The mathematician Carl Gauss is credited with the 'discovery' of this distribution. As the story goes, Gauss became aware of the firing of some observers by the Astronomer Royal in England due to their failure in being precise in logging the precise times of astronomical events so important for the creation of tables used for navigation etc. Gauss reasoned that the problem stemmed from individuals having different reaction times and a such some will be too slow, others too quick.
The Gaussian distribution reflects these differences in precision where the average is the 'true' value of the observation. Thus the higher the level of precision so the closer we are to the 'peak', the average, in measurement and so plotting all of this leads to the emergence of the familar 'bell-shaped' curve.
This averaging process reflects oscillations across the extremes out of which we derive a 'precise' value. It also reflects differences in reaction times associated with metabolic rates such that we can derive persona types etc from how energy is expended/conserved in individuals as well as species.
These differences in rate can affect time estimations to a degree where a 0.005 degree difference in core temperature (as compared to the species 'average') can translate to an experienced subjective time distortion of 5 seconds per minute. The other factor is mass such that a baby can experience a higher distortion in subjective time experience than an adult even though both have the same core temperature (and so the severe time distortions experienced by children!). Combinations of genetics and nurture can vary these distortions and that includes differences in fitness such that a fit person whose rate is reflected in heart rate of 60 beats per minute, optimisation has taken place due to the fiteness, can have the same reaction times as someone with the average 72 beats per minute.
Overall, the more intense the energy, excluding need for body maintenence in unusual circumstances (e.g. being at the North Pole, being unfit, overweight etc), so the more time distortion where you can, for example, acquire more information in an hour at 72bpm than you can in an hour of 60bpm.
The recursion of ANY dichotomy will in fact create the Guassian distribution in that the original dichotomy represents the 'extremes' that through recursion get pushed out to the peripheries as more refined distinction emerge from the 'middle' of the dichotomy.
As IDM demonstrates, all of this has implications regarding how we as a species acquire meaning.