Summary

As a boy, Oliver Sacks was fascinated by speed. This led him to explore photography and film which allowed him to slow down motion, speed it up, and capture very slow movements, such as the growth of plants, through time-lapse photography and home-made photo flick-books. He explores how others have perceived motion, speed, and time through a discussion of stories by H.G. Wells: "The Time Machine" and "The New Accelerator," as well as through psychologist William James' work "The Perception of Time". Sacks also writes, on a more personal level, about how the perception of time changes as one ages.

In the next section, Sacks writes about anecdotal as well as studied incidents and accounts of how the perception of time changes when a person is "suddenly threatened with mortal danger" (35). Most studied subjects, "described an increased speed of thought and an apparent...