Timeless space

Having spent the last two weeks on a few airplanes, I've come to realize that flying for more than about four hours has a very unreal quality about it, especially if you travel over more than four time zones.

You enter the aircraft, sit down, and patiently wait until allowed to leave again. You try to amuse yourself with movies, or books, or games, but you're in this strange place that has no real reference to the outside world. At 35,000 feet, the world is another place that you're no longer connected to.

And even though your body insists that it is the time that you just left, your mind knows that it must begin to abide by the rules of the time zone you'll be entering, which is sometimes a big enough gap to make you feel terribly confused. And tired. And when you're in the plane, you're not sure if you should be paying attention to your head, which says the time is what is coming up, or your body, that insists on the time that you are leaving.

It's a bit like suspended animation, only you're awake and usually bored.