How drugs alter your perception of time

Imagine a world where you could control your sense of time. Where trips to the dentist flew by in a second and holidays felt like they lasted forever. Time altering pills may sound like science fiction but the time warping effects of psychoactive drugs suggest that deliberate time manipulation may be possible.

Drug induced time-warps are a widely reported phenomenon by recreational drug users. My 2022 study suggested that over 75% of people who had recently used cocaine, MDMA (also known as ecstasy) and cannabis reported distortions to the passage of time during drug use. The participants said the distortions were a pleasurable aspect of drug use.

Studies show that cocaine and MDMA (ecstasy) speed up our perception of time. Despite being able to party for longer after cocaine and MDMA, users may feel like their night was over faster because time flew by more quickly.

Cannabis, on the other hand, often leads to a sensation of time expanding. Minutes can feel like hours and evenings seem to last forever. Other drugs can scramble our sense of time completely.

Psychedelics such as LSD, DMT and mescaline produce a sense of timelessness. Prescription drugs can also distort time too. Pregabalin, a drug used to treat epilepsy and anxiety, and anti-anxiety drug Xanax, both slow the passage of time.

So why do drugs warp time?

Drugs have powerful effects on the way in which the brain processes the world around us.

They cause changes in chemical messengers in the brain called neurotransmitters. Drugs associated with increases in the passage of time are stimulants, which cause increased activity and excitation across the areas of the brain associated with cognitive function. The ones associated with a slowing of the passage of time are depressants, which cause decreases in activity across these areas  of the brain.

Drugs also affect behaviour and emotions, both of which can twist our experience of time. Drugs such as cocaine and MDMA can have powerful effects on mood, inducing feelings of happiness and euphoria.

Studies show that during daily life, time passes more quickly during periods of positive mood and more slowly during dips in state of mind. This happens because some of the brain areas thought to be involved in timing are also responsible for emotion processing.

When these areas have to process emotion and time at the same time, distortions can happen. The high evoked by drug use may itself be a cause of drug induced distortions to time.

What you do while taking drugs will contribute to the sensation that time is bending. Immersing yourself in exciting activities, such as socialising with friends and dancing in clubs, draws our attention away from time. When you pay too much attention to time, for example when bored, time passes slowly.