Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman Ep124 "Why don't we notice gaps in time?"
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Oct 6, 2025 Explore the fascinating concept of time with insights into why we don't notice eye movements during saccades. Discover how the brain constructs reality, editing our perception like a movie. Delve into the mysteries of sleep and anesthesia, where hours vanish and consciousness disconnects. Hear intriguing discussions on memory, amnesia, and how entire chapters of life can be erased. Plus, ponder the possibility of civilizations lost to deep time, reminding us how easily history might slip away.
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Vision Hides Millisecond Gaps
- Vision constructs an internal model and suppresses input during eye jumps (saccades).
- Your brain edits out motion blur so you never experience the gaps between fixations.
Try The Camera Jerk Demo
- Try the smartphone camera test: jerk the camera and watch the nauseating result.
- Use this demo to directly feel how your brain normally edits visual motion.
Sleep Makes Hours Disappear
- Sleep erases hours because non-REM neural activity stops encoding memories.
- Without memory footprints, the brain treats the interval as if no time passed.
