Anaesthetics and time perception: A review.
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) September 1, 2024 Jordan J Wehrman, Clara C Chung, Robert Sanders
Anaesthetic drugs alter the subjective experience of time. Ketamine makes time feel slower, while GABAergic drugs make time feel faster. For very short intervals, time perception becomes more variable but does not consistently shift. When timing longer durations, people tend to estimate them as longer than they actually are. Motor timing tasks also become more variable under anaesthetic agents. The review of 36 articles highlights the need for more systematic research on how anaesthesia affects time perception and whether unconscious events can still be timed.