[nara]

I have had this experience a number of times now. It always happens when I'm about to get into a car accident. Thankfully I've never had a car accident; I've been very very close a number of times but due to this effect I've been able to avoid them.

It is strange feeling, like a focused adrenaline rush. My rational mind tends to "shut-off" at this point and as best as I can describe I don't consciously think anymore... I see, feel and react. Time slows down as well. It feels like my body and reaction times still moves at the same speed but my environment appears to move slower.

I remember one time I was driving down a highway and as I approached an intersection a car on the side street sped past the stop sign and plowed into the car that was about 50 ft in front of me. I immediately dropped into the focused state at that point and was able to avoid all of the flying debree and swerve away from the cars as they reeled from the impact. It was a surreal moment because I remember seeing the hubcaps and other debree explode from the cars in slow motion after impact.

I've done a small bit of reading on the subject and it appears to have to do with the fight-flight response. When your senses receive new information the "data" goes to the thalamus where it splits off and goes to the neo-cortex and the amygdala. The neo-cortex is responsible for rational thinking and the amygdala is responsible for the emotional respone. The data reaches the amygdala much faster than it does the neo-cortex. Which is why you'll often find yourself reacting emotionally to a situation before you've had the time to think it through.

In extreme situations, the amygdala can hijack the mind and prevent the rational mind from interfering. This is important when you life is in extreme danger and you don't have time to mull over your different options of escape. In those cases you need to react and you need to do it NOW! The mind no longer consciously thinks, at this point, but instead relies on it's subconscious programming to respond to situations.

I've tried to find ways to invoke this rationally but haven't had any luck mainly because it's dealing with two different parts of the brain. You would have to somehow consciously trick your emotional brain into believing it was in a life or death situation. How can you fool yourself when you know you're trying to fool yourself? It could possibly be done through hypnosis of some kind.

I've had the effect others speak of where the perception of time conciously (rationally) slows down. This state is induced through the neo-cortex though and not the emotional state that I described above. In the emotional state I believe I could move and react much faster because my body still feels to be moving in "normal" time while my environment slows down. In the time-state induced by conscious thought, I can't physcially move too much without bringing myself out of the state.

A good mental exercise I found to help induce the mental time distortion is this:
Imagine yourself in a car traveling down the highway. In the middle of the street see the yellow lines as they pass by you. On both sides of the highway see trees whizzing by you as well.
To slow down your environment, imagine the trees slowing down while keeping the yellow lines moving at the same speed as before.
For the opposite effect, imagine the yellow lines slowing down while the trees remain at the same original speed.