[Closed] Why does time go slow when you crash?

The opposite for me, one moment I'm just riding along, a split second later I'm eating dirt and my bike is 20ft away down the trail...

Because we are all just playable characters in a massive simulation and the people with the controllers slow it down as it's funnier to watch.

Obviously.

It’s not a proper crash if you can recall it so clearly.

Is this a thinly veiled Dominic Cummings thread?

It would be so much more helpful if it slowed down just before you crashed, so you had a better chance of saving it!

I'm with Kelvin. When I crash it starts with me thinking I'm Danny Hart, then nothing until I hear people laughing at me and I'm in pain.

I’m not sure if time slows, but I know I become super-aware of what’s going on and this means I always vividly remember the crash forever afterwards. Last one, I can still recall the feeling of my whole weight splatting down on my shoulder.. one from about 20 years ago, I can still see the tree my head crashed into flying towards me... etc etc.

I read about this once. Something to do with adrenalin causing a physical reaction heightening your sensory input.

It only seems like time slows down in hindsight, because you stored more than the usual amount of memories.

Well I remember the pedestrian stepping out, me shouting as I tried to brake, his panicked look as he darted left and right before ending up right where he'd started, the impact as my front fork hit his leg, and then I was sliding down the road.

I'm liking the Matrix theories

I crashed a few weeks back going quite fast, over the bars. It was quite prolonged as crashes go and I had the composure just before hitting deck hard to say "oh no" as the possibility of breaking my collar bone again went through my mind. I think I was on the front wheel for a good few metres.

Ooh! Ooh! I know this one! Well, at least I think I do...

Tinribz is right. It's to do with adrenaline increasing the Flicker Fusion Frequency of your optical system - essentially the brain's equivalent of a TV/monitor Refresh Rate. Your eyes are basically temporarily able to detect stuff happening at a greater rate to try and allow you to take avoiding action to deal with the situation, so time seems to slow. Smaller animals have a faster Flicker Fusion Frequency, hence things like cats or Peregrines being able to spot minute movements and change directions in milliseconds - time seems to move slower for them compared to us.

At least that's how the Falconer on my mate's stag do explained it to us when telling us very vehemently not to move a muscle if the Peregrine we were hunting with swooped past us at pace...

Generally for me its because despite all my efforts i'm not actually going very fast which allows for alot of contemplation of the log i'm heading for as i arc gracelessly over my handlebars.

I can clearly remember having time to think “this is going to hurt”. as I hit the side of a Mercedes M class at 20 mph and smeared myself against the a pillar. I wasn’t wrong.

Years ago I took a really big fall winter climbing (c40m). I can only have been in the air for a few a few seconds but had a really strong recollection of a series of maybe 6 or 7 distinct thoughts during that brief time. How much of that actually happened in the moment and how much my brain constructed afterwards I wouldn't like to say.

My fav is watching those MTB FAIL vids and the (inevitable) spectators shouting "you alright mate" often before mate has even finished crashing, so that's probably the same thing!

My 15yr old lad had his first OTB yesterday, he wasn't hurt thankfully but what shook him up the most was the fact that he couldn't remember anything about it afterwards

I've experienced both sides.

I've had those moments that one second your riding along, the next you are lying on the floor thinking WTF just happened.

I've also had the moments where time seems to come to a standstill and as your in mid-air just thinking, this is going to hurt when I land.

Time also slows down when you’re really flowing on a bike, or totally in the zone with other sports, or deep in the groove playing a musical instrument - it’s amazing quite how much you can do in just a second during that state.

My 15yr old lad had his first OTB yesterday, he wasn’t hurt thankfully but what shook him up the most was the fact that he couldn’t remember anything about it afterwards

Umm...did he hit his head at all, even helmeted?

It's one thing to not remember your crash in vivid detail, but to not remember it all suggests you should be treating it as a suspected concussion.

Does for Danny...

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When I fell off on an icy corner and started sliding across the road I knew to lift my knee off the ground pretty quickly. Still took a chunk of bark off. 🙁

My last big crash seemed to go on forever. Might well be the adrenaline fuelled data collection, but I clearly remember being spat over the bars on a downhill slope on Coal Not Dole at BPW and being so far up in the air that I had time to think 'if I land on a shoulder from up here that's my collarbone gone'. This resulted in the conscious decision to stick my hands out to land on. Saved my collarbone the expense of my elbow...

My small ones just seem to happen. My larger ones involve me waking up either on my own or with paramedics with no recollections 😟

It's to do with block universe theory of time. You have a stronger affinity for the high crisis moment therefore revisit it and can recall it better. Also as you have accelerated your time moves slower relative to those around you.

Or I just feels that way.

When you're lying on the floor wondering how you got there, while your scream still echoes around the forest

Theres a lag between your conscious and unconscious brain. Our conscious experience runs about half a second behind what our unconscious brain detects and reacts to. Particularly in sudden and unexpected situations - if you trip and stumble, blink as the twig thwacks back in your face, duck to avoid something - your unconscious deals with it then half a second later your conscious brain tells you a story about how it all happened and takes the credit.

Time seems to go slower when things are happening suddenly because its a longer story to tell.

You can sometimes sense when this lag is happening. I noice it most when I'm driving stones flicked up at the windscreen in particular - feel a surge of adrenalin and a flinch before I hear the bang.

I met a guy who suffered from 'Synchronicity' once - stuff leaking from the the subconscious to conscious all the time. It drove him off the rails - its like prophesing something a fraction before it happens - the sensation is that you make things happen - particularly bad, upsetting, tragic things -  by thinking them

Theres one very peculiar example of the division between conscious and unconscious processes. Theres a rare type of blindness - people who are clincially absolutely blind - eyes intact but for reasons unknown their brain doesn't process the information from their eyes as sight. But its only their conscious brain that can't see - if you threw a ball at them they'd blink in the same way that we would, the unconscious processes still work, but they still can't see the ball.

It's not the time slowing down I don't understand, it's the voices in my head that say random things. On my last big-ish spill at the Golfie, after managing to miss the trail and go for a big off-camber slippy root of doom instead, Obi-wan Kenobi piped up with 'This isn't the trail you're looking for.' Damn right it wasn't.

I often have time to think "this is going to be fine, I can fix this, no problem".

And to then think "this is going to hurt".

singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/why-does-time-go-slow-when-you-crash/#post-11211508

@martinhutch I hadn't considered that - I've looked up suspected concussion and he didn't have/hasn't had any other symptoms (headaches, dizziness, nausea etc) but I'll keep an eye on him. Cheers

Sometimes there can be a delay before symptoms appear - my only advice would be for him to avoid strenuous activity (mental/physical) for the next few days (for many teenagers this will be no issue!), and certainly anything that could risk a further knock.

@martinhutch yeah I'd read that but thanks for the advice. Like you say, the chance of him doing anything strenuous (especially in the am) is minimal!

If I can see it coming it definitely slows down, although is that a similar process to implanted memories? Post event analysis adds layers to the event?

There's a research institute near me working on impacts of concussion on teenage brains at the moment. They're talking about developing a system to carefully manage returning to activities like sport after impacts...
... Which has made me go back through all the rugby, football, bike crash head impacts I had in my teens and twenties, how blase we were - I remember not even knowing which team I was supposed to be playing for in a game, seeing myself overtaking myself on a motorway driving home from another and then I realise exactly where it all went wrong.

When my spine got broken it took ages for me to hit the ground. I remember seeing the car start turning across me, I'd shouted "no" a few times, nope he's still coming and I'm braking, then I remember contacting the front bumper, and getting flipped high up into the air. I knew it was bad as the pain hit at the moment of getting flipped (the impact had bent my spine enough to crack it) - whilst spinning through the air I had time to think, shoot, I've got air here, the landing isn't going to be great, then smacked down straight flat on my back.

The biggest difficulty was trying to breath, as 4 ribs got smashed on hitting the ground. I managed to bring my legs up so I didn't roll. I was glad for the helmet as the paramedics kept asking about my neck, I said it's not my neck, it's my back - look, the helmet doesn't have a mark on it.

Never known pain like it.

@reeksy My colleague has asked do I want to be part of a study for concussion - they were drumming up us 'active' sorts at my Uni - I've well known for accidents - usually cycle commuting.
Then CV19 hit.

There are different types of crashes. Those where the bike just goes from under you without warning that feel instant and those where you can feel your loosing it and there is a small window of deep regret and "brace! brace! brace!" before impact.

I can always remember the latter very clearly other than those rare occasions where i lost consciousness and i cant remember anything.

The reason times passes slowly is so you can appreciate watching ribbons of flesh being torn off by the gravel, and give you time to marvel at how white your meat is in the nanoseconds before it becomes a bloody oozing mess.

give you time to marvel at how white your meat is in the nanoseconds before it becomes a bloody oozing mess.

I always thought that was the layer of fat