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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

#101

Post by egeozcan »

devjab wrote: post #83
512 wrote: post #23

I feel I have a slightly "time-warped" memory. I often can't tell whether something was two months or over a year ago, for instance. I believe this to be caused by depression, as I've seen many similar reports online. Life assumes a sort of "flow" state, as you don't care enough to pay attention to things. It affects my memory in general as well.

With ADHD this is pretty much a thing. If you also get the “funzies” where you sometimes “relieve” a moment in a way that is so real that you end up speaking out loud in response to the relived memory, you should probably consider getting it looked into. Especially if your depression isn’t a “real” depression. What I mean by that isn’t to minimise it’s impact or how it feels, but I was once in a depression group wher…

> With ADHD this is pretty much a thing. If you also get the “funzies” where you sometimes “relieve” a moment in a way that is so real that you end up speaking out loud in response to the relived memory, you should probably consider getting it looked into.

Is this really a sign of ADHD? I always thought I was just a bit out there. Honestly, I'd be relieved to attribute it to something relatively common like ADHD rather than some mysterious brain quirk. Just the other day, I caught myself having a full-on conversation with my grandpa, who's been gone for over two years now. And it was crystal clear, all the details and everything!

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#102

Post by number6 »

eastbound wrote: post #72
et1337 wrote: post #43

I think it's interesting that HN in particular seems to be fascinated by brain injuries, myself included. Losing brain functionality is a scary thought for people who enjoy using their brains all day. edit: also I find my HN comment history to be a really good check on my perception of time. It's weird to see the random thoughts I wrote out in my down time. I ALWAYS think, "wow that was 3 months ago?"

I really think we’ll discover that programming is toxic for the brain. Mechanisms: - Intense loss of memory, inability to remember names and faces, since everything can be written down all the time, - Periods of flow interrupted by compilation time, change of topic (looking at the web), within a lot of stress (want to deliver the feature, excited to set up the architecture), - Long hours working, sometimes into the n…

Since nobody answered you: intriguing argument but that's not a byproduct of programming but of alienation. You don't have to live this way even if you love programming.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#103

Post by menacingly »

Brain issues are always so fascinating. The subjective experience is to diagnose a faulty sensor using the sensor. The brain that both I and the author agree seems to be acting up also wrote this article.

Did it mess with your ability to perceive time, or alter your recollection of how you once perceived time, or alter your ability to assess your perception of time, or activate a hidden "too aware of second-order time phenomena" organ

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#104

Post by mewpmewp2 »

js2 wrote: 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…

Flow happens to at least a lot of runners to be fair though. At certain distance when I'm running, it becomes very pleasurable, like you are above everything.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#105

Post by JCharante »

haswell wrote: post #33
ryanSrich wrote: post #28

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.

Now I feel bad. I had an ex who would always lose track of time and I wasn’t understanding enough (being late by several hours and forgetting important things like her first chance at a covid shot, or getting lost while driving and having spent an hour driving around the neighborhood without realizing how long she’d been lost for).

Timers make a lot of sense, if you can remember to set them.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#106

Post by [deleted] »

reitanqild wrote: post #15

ADHD is sometimes wittily described as time dyslexia, and while I haven't met anyone who has described symptoms as bad as this and also know friends with ADHD who play music seemingly effortlessly, this article was still very interesting to me. I have understood and it also observed that meditation can help somewhat, and I wonder what else can help for people otherwise function well who struggle with time?

[deleted]

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#107

Post by lloeki »

jen729w wrote: post #89
grogenaut wrote: post #22

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…

Ha! What a lovely way with words you have. That made me laugh. I’ve recently ‘gone solo’ and I decided to experiment with caring a little less about time. The only starkly visible clock in the house is on the oven, so I reset it. But it still tells a time, and I knew I’d eventually figure out the delta, so I covered it with tape. It’s funny how lunch is supposed to be at ~midday, but when you don’t know when midday i…

I've always had a peculiar, extremely elastic relationship with time, which I do perceive, only it's wildly all over the place, day in day out; a "moment" could fold hours into an eyeblink, or it could make split seconds last an eternity and a half. A tidy calendar, reminders for basically everything, and setting up "mental tripwires"† is the only way I found to be any sort of reliable.

Finding balance between the constant dread of missing something I have to do that turns me into a slave to the clock and being able to live a relaxed life is an eternal battle of mine.

† Some kind of autosuggestion trickery, where I lay a callback upon some unrelated physical thing I know will happen in order to trigger another thought. e.g "when I cross the kitchen door I'll think about texting foo about bar"

> Check the time, check the time. To what end? I can’t tell you.

    It was Grandfather’s watch and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
    
    I don’t suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock. You don’t have to. You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, then in a second of ticking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminishing parade of time you didn’t hear.

    It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret.

    - William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
> Lunch is at lunchtime.

    “Drink up,” said Ford, “you’ve got three pints to get through.”
    “Three pints?” said Arthur. “At lunchtime?”
    The man next to ford grinned and nodded happily. Ford ignored him. He said, “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

    - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#108

Post by HenrikB »

dendrite9 wrote: post #90
abrookewood wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a book by Oliver Sacks that covers people affected by strange neurological disorders and it is fascinating [0]. I can't recall any of them being viewed in a positive light, but it's still worth a read. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63697.The_Man_Who_Mistoo...

That book helped someone I know he was mostly face blind. Recently I was listening to a discussion where someone was trying to explain her synesthesia about time to a bunch of people who didn't experience that. I found it really hard to wrap my head around, but there is a picture in this article of how one person visualizes time over the course of a year. The idea is just so far from what I think of as normal that it…

That type of synesthesia is referred to as Number Forms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_form).

I read a long time ago that it's quite common, like 1 in 7 people got it. Some people don't even know they have it. I always had it as far as I can recall, but it wasn't until my mid 20s, when I stumbled upon a picture, that I reflected on it and the fact that not everyone sees number forms.

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#109

Post by corobo »

reitanqild wrote: post #100
corobo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having my watch nudge me on the hour has improved my perception of time immensely

Thanks! Will try something along the lines. When I am in flow state however something more drastic might be needed : )

Hah, I also make heavy usage of Todoist and notifications.

Got an old tablet on a cheapy plastic arm held above my monitor dedicated to my task list when working. It's set up to get my attention as and when tasks need starting.

Bit of a balancing act between having it make enough noise/vibrate to get my attention and not vibrating itself off its perch and making me jump out of my skin :)

Re: A brain injury removed my ability to perceive time

#110

Post by GlumWoodpecker »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #104
js2 wrote: 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…

Flow happens to at least a lot of runners to be fair though. At certain distance when I'm running, it becomes very pleasurable, like you are above everything.

Also known as "runner's high":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_phy...

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