Image by storyset on Freepik
We may have all experienced some sort of time dilation in our life at some point. I will explain in real life scenarios with my perception of what it is, but first let me define it in scientific terms what exactly is time dilation according to Wikipedia:
"Time dilation is the difference in elapsed time as measured by two clocks, either due to a relative velocity between them (special relativity) or due to a difference in gravitational potential between their locations (general relativity)"-Wikipedia
In simple terms, time experienced by different observers differently. But in real life scenarios, I will take the one's perception of time depending on their situation.
The most common example which all people may have experienced is waiting and having fun. The person who is waiting for a work to be done or over is more likely to experience time is prolonging like five minutes appears to be like fifteen minutes. That same person or other if having fun or spending some time with the like minds may experience time is moving fast like one hour feels like fifteen minutes. If it's a night party, then the time would move at light speed without noticing it will get morning times. These is the most common example of our human brain time perceptions depending on the situations we face.
Image by Freepik
The second most common perceptions of time for a human brain is happy and sad situations. When we are feeling happy, we tend to perceive time as it's moving fast and when we are facing difficult or sad situations they seem to be like occupying most of our time. But it all comes under the perception of our brain. A negative emotion is far time consuming compared to a positive emotion. Whenever we are feeling down in our life, we seem to overthink it and prolong the time thinking about it. The logic is thinking about something is fast but experiencing is not.
The same goes to a good or bad book or novel. Nowadays some are reading books for the nostalgia effect and to feel the imagination of the words from the novel and create scenarios. Some are just e-book readers. Some would like to complete a book no matter if it's good or bad, some leave it in the middle if it's bad.
Difference between a good and bad movie, if a movie is bad we feel like the story of that movie is not moving forward at all and may feel like when will this movie will complete. But, if a movie is good, then the movie would seen as just understand the scenarios and having fun will lead to believe us that the movie completed fast. It all comes to how our brain interprets the situation and feel about it. I'm not a scientist to explain the exact reallife scenario of time dilation, I think even scientist are also searching for a practically possible scenarios.
I just thought of this effect in a different perspective and forgive me if I'm not.