Life is a series of blinks
brianto2013 • 12 Nov 2021 •
Did you know that your perception of time is determined by your blinks?
I was listening to the Andrew Huberman podcast and he shared an interesting fact…
One of the reasons why we have almost no perception of time in our dreams is because our eyes are closed.
Sleep is essentially one long blink
Crazy innit?
When we see something amazing our eyes widen and stay open as long as possible so time “slows down”.
When we are experiencing old boring daily life our blinks set a cadence for our day.
Now here’s the kicker…
Do you start off your day with social media?
Or TikTok?
What about Facebook and Instagram?
In the span of seconds… our brains can access thousands of experiences.
The fast paced churn of content and media tricks our brain that we’re experiencing all these moments.
That’s why it can be somewhat debilitating when you jump out of bed and the first thing you reach for is your phone.
Our brains were just doing a clean wipe of everything, and having a “long blink” when in comes a massive wave of video clips.
We’re tricked into living false lives
It can feel like you’re in the sky-diving across the Grand Canyon, or hiking along the Rockies when you’re consuming content.
But in actuality, you’re just experiencing a recording of another person’s content.
It can feel like you’re surrounded by friends and you’re the life of the party.
But in actuality you’re just watching the highlight reels of a random person’s Saturday night.
I realized something when I found out that blinks are just little slices of our time pie…
I realized that if I wanted to live a life full of worthy blinks, I needed to stop consuming content— and start creating it.
It was a wake-up call to stop vicariously living through other people’s Behind-the-scenes.
I wanted to be the man in the arena.
And I was done blinking from the side lines.
Till tomorrow,
Brian “Blinking” To
Comments
Whatever thoughts are going through your mind immediately before you go to sleep and immediately after you wake up could perhaps be the most crucial thoughts you have on a daily basis.
@tao yeah. I avoid the news like a plague nowadays 😂
@therealbrandonwilson every tried dream journaling?
I have not. My dreams don’t seem to be all that interesting to me, and dreaming, in general, is not a topic I find fascinating.
@brianto2013 intriguing idea about how blinking sets the passing of time. Which Huberman podcast ep is this?
@therealbrandonwilson I used to lucid dream a couple times when I had a solid sleep schedule. Wild stuff. You can self-induce if you train yourself.
@jasonleow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFL6qRIJZ_Y
1:22:00
You can check the timestamps. Good stuff!
Interesting concept.
I guess it also follows that if you wake up and immediately watch the news, which is generally negative, you are allowing those bad thoughts and feelings to start your day.