The Power of Consciousness

This is one of those experiences that shows that our consciousness is so much more than we normally experience in our every day world. On a rare occasion, time, as it progresses in our physical world, is seen as frozen. That is, it looks like time has stopped, as everything around us suddenly doesn't move at all. This usually last for a couple of seconds.

Of course, time goes at its usual pace. However, it is a question of how fast we process the passage of time. In our physical world, we are conditioned by the physical body to perceive the passage of time at a certain rate, so the brain can process what we experience. But when consciousness disengages from the physical body, it can process the passage of time at an much greater rate. As such the world around us seems to stand still, or to move extremely slow, because the mind can process every single bit of information that is coming in.

Such an experience can happen for no apparent reason, or for a reason that we are unaware of. It does seem to happen a lot in accidents. Then it is probably an automatic function to withdraw awareness at least partially out of the physical body. The mind still continues to receive the information of the accident in progress, but it is observing it from another state of mind.

Following are some first-hand accounts of people who have experienced this frozen-time phenomenon.

People's Experiences

Unexpected

So I know this story is gonna look totally fake but I swear that it’s true. So I was in an aquatic park with my family and I was just chilling in the wave pool when the time completely froze for about a second. At this moment I could see everything just not moving. It was REALLY impressive, then after that I just didn’t move for like 3 minutes thinking about what I just saw. (Reddit)

I've always been thinking about this but never told anyone. I didn't even know if it was real or not. When I was in the fourth grade I was a bit of an artist, I had a great relationship with my teacher because she would love to see my drawings and I'd love to show her as a way to motivate me to do more. One day I got up at least 2 times to show her whatever drawing I had been working on, then, on the third time I got up and started to walk to her I noticed how quiet it got. It was silent, I mean to hear a pin fall on the ground silent. All of a sudden I see her looking at me from her desk dead in my eyes. Still fucking terrifies me right now. I look around and I see everyone, including the teacher, is not moving. Nothing. Not the trees outside, not 30+ students in a FOURTH GRADE classroom. Nothing. I stopped walking because even though I thought "what the hell is going on", but I kind of thought it was cool so I tried not to move too much because I thought everything would go back to normal. I look left and then, everything continues, the sound comes back, the teacher asks me what I want, kids continue moving again. All very scary to me then, when I got up to her I asked her if she just saw what I did and she thought I was joking. (Reddit)

This story happened a month ago and I now just discovered this sub reddit and decided it would be good. I was ten when it happened and now I’m 11. I had 3 friends over so we could play some 2v2 basketball. Everything was going fine and we were having a good time. And out of nowhere time stops. Basketball freezes mid air cars stop friends stop everything is frozen. But I can still move. I can’t move anything and nothing moves. Except me. Everything starts moving again and I’m back we’re I was standing originally. I call a timeout and ask them what happened. They said nothing ever happened and I played it off. I’m still wandering what happened. I don’t take any medication that could makes me have hallucinations or anything like that. (Reddit)

I remember very clearly when I was about 9 or 10, my mom and I went to Toys r Us. This Toys r Us was facing a major highway, so you could see all of the traffic going by. I remember as I was getting out of the car, I for some reason hyper focused on traffic going by, and I remember that for about 5- seconds everything stood still. The cars didn't move as if they paused and there was no sound. When the 5 seconds were over everything was normal and the cars were where they would have been if they didn't pause. It was the only instance I can remember anything like that happening. (Reddit)

Near Accident

When I was 14 (33 now).
My brother and I was living with foster parents in a tiny village in England. We spent a lot of time playing outdoors in the countryside and large wooded areas. We done what most kids do, building dens and treehouses. Then one day I had an old broken tennis raquet, took the string of and made my brother and bows and arrows. I made the arrows from canes with nails strapped to the end, then went into the woods to see if we could get a pheasant.
Any way I was about 20-30 yards away from my brother wen I noticed he spotted something and as he took aim, it ended up pointing in my direction and he let the arrow fly. This is where it tripped me out...everything slowed down I could see my brothers shocked face having let go to early. At the same time I could see this arrow heading towards my face. It was so slow I could see the back end of the arrow making big circles because the flight had come of it got nearer and nearer and caught my outer eye, it brushed past my eye and my ear leaving a small graze...I count myself so very lucky, but it's so weird that time seemed to slow right down and I was aware of what was going on. (Above Top Secret)

It started off just a normal day. Everyone just came to school and sat at their desks, just everyday secondary school things. Being a 14 year old kid, I talked to my friends a lot and didn’t listen to a thing the English teacher was saying. When it was math, our teacher came in. We greeted her (of course), and listened to her teaching. Before I continue, I think it’s important for you guys to know that my desk was situated at the very back of the class, so I can basically see what everyone was doing. So I was listening and copying all the teacher was writing in my book. After finishing, she gave us work to do and we all did it in class silently. Although it was silent in our class, normally the other classes around us would be filled with kids screaming and talking. Well it was for a while. Literally I remember this so vividly. I was doing this when it just went silent. Dead silent. So being a curious teen I looked up to see what was happening. I just thought that the principal was walking around and checking the students in each class. But instead of that, all I saw was everyone in my class, just frozen, all in the same posture. Their heads were up, arms at the side, straight as a stick, but were still sitting down. The teacher was standing though, but was also straight. Outside was silent and what normally would be filled with students walking around, not a single person was outside. Me being the only one moving, I didn’t feel scared at all. In fact, I actually felt very calm. This only lasted a few seconds though (5-8 seconds) and after I closed my eyes, noise from other classes filled my ears and everything was back to normal. Really fucked with me for a while. I really don’t know why it felt normal. I didn’t even ask anyone if it happened to them too. I just kinda continued the rest of the day and kinda forgot it even happened. If you want more clarification, feel free to ask me since I just typed this out quickly, I’ll find time to answer all questions. (Reddit)

Car Accident

I would think that's just an adrenaline rush - the fight or flight thing. When I was the same age, 14, I was riding home from school with a couple of friends. One was 17 and had a car and was driving. The other girl was her cousin and was 13 and eager to drive. The 13 year old finally convinced her cousin to let her drive the car once we weren't far from home. She was driving way too fast on this small country road, and a sharp 90 degree turn was coming up fast. We all yelled to slow down, instead she slammed on the gas. I was in the back seat, leaning forward between to two front seats about a second before we smashed into these concrete filled steel pipes that were put up as a fence.
Now here is the weird part. Time slowed down so much it nearly stopped for me. I remember the feeling of the car lifting off the ground when we went off the road. I looked at the girl in the drivers seat, she had her hands over her eyes. I looked at the owner of the car in the passenger seat, and she was screaming and had a look of terror on her face. I realized I was gonna smash through the windshield because I didn't have a seat belt on. I knew I didn't have time to put on a seat belt. So I decided instead to drop behind the driver's seat and hug it tight so that I wouldn't slam into it. I had all these thoughts in my head in only a fraction of a second. It's quite impossible to believe a person can think so quickly, but after being interviewed by police over and over as they tried to piece together the accident, a doctor eventually told me that adrenaline can do miraculous things like that. I'm the only one in the car who had that experience. If I would have reacted the way the driver did, by freezing up, I would have died. (Above Top Secret)

One of my life changing events some 12 + years ago was a 100 mph car crash. My wife at the time, and I where at an intersection waiting for a light to change. Suddenly, a group of police lights at distance came up at high speed chasing a lone car from behind. Our car, a four door sedan, occupied the right front lane just at the crosswalk. The car beside, filled that spot. Before I could take off we where compacted at 100 mph. What was a full size car was now half its original length. The drug dealer had attempted to cue ball us out of the way to evade the police and keep driving, which he did for several more miles. The car went in to a quick diagonal rolling flip. I was told it was over very fast.
Why am I telling you this ?
At the moment of contact, time stopped. ..... I remember to this day as if it just happened. I am actually starting to get upset. A really loud crash noise, then complete silence. The front window shattered in hundreds of cubes, but v e r y very slowly. I could almost reach out and pick individual pieces of the cubes out of the air and examine them, if it was not for the extreme G-force holding down. I was shocked that this effect could be lasting so honorably long . Nothing any one wants more than to be hurt than to do it excruciatingly slowly. I can not over emphasize that it seemed to last at least 10 minutes in real time. I was even thinking, 'just how long does it take to crash for f' sake ?' We where both slung out against the interior walls of the front passenger compartment like clothes in a dryer, unable to move much. The colored lights of cars and city landscape looking pretty through the now missing windows. As the violence stopped the sound suddenly 'turned on in one quick deafening burst as if the sudden turning on of a stereo that had been left on its highest possible setting, with speakers next to your head. To this day, I jump at loud noise, and I am a gunsmith. The EMS took my wife out of the window, I crawled out of mine. The drugie, was fine. I have metal holding me together.
The Glitchie point with bothering all of you is , this can not be all biological. I mean ( damn ). This has bothered me for years. (Reddit)

Multiple Occasions

I have these moments where everything stops moving and it feels like everyone and everything freezes. After about two seconds, things go back to normal. I don't understand. I'm not zoned out, and it happens just out of the blue. I could be eating and the next second the "glitch" happens. It happens once in a blue moon but I remember it most vividly at the beach when I was younger. I was eating some junk food and watching the waves when all of a sudden I turned my head and saw everything freeze. Seconds later everything went back to normal. I'm sorry that I don't explain it very well, and I don't know if this is just me, but I have a feeling that it isn't just me. (Reddit)

Sudden Urgency

In the summer of 1991, I was walking in a Swiss train station with my husband, who carried our one-year-old baby on his shoulders. We were returning to our home in Lausanne near Lake Geneva after having been traveling for some time by train. My daughter was happily holding onto my husband's neck and hair for support, while he carried two suitcases (his and hers) in his arms.

I walked behind my husband several paces back, carrying my suitcase and noticing with increasing concern that our daughter had released her grip on my husband's hair. I could see that she was now happily waving her arms free, so they rose and fell with each step he took as she bounced along.

Very suddenly and without warning, our daughter bounced up and free of her dad's shoulders and began falling, back, head-first towards the hard marble floor of the train station. I realized with a sudden shock that there was no way he could stop her from falling, since both his hands were gripping their two suitcases, and she was falling much too quickly for him to react in time. I was about twelve feet behind him... much too far away to catch her as she fell, since she was going down FAST.
I felt a rush of emotions flooding me with energy and I realized that I desired with all my heart and soul to somehow catch her.
In the very next moment, I felt myself continuing to walk forward at my normal speed, while everything and everyone around me moved more and more slowly. It seemed that everyone walking nearby began moving in slow motion. The normal high-pitched sounds of high-heeled footsteps clicking on marble tiles slowed and softened to a low hum along with everything else, as everything except me slowed to a state approaching suspended animation.
I was overjoyed to be able to easily catch up to my husband just as our daughter fell freely into my arms! I felt I was walking at a fast but still perfectly normal speed as I covered the vast distance between us while I could see my daughter was no longer falling... she and everyone else was almost perfectly still.
When I caught my daughter, time resumed its normal flow once again, and everyone around me began moving at normal speed. Nobody seemed to stop and stare at me (I later wondered if it looked to others like I was moving forward at super-human speed), and I was simply too overwhelmed with emotions of love and gratitude to stop passers by and ask them what they'd noticed. (Reality Shifters)