“When time exhales, reality hesitates”
Ever felt the time stop for a second? Like you could physically observe that split moment when the “second” hand of the clock oscillates as it moves from one point to another?
Science calls it “chronostasis”; I call it “existence”.
This piece of mine explores those eerie haunting silences between those heartbeats, between those seconds, when the very time forgets to move, and you could feel it, something far stronger, far older, breathing through.
Sometimes, when you have nothing to do, you know those awkward moments during your vacations when you’re just done with your favorite web series or you’re home after your fascinating date?
Yes, that moment, the ceiling fan keeps spinning, the clock keeps ticking, but something subtle falters. A gap opens. A fraction of a second stretches, and you feel it: time, caught mid-step.
It happens in the smallest ways, at most random times when you probably are just daydreaming or something, maybe even procrastinating about sliding into their DMs, that “pause”, before your heart aligns its beats, the moment your phone buzzes but you aren’t bothered to look at it anymore. The seconds don’t stop, not really, but it’s as if the universe forgets to move for just long enough for you to notice.
Science got a name for this: chronostasis, also known as the stopped clock illusion. Look at a clock, the second hand would seem like it froze for a second, but did it really? This is not magic, but our brain’s clever trick. During eye movements called “saccades”, your vision briefly shuts down so that the world doesn’t smear when your gaze shifts. The brain’s work is to fill in that missing moment, stretching time to its fullest, you know, just to keep things smooth for you.
“But those quiet seconds, the ones you were never actually meant to see.”
They aren’t just mere coincidences; the body has its own secrets.
Philosopher William James once referred to this small piece of time as “specious present”; the limited period we can truly feel as “now”. The whole universe: past, future, even what we conceive as uninterrupted, is only a combination of patches. These moments imply that existence is still constituted by breaks and replacement, by silence that the mind removes.
Several cultures across the world have sensed this too and interpreted it in their own ways. In Irish folklore, there are these “thin places”, sites where the distance between worlds narrows. In Hindu Mythology, The Pause Between Two Om’s, “Naada” and the Soundless Sound
Om (Aum) in Indian metaphysics is not merely a sound but is composed of four states:
- “A”: creation (waking)
- “U”: preservation (dreaming)
- “M”: dissolution (deep sleep)
- The silence after M, the Turiya, the fourth, a state beyond time and consciousness.
The silence between two Om chants is said to be the most original existence, the place where the individual self comes into contact with the infinite.
“In the silence after Om fades, ancient thinkers heard the same hesitation I do now, the universe holding, subduing its own sound of existence, before beginning, once again.”
Maybe that is why sometimes we feel déjà vu, without any reason, out of nowhere, or maybe sense that we have stepped outside the timeline for a second.
My Philosophical Interpretation of these Pauses
Every time you make any choice, the universe splits. A certain version of your life doesn’t happen. Each choice we make isn’t just a simple task, but it’s more of a graveyard, a graveyard of endless possibilities. Every hesitation is a small death of something that almost lived but didn’t.
Between those seconds, there’s an entire geography of events that took place. The message that you drafted but never sent, the hand you wanted to hold but never did, the apology you almost gave, the truth that almost left your mouth. Those things aren’t erased, but they linger somewhere, remain somewhere; half-born, just like ghosts outside the skin of reality.
Try to listen closely, the air hums with their residue, a subtle ache that you sometimes can’t explain in words. Maybe that’s why those pauses feel so heavy, so crowded. The mind may call it indecision, but perhaps it’s mourning. Perhaps every hesitation is the soul grieving a timeline it had to abandon.
So maybe, the universe isn’t a clock at all, indicating all those pasts, presents and futures but maybe, it’s a living thing, breathing. Next time it happens, the prolonged second, the slow blink, don’t rush it. Stay there, breathe, and listen. There’s something you’ll find in that stillness, quiet, but certain, screaming all those truths, every moving thing forgets.
Discover more stories on Her Campus MUJ. More articles by me coming soon at Vaibhav Chaudhary at HCMUJ; he who watches the world and its miracles closely, noticing what slips between moments, between the infinite realities.