It’s a weird phenomenon, and while I’m willing to chalk it up to material causes (drug interactions or related blackouts, etc.), the few times I’ve experienced it have felt so drastically different than similar states I’ve experienced I still think about them once and a while. Have you had one, and while you may have chalked it up to a rational cause still aren’t 100% satisfied with that conclusion (or have chalked it up to something else entirely? Interested in those stories too, but while I won’t do it know others may dunk on you).
I have two stories:
-Many years ago, I invited a girl to my place to hang out. We smoked some weed, a normal amount for us, and ordered a pizza. We were chatting normally, then all of a sudden it was three hours later. The pizza guy came and went, and both of us couldn’t account for the lost time.
Rational conclusion: We smoked weed and fell asleep.
Things that make this uncomfortable: We were both pretty experienced pot smokers, and for my part while I had fallen asleep smoking pot before, it’s usually accompanied with a period of waking up. This was more a sudden “Hey, wait, something’s off” experience while still sitting up. And it happened to both of us.
-About a year ago, I visited a bar late and had (to my recollection) about 4 beers. Again, this is within normal thresholds, though I have drank to blackout before. I left the bar and caught a bus home.
As I was getting out of the uber in front of my house, I thought “Wait a second, didn’t I get on the bus?”. I had my map tracking on (I know, dumb, but in this case useful), and apparently I got off the bus, and about 15 minutes later grabbed an uber. I had no recollection of this.
Rational conclusion: Between the lateness of the hour, level of tiredness and alcohol, I hit a blackout threshold much lower than I’ve experienced before, got confused with late night bus routing and hopped off to grab an uber instead.
Things that make this uncomfortable: it was not an expected amount of beer that would lead to this, and based on how I felt the next morning (pretty normal but tired) I don’t think I drank more than I accounted for here. As an aside, where I got off was interesting - there’s an old motel that’s in a kind of weird spot in a very gentrified area of my town (motel was operating before this period). Always caught my attention, but I’ve never had any reason whatsoever to go there. According to the map, I was there for the 15 minutes. That said, looking at the map, my pickup location on the uber app, and noting exact positioning is often off by a bit on the map app, it was likely a coincidence and I was at a nearby intersection, with the map pinging this because it was a nearby landmark.
Again, ultimately I chalk these up to rational causes, but there’s something about them that give me pause anyway. Would love to hear stories from other folks who’ve had experiences like this and what explanations they’ve landed on.
Only from general anesthesia. It’s such a weird feeling.
You use drugs that mess with the way your brain works. Why does any of the other stuff surprise you? Yeah, that’s what happens when something messes with the way your brain works.
So you’re not wrong, which is why I’ve typically chalked it up to those causes.
But with that said, experientially these moments differed from moments where the connection between the activity and experience was much clearer. Smoke weed, pass out, and have usual experience of waking up (eyes opening, moving from a prone position to being upright, first-waking-up grogginess as you return to consciousness, etc.) - doesn’t neatly match up with my experience here, and stands out from other experiences where the cause and effect was experientially clear. Same with the second story - I have blacked out before, but it’s usually accompanied with a clear state/level of intoxication beforehand, and more intoxicating material involved than was the case here.
I want to be very clear - I’m not positing these experiences are something paranormal whatsoever, which is a trend when looking up information about missing time. I’d argue in all cases, there is something material afoot - drug-brain interaction, neurological causes (seizures, etc.), known phenomenon like highway hypnosis, etc. They just feel weird, and I shared my stories mostly to see if others had some they wanted to share. Entertaining anything beyond the rational re: this should really just be fun “What if?” thinking IMO - fun to consider but not to take as a real root cause.
Two other rational, though more sinister/unfortunate conclusions could also be that you smoked some bad (ie fake or laced) weed and someone spiked your drink at the bar.
Situation 1: did you have and smoke more from that same batch any other times? /Did your friend bring their own stuff?
Situation 2: could have gotten drugged unfortunately, but fortunately left before blacking out and managed to get yourself home.
100% the simplest and most harmless explanations are most likely, not suggesting that the worst case scenario is probable. Just thinking of other possibilities.
My only experiences with missing time are most likely epilepsy-related, so I’ve never thought much of one beyond that. Seizures can feel pretty strange by definition, so I don’t think I would know how to guess if something else caused a given episode.
With the first scenario, this was the same batch of stuff I was smoking prior to the experience and got from my usual guy. That and while it’s not impossible that my weed could’ve been laced, where I was at the time (British Columbia) there was so much supply that such cases are rare to unheard of. Edit: Though as a counterpoint, this could account for why both my friend and I experienced this. That said, didn’t happen before that or after with the same batch of weed.
With the second scenario, this definitely crossed my mind, particularly with the motel thing in the mix. I can’t rule it out, but it would be particularly unlucky - I was chatting with a pretty well-respected/on the ball bartender and positioned directly in front of him on a quiet night. Drink was kept in my hands for the most part, so I don’t know that there was an opportunity that wouldn’t have been caught. But there could have been a lapse in that where the opportunity arose that I’m not accounting for.
Appreciate the alternative propositions!
As a smoker and one-time bar-goer, I’d agree those sound unlikely given the details. Shared lost time in that first situation is definitely an interesting one, strange world! I’m sure it was hazy, but did you both start the lost time (and/or come to) at the exact same moments?
This becomes the problem when telling the first story, as this was a long time ago. The way I remember it, we came to at roughly the same time - but while we’re talking about time and its perceptual quirks, memory is also a weird/not 100% reliable thing.
The only thing that makes me think I’m not misremembering that is the pizza aspect - both of us didn’t hear the pizza guy, and there were some missed calls from the pizza place. You’d figure at least one of us would’ve reacted to that and/or knocks/doorbell rings.
I won’t lie - the situation between me and this girl was an odd one, that in many ways shaped what the next several years afterwards looked like for me (would rather not get into that, but if you pick the most generic boy-meets-girl-at-wrong-time trope you can think of, you’ll probably be pretty close). And the rest of the evening in question after this experience was a highlight to that story. Given that, sometimes I entertain the idea of dimensional shift stuff, some blip that manifests as a perceptual oddity when a critical fork in ‘destiny’ occurs.
But I only ever really entertain it as a hippyish food for thought thing - I find it too outlandish to take seriously when “You both fell asleep smoking pot, didn’t realize you fell asleep, and woke up around the same time” is far more plausible/grounded, even if as I say the words there’s a nagging discomfort (much, much less at this point obviously).
I remember about half a month ago that I was working on a project and a little after I woke up I stared coding. I wrote a few stuff, might even stood up and walked a bit in the meantime. After some time, I looked up the time, about 2hours had passed and they felt like 15minutes…
During stressful or happy situations (or maybe for each situation that is intense or focus is required) I think my perception of time changes a lot, I get distracted and time seems to fly without me noticing, but I recognise that my mood affects my perception so I can somewhat “correct” my estimations.
Now I dont know if this fits, but I also notice that time seems to fly in general.😅 I can wake up and if I don’t follow a schedule, hours pass soo fast. Days pass fast as well.🤷 I kinda have accepted it and I just try to have a schedule to semi-follow so that I can at least do things before time flies away.
Doesn’t quite fit, just because in those cases you can typically account for the activity (more or less) during the period. But I always think your examples are important additions to discussions like this, simply to demonstrate that time perception is very subjective/malleable even under mundane circumstances. Lol, I still remember how my grade school teacher taught this when I was really young - 10 minutes of free play time (given as part of the demonstration) feels very different to 10 minutes in silence for a small child.
Appreciate the comment! Time perception in general is friggen weird when you stop to think about it.
