Time Warped Book Summary - Time Warped Book explained in key points

Time Warped summary

Name: Time Warped
Rating: 4.4 (11 reviews)
Author: Claudia Hammond

Claudia Hammond

Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception

4.4 (11 ratings)

21 mins

Topics

Neuroscience General Knowledge

Table of Contents

Time Warped
Summary of 12 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Discover how to gain control over your perception of time.

The mystery of how we perceive time is certainly an enduring one. Why is it that time often feels like it’s dragging on endlessly, while at other times it appears to zip by?

Drawing on a wealth of examples and an abundance of contemporary research in neuroscience, biology and psychology, the award-winning author and broadcaster Claudia Hammond confronts the mystery of what she calls “time warps.”

Along the way, Hammond explains why time feels as though it speeds up as we get older, why it slows down when we pay close attention to something, and why different people can have vastly different perceptions of the passage of time.

Additionally, Time Warped is a trove of advice about using time more effectively, and – most importantly – using time warps to your own advantage, speeding up or slowing down your life at will.

In these blinks, you’ll discover:

Why we tend to believe that important events happened more recently than they actually did.
Why we have more vivid memories of events occurring when we were aged 15–25 than at any other period.
Why a man who decided to live alone underground for two months believed he still had almost a month left to go when his friends collected him.

Whether you simply want the time you spend waiting in line at the post office to zip by, or you’re looking to create a rich, long life to look back on, these blinks will show you the way.

Although time runs at a constant speed, our perception of it is affected by different factors.

Have you ever wondered why time seems to drag on endlessly one day, while the next day it appears to fly by?

What's behind this strange phenomenon?

In short, our perception: While the flow of time itself doesn’t vary, our perception of it does.

So what factors influence this perception?

Firstly, our emotions. For example, when we’re afraid, we process all sense data – what we see, hear, smell, taste and feel – more thoroughly. When we process more information in a given period of time than usual, time seems to slow down.

This phenomenon was tested by neuroscientist David Eagleman, who intentionally terrified his (willing) participants by throwing them off a skyscraper roof (don’t worry, they were wearing safety harnesses). The participants' fear caused their brains to process information in far greater detail, and consequently, time seemed to decelerate.

The second factor in “time warping” is memory: the more memories we make, the more slowly time seems to pass. Furthermore, if we're experiencing a lot of stress, our senses are heightened, so we tend to make more memories.

For example, imagine that you despise public speaking yet you're obligated to give a five-minute presentation. When you're finally up on that stage, you'll probably feel highly stressed. That stress will cause you to “record” the event in great detail, making a lot of memories – e.g., of the faces of the people in the front row.

The result? Those five minutes will seem like an eternity.

Finally, even something as mundane as body temperature can affect our time perception.

Take psychologist Hudson Hoagland’s wife, who was bedridden with flu. Hoagland nursed his wife attentively, and didn't leave her alone for longer than a few minutes at any one time. Nevertheless, she complained that he was gone for much longer periods.

Curious about her apparently warped sense of time, Hoagland performed an experiment which demonstrated that the higher his wife's fever, the more quickly a minute seemed to pass for her.

Time is shared between people and based on social rules.

If you've ever taken a vacation in a warm, southern country, you might've observed that its inhabitants have a completely different idea of punctuality. While most people in the northern hemisphere set an acceptable limit for lateness of, say, five minutes, elsewhere it is not uncommon for people to turn up a whole two hours late.

This is because every society has its own rules and conventions concerning time, which its members share and understand.

Our perception of the past is affected by the magnitude of events and the age at which we experienced them.

In which year did Michael Jackson die? It must’ve been ages ago, right?

You might be surprised to learn that it was as recent as 2009.

We each have an inner clock that controls our bodily functions but runs for longer than 24 hours.

Have you ever wondered why you get hungry at certain points of each day? Or why we tend to get tired around the same time each evening?

This is the work of an inner biological clock that times all of our bodily functions.

Your perception of time depends on your mind and body working together.

As you've learned, your brain influences your bodily functions and your perception of time. But how exactly does the brain do this?

Firstly, the brain's frontal lobe is responsible for our perception of the passage of time, as well as the creation and storage of memories and the development of ideas.

The more attention we pay toward something, the slower time will feel.

Imagine that you're sitting in a lecture, bored out of your mind. As hard as you try, you find it difficult to keep your eyes off the clock as the seconds tick away.

If you glance up at this clock at just the right moment, the second hand seems to rest longer than you expect – so much longer, in fact, that you wonder whether the clock has stopped. Of course, an instant later, the hand moves.

We all represent the passage of time to ourselves in one way or another, and some people do it visually.

When you think about last week, do you imagine time laid out in front of you, from left to right?

Many people – approximately 20 percent, in fact, tend to “see” time in this way.

Our ability to consider the future is an advantage that distinguishes us from other animals.

Think ahead to next winter, and imagine yourself sitting on the couch, wrapped snugly in a blanket and reading a gripping novel.

Can you feel the soft blanket around you? Perhaps you can even smell the freshly baked Christmas cookies.

Memories are made of flexible fragments which we can use to create new ones.

Have you ever been telling a story that you're convinced is from your own life, only to have a friend interrupt to complain that you're recounting their experience, not yours?

Why does this happen?

You can make your life seem longer by making every day special, or you can even make time speed up.

You've probably noticed how time flies when you're doing something enjoyable – like watching your favorite TV show – and how time drags endlessly when you're bored.

But have you noticed that longer periods of time, such as the passage of a year, are also subject to the time-warp effect?

If you feel that there aren’t enough hours in the day, you're probably not using them efficiently.

Imagine a very busy day: you're rushing to meet several deadlines, you have a lunch date you can't cancel, and your phone just won't stop ringing.

On days like this we tend to feel that if there were just a few more hours in the day we'd complete all our tasks with time to spare.

Remembering the dates of past events isn’t easy, but certain tricks can help you.

Often when we look back on our past, the events seem to blur together and their order becomes difficult to pin down.

What year did the recent London bombings take place? When did Princess Diana die?

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What is Time Warped about?

Time Warped (2012) is about that enduring mystery: our perception of time. Using research from the fields of neuroscience, biology and psychology, Claudia Hammond investigates the many reasons why, on one day, time appears to pass rapidly, while on another, it seems to grind to a halt. In addition, Time Warped suggests ways in which we can control our individual experience of time.

Best quote from Time Warped

Time dictates the pattern of our lives – when we work, when we eat, even when we choose to celebrate.

—Claudia Hammond

Who should read Time Warped?

Anyone who thinks they have no time
Anyone who feels that time moves more quickly nowadays
Anyone who can’t remember the year Michael Jackson or Princess Diana died

About the Author

Claudia Hammond is an author, lecturer and broadcaster for the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4. She has won many awards for her work in representing science in the mainstream media. Hammond’s previous book was Emotional Rollercoaster: A Journey Through The Science Of Feelings, published in 2005.

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