Does time really slow down when you’re in fear for your life?

Time seemed to run into slow motion when Eagleman fell off a roof. When he became a neuroscientist, he collected hundreds of similar stories from others. But is it true that your brain can actually see in slow motion, like Neo in the Matrix? And how would you test that? Hear how Eagleman dropped volunteers from a 150-foot tower to put the science to the test, and what the answer illuminates about our perception, memory, and experience of the world.

Episode Audio

Episode Video

More information:
Stetson C, Fiesta MP, Eagleman DM (2007). Does time really slow down during a frightening event? PLoS One. 2(12):e1295.

"A popularizer of impressive gusto...[Eagleman] aims, grandly, to do for the study of the mind what Copernicus did for the study of the stars."
- New York Observer

"Eagleman has a talent for testing the untestable, for taking seemingly sophomoric notions and using them to nail down the slippery stuff of consciousness."
- The New Yorker