One of the seats of emotion and memory in the brain is the amygdala, he explained. When something threatens your life, this area seems to kick into overdrive, recording every last detail of the experience. The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems to last. "This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older, " Eagleman said--why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we’re dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass. Burkhard Bilger
About This Quote

The amygdala is a part of the limbic system in the brain. It is located deep in the temporal lobe, near the hippocampus. The amygdala plays a role in memory and emotion, particularly fear. If your amygdala is stimulated, you will react emotionally to that stimulus, making it very important for survival.

Time seems to slow down when you are confronted with fear because your amygdala takes longer to process the information before you are aware of the danger. The more familiar your environment becomes, the less information your brain records, thus time seems to pass faster.

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More Quotes By Burkhard Bilger
  1. One of the seats of emotion and memory in the brain is the amygdala, he explained. When something threatens your life, this area seems to kick into overdrive, recording every last detail of the experience. The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems...
  2. The brain, he writes, is like Kublai Khan, the great Mongol emperor of the thirteenth century. It sits enthroned in its skull, "encased in darkness and silence, " at a lofty remove from brute reality. Messengers stream in from every corner of the sensory kingdom,...
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