The problem when The Flash carries other people with super-speed or handles some items without breaking, crushing, disintegrating them (because of his super speed) and the problem that he should cause a supersonic explosive shock wave in front of him is explained away with his speed force aura.

I imagined this aura as some kind of time acceleration field around him that can extend around the items/people he carries/handles. But as it is depicted in the TV series this does not seem to be the right way of looking at it.

People he carries are surprised when he releases them in another place. They react as if the displacement from their point of view was instant. If the speed aura simply accelerates time around flash and the carried person, the person should experience the "trip" in "normal running speed" and should even be able to interact with The Flash. This does not seem to be the case. If it was, they would not react as depicted, and villains he moves would be able to resist him while on the trip.

Also even from The Flash's point of view it does not seem as if simply the world is frozen. Otherwise a task that would take hours or days for him to complete (without speed force) would only from the point of view of others be completed in split seconds while from his point of view it would take the normal hours or days, while the world around him is frozen. But there are discussions here that The Flash does not experience the time in this way but is on a kind of subconscious auto pilot mode, that allows him to do such actions without dying of boredom or even become mentally exhausted by the boring task. Imagine the cases where he switches between two or more positions incredibly quickly to pretend being in two or more positions at the same time. If this really would work the way "Stop time, walk to position A, let time flow a split second, stop time, walk to Position B, let time flow a split second, ..." a few seconds doing this would be from his point of view days or weeks, stupidly walking millions of times from A to B and back (What about needing to sleep?) This seems not to be the case.

So how does The Flash experience time and the world around him while in speed mode?
How do people carried by him experience it?
How does he experience the people he carries? As stiff puppets? If the aura allows him to change the position of their limbs in super speed without hurting them why is their brain still frozen even when in his aura?

I know that this are several questions at once. But I think they belong together and need all the same introduction. So posting them separately will lead to a lot of repetition.

  • 3
    How does the Flash perceive time? – phantom42 Mar 22 '18 at 13:32
  • A whole bunch of your questions have been answered in the TV series lately. The Flash can on will transfer his speed to other people and then they can perceive time just like him – XtremeBaumer Jun 5 '18 at 7:41

Your Answer


Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.