The Logarithmic Time Perception Hypothesis

If nothing is going on in your life, it is as the article says. However, if you experience novel and memorable stimuli, good or bad, time dilates. Traumatic experiences are particularly memorable because the brain wants to make sure you learn your lesson. It is a consequence of the brain's compressive learning algorithm, discarding the familiar and making sense of the new.

More trauma, longer life. Got it. \s

I’m convinced you’re right. Consider how long your first road trip to a place feels, versus the 10th time you’ve taken that route. When you’re processing all new data, it stretches out.

Agreed completely. I don't think we perceive the passage of time at the macro scale. We perceive the acquisition of novel experiences and new memories.

I've had months of work I can barely remember, and three-day vacations that feel like a year's worth of memories.

One benefit of this, is once you'd done something once, the other times kind of melt together.

Yeah, this is a the answer. Our brain only remembers novelty, our firsts years and even decades are plagued by it. But after you are already 5 or 10 years onto your "adult" life you basically do exactly the same each day. 80% of what we do in our daily life as adults is not memorable at all and get completely ignored by our long-term perception. In short, it feels like the time flies because you did only 2 or 3 memorable things in the whole year.

> Traumatic experiences are particularly memorable because the brain wants to make sure you learn your lesson.

Weird, I have always been told that when the brain is functioning "normaly" (outside of disorders/syndromes, such as PTSD) that it has a tendency to forget bad things, to help us get over traumatic experiences.

I have the exact opposite. The first time seems to flash by, but the 10th time takes forever.

More trauma, longer perceived life. not\s (something to be said about quality over quantity tho)

I don't think they mean literally traumatic, but more like a bad breakup, or falling out of a tree. You survive -- maybe barely -- but its no more traumatic than a scrape or a bump. I still remember the first "major" injury I have (from jumping off a the top of a car at 4 years old). Not like it was yesterday -- no PTSD there -- but it was the first time I scraped my knee. I'll probably never jump off a car again.