone," a moment of creative expression or performance of some sort in which time seems to fly by without you paying attention to it in the "usual" way? Conversely, have you ever been in an accident of some kind or experienced a trauma in which time seemed to move in slow motion?

An interesting report on NPR recently explained the phenomenon in terms of brain functioning. According to neuroscientist David Eagleman, a Baylor College of Medicine professor, "The brain records more sensory information in traumatic experiences. Time isn't slowing down, but the hyper-memory makes it seem like it is by processing and storing all this additional information."

But is that it? Is that all there is to it?

Einstein once said this about the apparent movement of time: "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."

Many people would assume that Einstein's joke was simply about perception, but what if in fact the amount of time there is in any given moment is relative? What if we actually are, through our state of consciousness, slowing down or speeding up time, or put another way, changing the amount of time there is?

Here's "Seth," being channeled by Jane Roberts: "As I have said many times, time as you think of it does not exist. The fact is that all ‘time’ is simultaneous. Events are not things that happen to you. They are materialized experiences formed by you, according to your expectations and beliefs.”

In other words, time is a construct of the human mind, a framework within which we experience things in a linear sequence for the sake of having that experience, but it is not the true nature of the greater reality in which we exist.

Okay, how many readers have I lost at this point? And anyway, why is this information useful?

Well, so many of us feel trapped or pressured by time, or the notion of it. Clocks are always ticking in our brains, measuring how much time we have, or don't have, for various activities and experiences, and that creates a lot of stress, which in turn creates many negative consequences in our lives. But if time isn't really "real," and if its movement is literally relative, flexible, malleable, then time can become a tool rather than a tormentor.

Think about it. If we become able to understand and use time in this way, we can choose to "spend" more or less of it according to our desires and preferences without worrying about it running out, or dragging on. We can create more time to do the things we love to do, and "use up" less time doing things we don't prefer to do. People have asked me how I am able to work as a therapist, write movie and TV scripts, and this blog, be in a love relationship, while raising two kids and acting as landlord of my building, and still have time to meditate, make home cooked meals, walk in the park and watch the Yankees. My answer is always the same - when you're not spending any time worrying or obsessing about how much time you have, there is an endless amount of it. Because it's all relative.

Think about it.

Okay, time to go back to bed... Happy Sunday everyone!