Can time be slowed down by our mental processes such as in a state of nirvana?
Nirvana is essentially a state when you are in complete harmony with the world around you and due to this everything slows down to an instant which would seem like an eternity (this is how I have come to understand it). This seems rather impossible to most people (for those who think time is a physical time is real) as time seems to move at a pretty constant rate, at least in the physical idea of it. Psychological time would then need to come into play when talking about Nirvana. This is because it is effecting the subjective experience of the person. For instance, when I am on stage or acting, time seems to become irrelevant and usually altered. If you mess up, or there is a gap of time when a line slips, that moment seems at least three times as long than the audiences perspective of what it actually is. Or you can just be acting and time seems to have gone by in a no time at all.This must be due to the adrenaline and your brain function during that time.
Now brain function is composed of neurons and electricity. The appearance of time being longer would then be relative to the activity in the brain at a faster speed. If we think of how fast we can send messages wirelessly today, we see that electric waves move at an almost unfathomable speed. This speed of electricity though is occurring constantly within our bodies and brain effecting how we interpret and interact with the world. If being in a trance like state, such as acting, can effect our psychological time, then why couldn’t a meditation master control his brain functions to the point of it seemingly stopping time? It seems almost unreal, but the experience/state/idea of nirvana to me then seems real and possible, just extremely difficult (why else would so many Buddhists dedicate their lives to becoming enlightened?)
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