Question for those who discovered psychedelics later in life.

Did you notice the years/seasons go by at a slower pace after psychedelics?

I think this is the case for me (started psychedelics after 40). Subjectively, curiosity and appreciation for life increased. The added contemplation/memories/thoughts make the weeks/months seem to go by slower. However, alcohol abuse effectively stopped after psychedelics which may be a confounding factor.

The research below suggests that loss of Neural network efficiency can make time feel as if it is going by faster as our brains age:

https://www.sciencedaily...019/03/190320120547.htm

Since psychedelics are know to have neuroplasitc effects, maybe one positive effect could be the sense that the years go by at a slower rate compared to before psychedelics came into one's life.

Anyone else have this feeling?

Per the research, eye movement (more frequent in children with fresh minds) can be a quantifiable metric for this. It may be interesting to get this data for non-psychedelic and psychedelic adults.



Journal Reference: Adrian Bejan. Why the Days Seem Shorter as We Get Older. European Review, 2019; 1 DOI: 10.1017/S1062798718000741

I've noticed time seems to go by quickly as I age and have not noticed a change however I've used psychedelics since I was 16. I am interested in learning if people who took them when they were older noticed a change.

I'm unsure about the impact of psychedelics on thought patterns and observation, it is an interesting topic. I look forward to learning more about the experiences of Nexians.

I've noticed the same thing. Sure there are time distortions during a trip. But once you get back into work and normal life time seems to go by just as fast as ever.

Thanks to those who answered. Roll up of data:

1 person started psychedelics mid-life and noticed that baseline time went by slower after use (as it did at a younger age), indication a possible neuroplasitc effects.

2 people taking psychedelics since they were young have noticed baseline time move faster, showing that psychedelics alone cannot complete stop this side effect of brain aging.

Anymore data appreciated. If you took psychedelics midlife please report back (even if you did not notice a baseline time change - we need are after a complete dataset - or as complete as possible). This is not a scientific poll, just an informal survey to see if there could be something here. Thanks.

I first took psychedelics (LSD) at age 18. That was over 20 years ago. Since that time my life has changed so much. I have so many more obligations and responsibilities now. My days are so much busier with work and things to accomplish. I credit these factors with causing the perception that time goes by quickly now. For example, 2 years ago I had a severe injury to my knee. I was unable to return to work for several months. I basically lived in my bed for the first month. I can asure you that time went by much slower during that period of my life.

I believe that psychedelics (specifically mushrooms and cactus) have improved my cognitive functioning. They have helped to mature and develop my mind. I dont see the experience of time as necessarily being correlated with those improvements or lack there of.

Thanks Grey Fox.

You are right, many factors affect the perceived passege of time, especially during temporary changes in life. I'd like to try to clarify the original question.

The research linked above claimed a signal in the subjective perception of the passage of time. Overall and on average, as the years and decades go by, time seems to speed up. They traced this to changes in the brain as we age.

Since psychedelics can occasion neuroplasticity and long term changes, I'm wondering if they can have an impact on this baseline trend that the research has established.

The fastest two years of my life was when I was constantly doing psychedelics, particularly, LSD. Time seems to have gone back to "normal" now that I am sober for weeks and months at a time. The day does feel a lot shorter compared to when I was a child, days used to drag on back then, and if that sounds like a complaint, it's not. I wish my days could drag on now!

I read/heard somewhere that the feeling the time goes faster as one ages - that's why most young people find time passes slowly. I don't remember 100% but the logic presented was that due to amount of memory one has or how brain records living experience into memory. So potentially, it's possible that psychedelics change how brain encodes memory. Hope this help.

When I was a kid, I had this theory that your lifetime from birth to the present moment always seems equally long. So when you're say 10 days old, a day - which is 1/10 of your life - seems as long as a year when you're 10 years old, and that's why a day seemed like an eternity to me, while to adults it was nothing.

Psychedelics (Ayahuasca in particular) indeed slow down the passage of time while you're under their influence. Sometimes a minute seems like an hour, and I attribute that to the fact that more thoughts go through my mind. Over the course of a minute I may think an hour's worth of thoughts and so I feel like it's been an hour.

I think the more intensely you experience life, the slower time will seem to go. So mindfullness for instance will slow down time.

What makes time go faster is going auto-pilot. That's why old people experience time as going faster...they're more experienced, so they can more easily delegate "experiencing life" to good old auto-pilot mode.