Thread: The sense of time and its implications for lucidity

Originally Posted by VagalTone

That is certainly true.
But my question was more about how do we know what time is it ? How do we feel the passage of time ?

I'd say it's primarily driven by our memories. Our brain gives us some sense of a sequence in which the events occurred, and over the longer term they're tied to markers like big events in your life, your growth and ageing and changing routines and environments. On top of that we have the conventional names for the days, months, years and the numerical systems of hours, minutes and seconds which we can use to try and quantify the distances between the various events - although I'm not too sure how useful this bit is for lucidity, except it gives a way to spot anomalies (maybe something changing impossibly fast in a dream?). There are probably better ways to spot those anomalies and inconsistencies in a dream though, I don't really know.

Those days and months and hours are of course somewhat based on the relative motion of Earth, Sun and Moon and we have our natural circadian rhythms, sensitivity to daylight and ancient instincts that will give us a sense of that passage of time - night and day and the changing seasons, the moon waxing and waning - our bodies to give us a sense of that without needing a calendar or a watch.

I'm guessing the brain has other ways of keeping time as well. It has to regulate lots of biological processes. The most obvious are the heart rate and breathing which can change pace but are usually very regular.

Food for thought, I hope. (By the way, I like your sig - it's a good approach and there are a couple of those steps I really need to work on, mainly getting good sleep, quality and quantity!)