When something happens that forces our subconscious to act, afterwards it feels like we sensed it before it happened.
Also, sometimes I hear the sound that caused me to wake up, while I’m awake (I wake up a split second before I hear the sound)
It can’t be a sixth sense, so it must be some psychological consciousness thing. Any info?
It must just be me then (the son of time. I must re-read Small Gods)
I believe in the case of waking up just after you heard a noise it’s just your subconscious mind picking up on something that may or may not be a danger to you and “kicking” you awake. Because the delay is so short, it seems almost precognizant. I couldn’t tell you anything about the physical/biological aspects of it, but I don’t think the answer is as complex as you’re expecting.
As you said, “afterwards it feels like we sensed it before it happened.” I think this is a neurological phenomenon more than anything else. I believe studies have shown [that sounds so much more authoritative than “I read somewhere…”] that our sense of time comes after the fact. Concious awareness is one of the last stages of neural processing. Our brain processes inputs (assigning priority to some, filtering out others, filing in missing information here and there) and then puts them in place chronologically, when it is finally sent to your conciousness. Sometimes the preconcious processing puts things out of order, especially when something urgent happens, in which case the pre-concious brain may respond before sending the information to yur conciousness. So you hear the gunshot physically, then duck, and only then become concious of hearing it. When you think back on it, you remember ducking before you remember hearing the shot. Same thing with the sound that wakes you up, only with the added factor of drowsiness. (Of course, ducking won’t protect you from a gunshot unless you are a Jedi–bullets travel faster than sound.)
Nitpick: Only some bullets travel faster than sound. A lot do, but not all.
You might have a theoretical chance against low-muzzle-velocity rounds.
That’s actually very interesting because what you say makes me aware of the possibility (or fact) that there is no direct connection between consciousness and the passage of time.
Which then makes me wonder if it would be possible to make a person ‘live in the past’ (make their brain process old information as if it is new)
Definately a thought provoker, thanks Alan!
Look up “deja vu” for an explanation that probably applies here too. The idea is that different parts of your brain can respond at different speeds, so you consciously notice something about the same time as that same thing is bubbling up from some subconscious process that noticed it a while ago.
I wondered how long it would take someone to call me on that! I’m pretty sure that the time it takes the brain to process the information still makes it impossible (unless the shooter is really far away!). I won’t stake my reputation on it, though (whatever that’s worth).
That’s easy, it Spidey Sense™!! 
Well, think of memory as a JPEG. As it’s stored, it gathers some artifacts, blemishes, and things just plain don’t get stored PRECISELY as they actually happened. Usually close enough, but sometimes…
Well, we already do, at least in terms of micro- and nano-seconds, since it always takes SOME time for information to reach our brains.
Although that would be an interesting plot for a story… hmm…
I don’t know if this quite fits the OP, but there have been times when I’ve had bad feelings about someone or something and it turns out later that I was right.
I think it’s just a combination of things: the other person’s body language, their tone, their attitude, etc. But I would call this sort of thing intuition rather than some other word.
You probably already realize this but by old I meant hours, days, or even years.
Although that would be an interesting plot for a story… hmm…
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It would. A momento style story. The guy who’s consciousness mistakingly picks information from long term memory to create his conscious awareness, but doesn’t necesarily pick the data in cronological order.
Or the guy who thinks it’s an hour ago and his body acts accordingly.
On the one hand this thought provoking idea makes me a lot less assured in the knowledge that my consciousness flows pretty much perfectly with the true passage of time (give or take a few nanoseconds) On the other hand when I realize that I am capable of catching something that is thrown to me a little assurance comes back (afterall if my consciousness was one hour old I would motion to catch the ball one hour late, and look silly)
Maybe like it’s an adrenaline, fight or flight response. The hair stands up on your arms and neck. Kind of a survival thing?
The last thing I dreamed last Friday morning before waking up, was that my mother and I were running from a tornado. Six hours later, my mother and I had to pull off the interstate because of torrential rain and driving wind. We ran into the first thing off the interstate exit–a McDonald’s–to discover that everyone was huddled in the back of the kitchen because a twister had touched down two miles away.
It was the first twister I’ve been close to since I moved away from Kansas 15 years ago; and I don’t have twister dreams very often (once every 2-3 years). Coincidence? Oh well.
It takes 1/5 of a second for your brain to decode your eyes’ input into something that your consciousness understands. However, to avoid a noticable time lag between when something happens and when you see something happen, your brain plays some funny tricks with your sense of time to make it seem that you saw what happened exactly when it happened. Something similar probably happens with other senses, too.
My guess is that this effect is due to some malfunction in this timeflow-fakery that your brain plays on you, so that an event gets played before your consciousness both at the actual time of the event and at the time when the event gets decoded.