Re: Did 'MY' Perception of time STOP?

Robert,

Sorry about the extraordinary amount of time it took me to answer this 
question, but with vacation time and grant deadlines approaching, it 
slipped my mind.  Your question is an interesting one, and I'm not sure I'm 
going to have a good answer for you.  Our perception of time is, if you'll 
pardon the pun, relative.  By that, I simply mean that it depends on the 
situation.  This holds true for all of our senses including sight and 
sound.  I suspect that your perception of stopped time was due to the fact 
that your full attention at the time of the accident was focused on what 
was occurring at that exact moment and nothing else.  Because all of your 
attention was focused, your brain went into a type of overdrive where it 
took in as much information as it could and sent it to its conscious 
processing centers.  Now, during a normal day, in any given amount of time, 
your brain is receiving sensory inputs from your environment, most of which 
doesn't get through the internal filters and thus into your consciousness. 
 You become used to processing a certain amount of information per period 
of time.  Since the amount of information you were processing at the time 
of the accident was vastly more than you were normally used to, your sense 
of time extended.  Let's look at another example that I am sure you have 
experienced.  You can also lose your sense of time when you are 
concentrating on a particular task.  During the task, you have no sense of 
time passing, and when you are finished are surprised at how much time has 
passed.  The same general concepts apply to this situation as to yours.  I 
hope this answered your question.  If it didn't, I might want to have 
madsci redirect your question to a psychologist.