Time, like a Fragrance

Where does consciousness reside? We haven’t really answered that question yet. Perhaps somewhat in the brain, and somewhat in the blood.

I have very thick, type A+ blood. Once, when I was donating blood in the 1990s, the nurse turned to me and said: If your bag doesn’t start to fill more quickly, we’re going to have to throw it away.

But is my blood truly thick, or could it be thin blood that is moving very slowly? If excessively thick blood were moving excessively quickly, would it present as “too thick” or “too thin”? I am interested in an underappreciated variable in human health: perception.

When you spray a spritz of perfume, you notice the fragrance for a few moments, then it seems to vanish. Not for me. I have noticed I do not perceive fragrance the way most people do. For me, it lingers much longer, and is much stronger. All my life—but especially since living in a house in upstate New York that had a hidden mold problem—I have had issues with fragrance sensitivity.

It is as if I am spending longer inside each discrete moment of time.

When I am at the supermarket, and they are using the juicer machine, it does not seem to bother most people. For me, the sound that juicer machine makes is so forceful, it is as if it is physically hitting me.

If you are moving forward, moving outward in time at the same rate as the noise the juicer machine makes, you do not really notice it. If your experience of time is denser and slower, you do.

For the most part, I enjoy experiencing time more slowly than most. Food has a lot of flavor. Colors are super-saturated in a way that is pleasing—almost like an Edward Hopper painting. But if I slow time down too much (dopamine), the moments start to split away from me.

There is schizophrenia in my family, on my father’s side. I am interested in the role the thickness of the blood may play a role in mental disorders. Here is an interesting article about coagulation and mental disorders. I would like us to consider the thickness of the blood and its possible relationship to the speed of time.

I can tell that I am working a lot of dopamine. I have an aunt with Parkinson’s. On my genetics report, I have multiple double mutations at MAO-A genes (C42794T, G3638A, T89113C). With dopamine, I can slow time down—up to a point. But if I slow time down too much, the moments start to split—to branch away from me.

I have the same experience with LSD. I tried micro dose LSD to treat migraine—it worked—and noticed it also altered my experience of time.

My mother has Alzheimer’s. Often it feels to me as if her experience of time is askew. She is more stationary in time; she is back where the perfume was first sprayed, whereas the rest of us have moved forward. Is it because of the thickness of her blood? Perhaps, if the blood is too thin, time has to be too slow—and vice-versa.

It feels as if my blood has to maintain a very specific density. But it is a “net” density, if you will, that is being achieved in conjunction with the speed of time.

When I entered menopause, and started losing estrogen, I also started losing my use of vitamin K1 (which thickens the blood), and copper (which tracks with estrogen). There has been exciting research into links between menopause and Alzheimer’s—see, especially, the work of Dr. Lisa Mosconi—as well as extensive research looking at copper and Alzheimer’s. The article I link to is one of many.

I can slow time down (dopamine), or speed it up (serotonin)—up to a point.

When my experience of time is altered, when I am lingering in each discrete moment “too long,” the degree to which I can do this is limited. If I deviate from the speed of time by too great a differential, I can feel trapped beneath a glass floor. After a while, I become like a stationary pebble inside a river that is moving. Individual moments of time whir past me so swiftly, I become blind to them. They are like the bars the panther passes in Rilke’s poem. My consciousness is the “mighty will” at the center of the scene that “stands paralyzed.”

It is not simply that I slow time down. As I slow it down, it also oscillates more quickly. Sodium and calcium cross the cell membrane at an accelerated rate, and my need for both increases. But once time is oscillating too quickly, that is when I can feel trapped below a glass floor. And once time is oscillating too slowly, that is when I can feel trapped above a glass ceiling.

In a way, “slow time” can be achieved from two different directions, in two different ways: using either serotonin or dopamine. If I slow down the background with dopamine, then the foreground oscillates quickly. If I speed up the background with serotonin, then the foreground oscillates slowly. I am interested in the speed of time in disease.

Especially in cancer.

Picture time as a wheel. Let’s call the center hub “Sunday.” From Sunday outward one notch, out to Monday, there is wholeness. Two Mondays look back on the same Sunday; the images of Sunday are duplicates. For Monday, the past is achiral. There is 1:1 correspondence between past and present. Light can oscillate between past and present, and nothing is lost.

But what if my experience of time is accelerated? What if, in the same interval in which you are going outward one notch, to Monday, I am going outward two notches, to Tuesday?

From Tuesday, wholeness is lost. Tuesday does not oscillate back with Sunday. Tuesday oscillates back with Monday, and by Monday, time is already split into two forking paths—into images that are chiral.

In cancer, it as if I am working an understanding of time that is too alkaline and elongated—too vasoconstricted—instead of being acidic and truncated. I am too skewed toward melatonin (the chemical signal for “night”) and away from DMT (or LSD) (the chemical signal for “day”). I am trying to resolve two chiral images into an achiral image, and they won’t fit.

Achiral images are superimposable. Chiral images (above) are oriented left and right.

Trapped beneath a glass floor? Why—and what does that even mean?

I am treating this as a holographic universe, where everything has the density of light. But it’s a “net” density.

I can be denser than light—as ice is denser than water—but once I am denser, I must also be faster, to “net” the right density. And once I am “fast ice,” I can become trapped. I need to be slower. But if I slow down to “slow ice,” I’ll be too dense. I need to be wider, but if I dilate to “fast water,” I’ll be too diffuse.

To have the right density—the density of light—I must work within a specific range. I can become a little denser—to the left. Or a little more diffuse—to the right.

But if I become too dense by a full degree of light’s speed, it is as if I am working off a different baseline. When I am denser than the moon, the moon becomes my “earth.”

And if I become too diffuse by a full degree of light’s speed, it is as if I am working off a different baseline. When I am more diffuse than the sun, the sun becomes my “earth.”