Waiting in queues can test even the most patient person, but the happiest place on earth can make the longest of lines disappear surprisingly fast. All it takes is three tricks of the mind—no Disney magic necessary!

When you wait for Space Mountain, for example, walls separate riders and twist the queue back and forth. This stops you from grasping the true number of folks ahead, dampening the urge to bow out of a seemingly endless string of people.

Once you’re committed, Disney “Imagineers” sidetrack you from counting the flying minutes. They turn the holding areas into an experience in itself with dazzling stories and decorations, says Richard Larson, a queueing expert at MIT. When you’re entertained, your wait time feels less significant. It’s a sensation called the dual-task paradigm, where an exciting environment increases the brain’s workload.

The final mind-bender is a time warp. Signs along the way advertising, for instance, a one-hour wait, but you’ll always reach the end before that. Larson calls this a “Machiavellian twist,” which makes us feel as if we’ve won back minutes when the journey is quicker than we anticipated. Plus, unlike a DMV line, this one ends with a high-speed rocket trip across the galaxy.