Time Flies... or Jumps, or Skips, or....

Trouble and confusion regarding the passage of time is a really common characteristic of hallucinogenic experiences. Some people find it pleasant when time slows down or seems to behave strangely, and others will become baffled and anxious. This is sometimes exacerbated by the need to keep track of time for worldly engagements, or by paying too much attention to where you are in relation to your peak. Time perception is a really intricate brain process, involving many different pieces working together, and is by no means regular or infalliable.

There are many things that can affect your time perception even while sober. For example, the efforts of your eyes to maintain a clear picture can affect time perception. The eye actually makes many more jerky motions than we notice, and therefore has processes in place to give us the movie that we're used to. If you move your eyes very quickly to a clock with a second hand, you'll see that that one second seems to last longer than it should. The visual parts of the brain extend that image backwards in time so you perceive a smoother transition between your last focus and this new one.

I am by no means an expert on this matter, but from what I do know of perception and hallucinogens, these drugs affect the way your brain integrates the information that comes to it. I assume that that is why you sometimes see multiples-- your brain loses the ability to mesh the images from each of your eyes together. The kaleidoscope or fractal effect seems to me to be a result of the doubling of the edges of complex or irregular shapes, like clouds. Therefore, it's not a stretch that maybe the parts of your brain involved in time misfire similarly. LSD (I'm not so sure about other hallucinogens) results in sleeplessness and a loss of appetite, which may affect the Circadian Rhythm, which is the body process that tells you when it's time to eat and sleep. And experiencing novel things makes time seem to slow, and with hallucinogens novel is the name of the game.

My first trip was really interesting in this regard, and I didn't take it very well. I was reminded of this by both my friend's trip the other day and because I found my graphical representation of my time perception during that trip while I was cleaning out my drawer. :)

My ex-boyfriend took me out to the nearby park for my first peak. I figured I would feel very comfortable there because we hung out there a lot, but it was an unseasonably nice day so it was very crowded. It began to remind me strongly of a day that I had spent there with him a year earlier, and as that idea began to grow in my mind I became very confused. It seemed that the year had formed a loop, and that it was up to me to figure out the secret of breaking the loop so we didn't endlessly relive that year. Obviously, I had no idea how to go about this. I asked him if we could go back to his house, and he agreed. I sat down on his bed and asked for a piece of paper so I could try to explain my problem in a drawing. "I'm confused," I repeatedly whined. I felt that something important had happened on the journey home (probably just my peak) but I couldn't remember it.

TRANSCRIPTION:

I was trying to explain to you how time kept getting reset every 20 seconds. Minutes feel like hours. I feel like... who knows. I should just let it do its thing. I can't wrap my head around time. Like, the leaves could have been spring or autumn and then it was the day we met, it was a funeral was a wedding everything kept getting reset. What the hell was up with the pinecones? It seems tragic that I could have made that much of a fool of myself. I should stop fighting.

Time just got too much for me to handle. I should let myself float. I shouldn't be this confused.

All I can see are the leaves on the ground-- registers as orange. Orange? Could that be right? What? What day is it? Suddenly this matter o time is of utmost importance

I am glad that I saved this because I find it hilarious. :)

SOURCES

First Science

Wikipedia

Synesthesia: Part 2 (My Experience)

Remember that weird disorder I posted about earlier? Part of the reason that it interests me so much is because it's a regular part of my life, especially after a few psychedelic experiences in particular.

I have experienced a few different kinds. My grapheme-> color perceptions (meaning that I perceive letters and numbers in color) are always around. I have a theory that it's the reason I'm such a good speller-- I remember words (and phone numbers) by the sequence of colors in which they appear behind my eyelids. Weirdly, numbers have a stronger color association than do letters for me, even though I'm a word person and not a math person at all. That's what my numbers look like, on the left.

A lot of my numbers and letters are different shades of that yellowy-orange. I don't know why, because the color actually sort of pisses me off. I also experience the year as a mobius strip around my body, with January behind me and to the left. I've realized that when I talk about a particular time of the year, I gesticulate in the direction that I perceive it to be. I wonder if anybody notices.

When I smoke kief, things start to get weirder, and I occasionally get other forms. Once, the textures that I touched produced color in my head. I thought that it was so cool that I made a painting (with Q-Tips and nail polish) of the colors that I touched.

In addition, because of my psychedelic experiences, I occasionally taste music. I think that this is a permanent change, but it has to be the right kind of music. During my first acid trip, I was enjoying the song Spitting Venom by Modest Mouse and suddenly I could feel it like pop rocks on my tongue.

It was the coolest sensation, but I figured it was an isolated incident and forgot it for about two months. In between, I did no additional psychedelics, aside from marijuana once a week or so. I was sitting on my bed listening to Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, and the flute that was woven through the song kept causing an actual physical sensation of pain in the center of my tongue, like being poked with a needle. I got so annoyed with that sensation that I had to turn the music off, even though I really enjoyed the sound of it. Since then, I occasionally have a sense of pressure on my tongue, and a related taste of copper pennies, when listening to music.

I love my synesthesia, despite the occasional unpleasantness. I feel lucky to have such a unique way of experiencing the world. Unfortunately, even though drugs have given me new sense combinations, my natural synesthetic perceptions are getting weaker as time goes on, and I don't know how to preserve it. It probably has something to do with all the playing that I do with my neurochemistry, but I like those games too much to stop. :)