Why Time Moves Faster as We Age

Time. One of the strangest quantities we experience. It has, for instance, both philosophical and physical aspects. We can't say precisely what it is, either.

Time travel. Stranger still. Travel at the speed of light and you age more slowly than a stationary object. Travel to another galaxy at the speed of light and upon your return you'll be hundreds or thousands of years into Earth's future. And strangest of all, time can be suspended, examined, and experienced by normal people using everyday mental powers that are used all the time. Pardon the expression.

Experiencing the flow of time firsthand requires no expertise or special state of mind. It only requires an understanding of your relationship to time. "Time", said George Zebrowski, OMNI MAGAZINE, 1994, "is a relationship that we have with the rest of the universe." Zebrowski's definition of time was in terms of relationships. But for us to actually experience time changing speeds it needs to be thought of as a quantity. A limited quantity. Like tickets to the Super Bowl, like the world's supply of oil or like the length of your life, however long you may live. And I hope that's a long time.

You can't use your mental powers and read this at the same time, so read the instructions and then you can start.

Thinking of time as a quantity, start to use your mental powers. Daydream. But control it. Think back to when you were five or six years old. When you were in about kindergarten or first grade. Picture it like only you can. Tap in to your memories. Memory pictures and sights you have stored in your mind. Remember and picture in your mind some of the random events and sights that still seem like they only happened yesterday. You exercise this kind of mental process all the time -- when you daydream about when you were child. But specifically, think of when you were in kindergarten or first grade.

How long did you have to wait between birthdays at that age? It seemed like forever. A year seemed like forever because it did last forever. No illusion or mental trick. When you turned five, to make it to six, you waited a year. And a year is a year. And a year will always be the same length of time. But when your five, a year is also a full 20% of your entire life. Yes, a year is always 12 months, but when you were five, a year not only seemed longer, you experienced it as longer than you do now because it was 20% of your life. Everything is relative.

How long does a year seem now? It depends on how old you are. Use your mental powers and think about that. You only know that as you age, time seems to go by faster and faster. You can't say what time exactly is, but you do know that it literally goes faster as you grow older. But you knew this.

Somewhere in your 20s, you realized the years were going by faster. By the time you were 50, if you are 50 yet, an entire year is only 2% of your total experience. To be more precise, 2% of your life experience. That 2% is not perceived to be nearly as long as the 20% like when you were five, but the actual amount of time as a quantity was the same in both cases. One year. By the time your 80 years old time actually does fly by.

The older you are, the more impact this mental exercise will have on you.

Stranger still is how time affects memory. Again think back to when you were five. There are some experiences or sights that you had when you were five
that are just as clear as the ones you had at 35. Strange that time has no effect whatsoever on long term memories but only short term memory.

Angelus Silesius, a 6th century philosopher and poet, thought the flow of time could be suspended by mental powers. He wrote this poem. See if has some value to you as you get ready to play with time:

Time is of your own making;
its clock ticks in your head.
The moment you stop thought
time too stops dead.