(September 27, 2017 at 10:36 am)Khemikal Wrote: There is a term for it (I can't remember it atm, ironic), and no..it's not actually an adrenaline rush. It's an issue of an overactive amygdala, a common human response to danger. To simplify it, your brain is taking more notes when you think you're in trouble. The time seems slow because it's relatively "full" of memories. The conclusion of critical thought seems certain for the same. The amusing bit, is that it's an illusion in retrospect. Time doesn't actually slow down, and human beings don't exhibit enhanced critical abilities in crisis.
Had it gone another way, you'd still have the then-and now retrospective effect of time slowing, but you would have been presented with an agonizing list of your failures in that regard (rather than a sense of enhanced competence). People spend lifetimes broken over a second by second report in the memory of how they fucked up and plowed their family car into a post.
On the one hand, this little tick of mind is terrible, but on the other.......it expresses one of the most useful learning routines imaginable. Some disaster is occurring (minor or major) and you're dodging the debris. This would be a good time to make an exhaustive list of what worked. For better or worse, you're about to learn something of immense value..or..you know....die. The response itself is a work of art. Rather than crush itself under the weight of trivial memories, danger acts as a selection trigger for enhanced retention of information. It's not actually doing anything faster or better, just doubling up the reports it keeps about events that satisfy the selection condition.
I've had that experience a couple of times, both when at physical risk. I imagine being in combat would be quite the trigger. I became a bit of an adrenaline junky, but I've given that up. Don't like the bumpy ride.
