In my posts "Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff"
and "More thoughts on time" I wrote about how my experience of time changed RADICALLY sometimes when I took NAC to stop daydreaming. And I mentioned a book by Claudia Hammond called "Time Warped" in relation to time perception.Then I got this book from the library. And read it. And it is a very good read. Highly recommended to people who like friendly science writing on an interesting subject. It also contained this-
"The whole dopamine system appears to be crucial in the perception of time. If you give someone the drug haloperidol, often prescribed for schizophrenia, it blocks the receptors for dopamine and causes people to underestimate the amount of time that's passed, while the recreational drugs methamphetamines (or speed) do the opposite; they increase the levels of dopamine circulating in the brain, which causes the brain's clock to speed up with the result that people then overestimate the amount of time that has passed."
Low dopamine. Under estimate. 1 hour real time feels like 3 hours passing. See also Depression.
High dopamine. Over estimate. 3 hours real time feels like 1 hour passing.
The low dopamine effect seems to be what I'm feeling. EXCEPT that I also have focus and motivation during this time. Which are more indicative of high dopamine. And were really nice! Amphetamines are not a healthy long term way to explore this. NAC only has an intermittent effect. I went looking for other ways to boost dopamine. Number one method? Increase the tyrosine in your diet. Tyrosine, that lovely amino acid which is daily stopping me from frequent suicidal thoughts.
All this is to say, I have no idea what my brain chemistry is up to. But it's clearly up to something. I don't know which is the cart and which is the horse. Has the abuse of my brain by daydreaming for decades caused a dopamine issue? Is there another imbalance and it's hitting dopamine is a side effect? Is it unrelated and just working off similar chemical antecedents? Or is there a regular biochemical cause for some of this. I'm cautious about experimenting. Since one way that NAC could "stop working" is through down regulating receptors in the brain. And that doesn't seem healthy either. Back to reading and trying to put together a theory. Frustrating and fascinating.
