TIME PERCEPTION

Since the beginning of man there has always been a vague perception of the concept of time. What is that concept? Is it as measurable as we seem to make or is on such a different dimension that what we use to try and measure time with is inadequate in grasping time completely. It seems like every day I have an experience where time seems to be going by so quickly I don’t believe it is hour’s later and other times when it seems like minutes even seconds seem to be forever lasting. That is why I don’t think that time is so concrete that we can measure it with seconds and minutes I feel that time is significantly too complex to be able to be observed in this way. I believe that the experience of time is affected by a multitude of different variables two in particular memory and state of being.

In some of my experiences with time it seems to me that I perceive the rate at which time goes by differently depending on how my memory serves me. One way I think that this works is the better and more vivid my memory of past events the faster time seems to have gone by. I feel as though when I am able to vividly remember events that happened a bit of time ago it seems that the time since that memory has flown by me with no hesitation and that I arrive at the present moment more quickly than I could have imagined. One such example that pertains to this phenomenon of time passing happened to me a week ago when I was thinking back to my childhood when I was 6 or 7 and I could remember very vividly being at a family reunion at this park in Sacramento where my father lives. I can still remember very fine details about the day and when I thought back to it a week ago it made me feel as though 12 years of life has passed by in days. This feeling makes me perceive time as being shorter than what its documented as being. However, the same feeling can be in reverse to this the perception of time being extremely slow going given an event that happened days or hours ago feeling like they happened months ago. I have this feeling as well when it comes to things that in memory feel like a much longer time than what has actually occurred. I have a very recent experience with this just this morning at 5:30 am I drove my girlfriend to the airport so she can go back to Georgia. At this point it feels as though a month has gone by since I have seen her I feel like that is in part due to my memory making it seem as though it was a longer time than it actually was.

Complimentary to the idea that memory effects how we perceive time I also think that the state of being that one is in will influence how they might perceive how time is passing. By state of being I mean emotional and psychological state of being as well as physical state i.e. being angry, happy, stressed or drunk, under the influence of drugs etc. any number of things can affect your overall state. For example when I’m about to play in a game the hours in the locker room are longer for me. I focus more on details, my senses seem to heighten, and there is more time there than there is for an equal length of time on any other day. With my state of being at such an excited level time goes by as if I’m that guy from wanted whose adrenaline levels make him able to slow time to the point of frame by frame. In this first example each second is given more emphasis and so it seems like the moments happening are happening longer for what we measure them to be. A different take on this explanation of what effects time perception comes from that expression everyone has heard time flies when you’re having fun saying that when things are going well, we’re happy and having a great time, time has less emphasis and passes by us. One of my best examples of this and fondest memories is spending the week at the beach with my friends and girlfriend this past summer for beach week. Now in regular circumstances this week would be like any other week but since we were at the beach and having parties and having a great time this week seemed to have been condensed and shortened into just one day instead of seven. I think because of it being so fun and lighthearted time wasn’t perceived to be as long since every day was relaxed and the individual moments not as stressed time slipped away silently. There are of course other situations and examples of how time can be perceived differently according to what we are experiencing at the moment. I don’t have specific experiences to relate to it but sometimes when people are extremely angry things seems to happen so fast and something might happen that was an hour long but since they were angry it went by in moments. The last example of state of being that effects time perception but certainly not the least is when people are intoxicated with drugs or alcohol their perception of time has been proven to be effected by what they’re on.

My final thought about the subject of time perception is I think that how we perceive time is dependent entirely on our perspective and what we’re experiencing. I believe that there is a combination of the two fore mentioned variables that bring us to how we perceive time passing and since they are variable we cannot truly measure time through a uniform system that makes every unit equal. Through my experiences I have formed this idea that time is not as solid as we have made it rather its more liquid than once thought. I think that the only way to measure time is through our own perspective and what it feels like to us and not in such a concrete method as with a clock and units such as seconds and minutes.