Time isn’t nearly as immutable as it first seems. Ask any astrophysicist, and they’ll likely regale you with mind-bending descriptions of a gravity’s effect on space-time (i.e. the more massive the object, the slower time appears to travel around it). Some cosmologists even wonder if entire pockets of the universe—whether filled with galaxies or endless nothing—experience time at different rates.

However, the perception of the speed at which time passes can also vary within our minds. And it’s this mental realm that Steve Taylor—a psychologist at Leeds Beckett University—is exploring in a new, yet-to-be-published paper and a new book called Time Expansion Experiences