When I was a Masters student in Liverpool in 1996, I deliberately walked the long way into the city centre from university every day.
The Tarmac beneath their feet becomes cobbles, trainers and jeans are replaced with period clothing and the shop fronts become antiquated. The archetypal time slip is when an individual perceives that they have ‘slipped’ into a different time period — essentially like involuntary time travel. My second theory is that time slips are caused by cognitive errors such as confirmation bias. In other words, when the brain convinces itself of whatever it wants to believe.
It might not apply while walking down the street but if you’re lying in bed in that liminal moment between waking and sleeping, you can actually see your dreams play out in front of you as hallucinations. Some people will tell you all my theories are wrong and insist that time slips are proof of time travel. If you’ve seen Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi film Interstellar — or even know your Einstein — you’ll be aware that time is not necessarily linear… and jumping between time periods can be achieved if only we can break out of our three-dimensional experience.
Letter that started it allI’m in my late 60s and 20 years ago, I was walking through some South-East London back streets when suddenly the area looked different. Before me was a busy street still, but it was like a black-and-white picture. It was my town on a market day with stalls, handicrafts, horses, poultry hung on hooks, children running around. It was Portadown in a different time. Going by the dress, it was the 19th century.
As I turned into this lane I saw about a dozen children running about and playing. They wore the same sort of clothing as me. I was six years old and did not understand what was happening, but I did wonder where all these children came from. I do not have any recollection of the experience had by the ‘other me’, although I frequently used that road in both directions.Caught our attentionI live next to a Roman garrison field where thousands of coins were found buried.