eli5 Why it feels like traumatic events happen in slow motion causing them to feel like they last longer than than the few seconds they actually do?

Question

I.e car accident

In: 41

Answer 1

I was a neuroscience researcher for many years. This wasn’t exactly my area of study, but I worked alongside learning and memory experts.

My understanding is that the brain makes more memories when it is highly activated and fewer memories when it’s calm.

Traumatic events trigger a stress response. This highly activates the brain and so it starts making a lot of memories very quickly, which slows down our experience of time.

It’s very similar to a slow motion camera, which works by taking a lot of individual pictures. When you play back those images the video is super slow.

Our brains are simultaneously making those memories and experiencing them. When there are a lot of memories to experience in a short period, time feels slowed down.