Gents:

I was looking back through some hunting journals and noted from my moose hunt:

when I took the shot everything was quite still and I actually remember seeing the pressure waves go out from the muzzle when I tripped the trigger on the old 06.

wondering if anyone has had a similar "time slows way down" type experience while hunting?

I've noticed that sometimes I go on "automatic pilot" when I see a deer. It seems to be similar to what happens when a cat sees a mouse. The whole world disappears a everything becomes "sight picture, trigger squeeze". Kind of feel like I'm watching somebody else shoot, there is no emotion or thought. My favorite state of mind.

Something like it, but in a completely different context. I was duck hunting using a Rem 12 ga 11-87 autoloader. A mallard appears suddenly up close out of no where so I did one of those wild twisted off-balance badly thought out snap shots...the kind where the stock is on your bicep instead of shoulder. From the angle I could see the action cycle like I've never seen it in a career of hunting. I actually physically saw the spent shell being pulled out seemingly in slow motion and, believe it or not, I saw the orange-ish flames of still burning gases following the spent case out the ejection port. It seemed like I kinda stared at the flames in amazement. Then of course the cycle was completed by the next shell being loaded. All occurred in no telling how little time.

I had no idea all that could even be seen...another hunter said there must be something wrong with my gun to be seeing fire out the side..

jsl,
I have had it happen to me two times while deer hunting. The first one was in Vermont many years ago I jumped a small buck and shot at him when he was running, I missed. When I decided I was going to shoot it was like time was in slow motion. The second time I was hunting in Kentucky and had my next to the youngest son with me. We were headed back to the woods after eating lunch had just crossed the fence from cow pasture to woods. I had just handed my son's gun back to him after he crossed the fence when a doe came running by us from left to right. When I decided I was going to shoot the deer was just coming to the logging road we were standing in. I was using my FN Mauser in 7x57 the safety on my Mauser sticks up from the left side of the action very close to the scope. In the time it took her to run across the road I was able to disengage the safety on the third try pick the deer up in the scope and swing the cross hairs in front of her and I thought to aim low to hit her low in the chest. I could see her back legs buckle when I pulled the trigger she was still on the road when the bullet hit her. It could not have taken that deer more than one second to cross that road. That was the best shot I ever made on a deer and I was glad my son was with me. I heard people say that have had near death experiences that time slows down and I hope to never find out but the times that it has happened to me hunting I really enjoyed it.
Bryan

grear to know other hunters have had similar experiences.

Not while hunting, but last January I was target shooting with a good friend--steel plates at 350 and 500 yards. Conditions were just right and with the tripod-mounted 15 x 80 binoculars we could actually see the .308 Win and .30-06 bullets in flight. They'd come into the field of view 100 yards or so from the target and we could watch them all the way to the plate. It was amazing.

Happens sometimes but not others. Hard to explain it really. I suppose it depends on the hunt, my surroundings, who I'm with etc.

Yes, I have experienced something similar. You will frequently find quite similar stories from soldiers or police who find themselves in highly charged, fast-paced situations.

I hate to "bust your bubble", but you didn't really see what you thought you saw, and time didn't really slow down. What many (perhaps most) of us have experienced is a little-understood but common psycological phenomenon involving your previous knowledge and anticipation of the quick events transpiring.

I've have knowledge of some research on the subject, and without trying to restate all of the factors, just let it suffice to say that the more intimate the knowledge of the person of the circumstances they are in, the more likely they are to experience this phenomenon. In one of the better publicized incidents studied, the cop who thought he read the casehead stamp as the .45 ACP case ejected from his partner's gun flew through the air didn't really read that stamp, he was just intimately familiar with what it looked like and his mind recalled those details during the intensity of the moment.

Stonecreek,
I would wonder how one would prove that the cop did not actually see the case headstamp? I can see that one might talk him out of believing he did but I don't know of anybody that makes a DVR for the brain.

quote:

Originally posted by Fury01:
Stonecreek,
I would wonder how one would prove that the cop did not actually see the case headstamp? I can see that one might talk him out of believing he did but I don't know of anybody that makes a DVR for the brain.

Who you gonna believe? me ,or your lying eyes?

I think the pressure waves come from conditions that have to be just right. Atmostphere, humidity, and calm. I have seen it several times, even while looking over a shoulder or on video while hunting and shooting.

quote:

Originally posted by Fury01:
Stonecreek,
I would wonder how one would prove that the cop did not actually see the case headstamp? I can see that one might talk him out of believing he did but I don't know of anybody that makes a DVR for the brain.

I don't have the research literature immediately at hand, but as I recall the researchers tested a number of hypotheses in reaching their conclusions. They certainly had no interest in convincing the subject of any particular conclusion; in fact they could have cared less what the subject(s) believed at the end of the study. What was important was finding some consistency and commonalities between the subjects and being able to reach some reasonable, dependable, and defensable conclusions about the subjects' experiences.

I certainly never saw before what I did that one time..

I think there's no question for the mind to take in certain events "time slows down", especially for something startling or dramatic.

Stonecreek,
Thanks for the input to the thread. Strictly my opinion; this is an example of how we "hypothesize" ourselves to death often times these days and pass it off as Science. Science is a test of the observed. Only one guy “observed” that head stamped Brass and there will never be a reliable way of hypothesizing another outcome until we can read the memory synapses of the brain.
I observe it is colder than the soles of a well diggers boots today in KS. I hypothesize that it will be warmer in June. We will all have to wait and observe June to see if I am right. And so will the meteorologist on TV. Al Gore knows it will be warmer and by .005 degrees more than the million year average…
Best regards,
dmw

quote:

Al Gore knows it will be warmer and by .005 degrees more than the million year average

I went to school with him. Trust me, he does not know that.

Reminds me something similar. I never seem to recall the very moment of trigger squeeze. I remember aiming and such and also more or less what happened to the deer after the shot, but not the exact moment of the shot.

jsl:

A very interesting post. I do know that every time I fired at BG I had such a moment of almost apparent silence. I never heard the muzzle blast or even felt the recoil. I shot white tail deer, black bear and one buff and the experience was the same. It's odd, I guess, that I never thought about this until I read your post but you really jolted my memory about something I just had never thought about because it all happens in seconds. I look forward to reading more from others.

Yes I have. Many many times while watching bullets fly down range at long distance trhougfh a spotting scope I've not see the shock waves but I have seen vapor trails and on many occasions with the sun at just the right angle I've seen the flash of tail of the bullet. I've even seen the whole bullet on occasion with big bore rifles.

Twice while I've seen bullet flying down range and actually entering the animal. Once with a .470NE on a hog standing at about 150 yards. I fired and the nano second before it hit the hog my eye acquired a flash of the rear end of the bullet as it was entering the hogs shoulder.

The other time was with a .45-70 at night on a coyote. We were spot lighting for hogs (yes it's legal in Texas)and my buddy popped a coyote that was in the light I was right behind him and watched his bullet or I should say the reflection of his bullet in the light sail down range and hit the coyote.

Many of the old time trick shooters claimed that when they flipped a coin in the air to shoot with rifle or hand gun they could actually see the coin flipping and tell you whether it was hit heads or tails they were never wrong. I can't remember the name of it but there is a condition where the brain in some people has the ability to speed up it's framing reference to the eye. My brain will do that some times under the right conditions.

quote:

Many of the old time trick shooters claimed that when they flipped a coin in the air to shoot with rifle or hand gun they could actually see the coin flipping

Herb Parsons was one of those. He was Win's famed exhibition shooter in the '50s. I watched him as a kid. He'd ask which side of the Indian head nickel you wanted the .22 thru while it was in the air.

There are a number of other things interesting to watch in shooting. Ever seen the sparks from intersecting shotgun patterns when two are shooting at the same bird? Or how a recently oiled barrel can turn a .22 round into a tracer in a darkened range?

For seeing bullets in the air, my all time favorite was those old documentaries where you could see main battery rounds in flight - http://www.usswisconsin.org/Pi...wo%20projectiles.JPG. What's following those 16" shells could be vapor trails or maybe just plain smoke.

Btw for those who, like me, get a thrill out of watching the big ones being lit up, here's another pic - http://www.history.navy.mil/ph...ages/dod/8406362.jpg. Now that's what I call true big bore magnums..in the world of guns have you ever seen anything more beautiful??

This is something I've often avoided talking about....

Though it's hard for psychologists to grasp SOME people can call up this effect at will... without "stress" (Or the adrenaline or Dopamine) it's a conditioned response to some stimulus... possibly the ability to release neuro transmitters within the brain...?

There is a similar effect with a scientific name
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachypsychia

But this doesn't describe what I've experienced....

Professional atheletes, participants in some shooting sports, Race car drivers, combat pilots...

I have experienced it while competitively shooting trap
On a "Good day", during a Combat shooting match
IF I can "Call it up" I'm invariably having a superb day...

Oddly when shooting clay targets if I'm having a good day
I don't remember shooting the targets, usually I can remember changing positions and seeing the smoked targets and that's about it... closing the action calling for the target, the shot, catching the fired hull in midair.....
NONE of those events get recorded by my memory...
I'll do the entire round on "auto-pilot" and only remember my misses (if any) and on those misses I'll remember watching the shot column and wad and see where they were in relationship to the missed target...

Just because I can see this in my mind's eye from memory doesn't mean I expect anyone to believe it... that part I'm used to...

Combat shooting? I can usually track each piece of brass in my minds eye along with where the bullets went...
it's more like the high speed driving experience.

I find it easier to do consistantly when driving, particularly at high speed, and it isn't that you feel everything is in slow motion, you feel like everthing has slowed down, but your thoughts.... it's like playing a computer game that based on reaction time with the game running at 1/4speed turning it into a strategy game where you have time to consider several options before you must actually react...


Those who can do this tend to be very good at whatever they are doing while they can call up the effect... because
they really are playing at a level far above what people who are playing the same "Game" but restricted to doing it in "Real time".

This is what some athletes refer to as "being in the zone"
But some also refer to being able to "tune out all extraneous distractions" as being in the zone...

The phenomena is hard to describe to someone who's never experienced it without getting looks of disbelief
(or having them start to look for pointed ears, antennae , gills or your tinfoil hat)

To discover someone else that can do the same is... interesting....

I've discussed it (scientifically) with a psychologist and he suggested that it was a form of self-hypnosis from doing something repetitive where your brain starts to stop reporting things that are the same on each repetition
and only reporting the things that are different...
Thus achieving an effect on the brain similar to the compression scheme used to store video data on a DVD.

Because only the differences are noted your brain's workload is enormously reduced and time seems to slow down.

the idea falls apart when you consider single event situations, like making a long cross country drive at rediculous speed...
OR a one time life threatening situation.
OR a traffic accident...



I think the brain is an amazing piece of hardware that is capable of some amazing things that are still not clearly understood by science.

AD

Without getting into too much detail, Calibre Press teaches the Street Survival Seminars to Police, Military etc. They talk about tunnel vision, the perception that time slows down etc. during moments of high stress (officer involved shooting). These physical and mental reactions are well documented.

quote:

I don't remember shooting the targets,

Another example..I'm at a quail preserve and three flush in different directions and I quickly fire, then look around for the next bird in the air but can't find one. I'm genuinely not sure what happened but then the guide says, "good shooting, you got all three". At that point you have to kinda go along and pretend you knew...

What you said about on misses remembering watching the shot wad also sounds familiar. If I recall correctly, over a hunting career of many decades it's ONLY on misses where I saw the wad flying. I've wondered how that could be. I suppose when you hit something, that's what you look at. When you miss, what else is there to look at??

On the trap shooting I've done a lot of that too and the way I'd put it, is that it's machine like in the same sense as getting down a golf swing and doing it the same way each time and then you automatically know where the shot's going each time without having to think about it. You never even see the barrel let alone the front sight (fact is, a few shooters even file off the front sight..to make their position clear or something I guess). But there is as you said a definite "auto pilot" effect.

The last thing about exceptions I agree with also, that is, the one time events. That's where I place experiences such as what seemed like the prolonged look at flames out the ejection port of the autoloading shotgun as it cycled.

Anyhow, the type of events where you're "in the zone" I think occur more when there are no distractions and you're comfortable and confident. There's a single word to describe the opposite of that in athletics.."choke". And, the latter type of event, the one-time event where "time slows down", I believe is something totally different and is born out of encountering a thing that's dramatic, bizarre or startling.

quote:

Originally posted by Shack:

quote:

Al Gore knows it will be warmer and by .005 degrees more than the million year average

I went to school with him. Trust me, he does not know that.

This post is AWESOME!

I hope be doesn't visit Denver this year, last year, when he was on tour, it seemed like every place he stopped had record cold temps and blizzard conditions!

As for the "slow motion", I can't say that I've ever experienced that. I have watched the path of a bullet through a spotting scope and that's pretty damn cool! In fact, I was in Utah this year hunting the a friend and his hunt was being filmed for a TV show, I made mention of the fact that I could watch the path of the bullet when he shot his deer at long range and after reviewing the footage it shows up really well.

Mine is more "feel" and "sound".

On my first Cape Buffalo I was so focused that when I fired, I thought it was a dud. It didn't sound near loud enough; it didn't kick near hard enough. The bull disappeared into the brush.

I was so concerned that I turned to the PH and asked if it "sounded" right to him. He said he didn't notice anything strange and the shot hit him dead-perfect. After about fifteen minutes of listening, we followed-up and found him deader than a hammer.

That has never happened before or since.

quote:

Ever seen the sparks from intersecting shotgun patterns when two are shooting at the same bird?

I don't think that lead striking lead, at any velocity or under any circumstance, will result in a spark. If you were shooting steel shot at waterfowl . . . well, maybe, but highly unlikely.

I've seen it personally with steel and more than once. The first time was a surprise. Some of it came from my gun. Rem 11-87. Ammo: Win 3" Drylok Magnums, 1 3/8 oz of #3s. 1990s. Duck hunting, Stuttgart AR.

Concerning lead, I don't remember seeing that. I tend to remember the steel mainly because it caused a lot of discussion amongst us. I do remember that when the steel sparked, an older member who hunted there really a lot said words to the effect they used to see that even with lead shot. I believe I said "with lead?" and he said yes.

Perhaps it made a difference with the type of lead shot..coppered 4s for instance which was real popular in the 50s and 60s. That's all I know about it.

When I was shooting clays a lot I could see the shot swarm on bright days.......

In Oct 08 I was Elk Hunting in Idaho just north of Devil's Canyon. I was sitting at the top of a draw and had a Bull come out on the opposite side 220 yards away. I shot and the Bull ran downhill. As I was cambering in the next round I clearly remember seeing the spent cartridge coming out of the rifle. Saw the front tilting out first and then the whole thing turning in the air ever so slowly. At the same time the Bull seemed to be in slow motion. Had zero problems finding him in the scope for a second shot and I still can see him gently falling to the ground. Say what you like but time did slow down for me that evening. BTW was the biggest Bull Elk I have ever taken.