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A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

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Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#31
post #19

Diane Van Deren is an ultra runner who had part of her brain removed to treat her seizures. It also affected her ability to perceive time and to read maps. She originally started running to self-treat her seizures, but eventually running no longer staved them off. Oddly, not being able to perceive time may have benefitted her running: > Dr. Gerber credits her endurance in part to her brain limitations. He says runner…

My genius friend in college could naturally focus so intensely that he didn't realise that there was electric short circuit near his desk.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#32
post #3

Do animals have a sense of time in the same sense we do?

I'm not sure there is even a way to study the fact that other people have the same sense of time that we do - I think this would fall under qualia. We just assume it's roughly the same like I should see the blue you see.

Regardless it's clear from training our dogs that they feel impatience, which I think would be best described as a rising sense of discomfort over time. A younger dog and/or one with less training will get up more quickly by itself seeking a reward, while after more training they can put those thoughts aside and wait through it. After a tough day of training or sports, just like us they have less willpower remaining and are more likely to revert.

And right now it's 3:30 pm and he's letting me know the school kids have left the neighbourhood so it's time for his walk. I'd chalk this reaction up to other factors like the noise outside but it happens during the holidays too.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#33

After my mom's stroke she basically lost the concept of time. Apparently it's relatively common. Kids don't get the concept of time until an age, and you can lose it. Amazing how much you need it how things fall apart in this modern life without it. Didn't help that she decided to use a 2017 calendar in 2018, I questioned my sanity as I unraveled the mess. It very much impacted her life. About the only good thing was…

How does that work in practice? She can read a clock right? So would she just not remember to look at the clock to see the time? Genuinely curious.

My brother is dealing with a TBI, and in a nutshell, it’s exactly that.

The reason most of us glance at the clock is because we feel the passage of time and wonder what time it must be now.

He doesn’t always feel time passing, and he could go hours before it even occurs to him to look at his phone or a clock.

He relies on timers and reminders to keep things on track.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#34
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work in practice? She can read a clock right? So would she just not remember to look at the clock to see the time? Genuinely curious.

My brother is dealing with a TBI, and in a nutshell, it’s exactly that. The reason most of us glance at the clock is because we feel the passage of time and wonder what time it must be now. He doesn’t always feel time passing, and he could go hours before it even occurs to him to look at his phone or a clock. He relies on timers and reminders to keep things on track.

I think there is a lot of promising tech to help people out with this stuff. Just having your phone prompt you when you need to do stuff. I saw Google maps (perhaps recently) added a feature where you tell it the time you need to be somewhere and it will notify you when it's time to leave.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#37
I don't have much difficulty perceiving time in general, but I have a dissociative disorder that can really, really fuck with it: Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. (It's not an "identity disorder", but a "dissociative identity" disorder, the clinical name for the so-called "personalities".)

When one of the other "personalities" is out in my place, that length of time will be lost to me. As if I just teleported forward. Things that happened before the event will feel more recent than they really were, and things that happened during the event, I won't remember at all. Because those memories weren't mine to begin with - they are memories of someone else that lives in my head.

This results in a lot of very fun situations, but it mostly results in me losing big chunks of my life and not knowing things that just so happen to have been told to someone other than me. (I didn't forget, those memories just belong to someone else!)

I've also had some small number of dissociative episodes, which are even worse because I can get really extreme time dilation during the episode, but also phantom sensations like endless pain and suffering-- you get the idea. It can get really really fucked.

I'm lucky not to have completely lost my sense of time, but having to figure out a bunch of identity stuff every single day is very Fun. Sometimes it's actually fun and other times it's the big existential crisis that never ends.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#38

On very high doses of DXM it felt like I was in hell for eternity. It sucked, would not recommend.

Wow, this comment made me confused as I thought you were talking about DMT so I searched and ended up in a redit talking about "what drug should I do Dph,dxm or DMT" The ignorance about drugs these days is mind blowing considering the available info. I would post a link to redit message but its not worth it. Seriously the first 3 replies are the most ignorant destructive replies I have seen in a while.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#39
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work in practice? She can read a clock right? So would she just not remember to look at the clock to see the time? Genuinely curious.

My brother is dealing with a TBI, and in a nutshell, it’s exactly that. The reason most of us glance at the clock is because we feel the passage of time and wonder what time it must be now. He doesn’t always feel time passing, and he could go hours before it even occurs to him to look at his phone or a clock. He relies on timers and reminders to keep things on track.

Seems like forgetting a learned behavior.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#40

On very high doses of DXM it felt like I was in hell for eternity. It sucked, would not recommend.

Wow, this comment made me confused as I thought you were talking about DMT so I searched and ended up in a redit talking about "what drug should I do Dph,dxm or DMT" The ignorance about drugs these days is mind blowing considering the available info. I would post a link to redit message but its not worth it. Seriously the first 3 replies are the most ignorant destructive replies I have seen in a while.

My hot take is that you shouldn't take any of them. Especially DXM and DPH. But even DMT, the things you can learn on drugs, you can learn on other, safer ways.
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