I turned around yesterday and realized that some how, it was the end of October. How could that be? In my mind, I just finished July. Time is a funny thing. It's a constant, but it seems to speed up and slow down at different times. How does that work? I stumbled across an article that gives a little insight to this question.It all relates to the way we process things in our brain, according to a study done in Munich, Germany and reported by Scientific American. Researchers interviewed 499 people from ages 14-94 about their perception of time.They found that in short durations up to a year, for all ages, time seems to go fast--especially when they were having fun. The difference seemed to come when time was examined in retrospect. Time from childhood seemed to have gone slowly, while time from later years (over 40) seemed to go much faster.
Here's how the researchers explained this phenomenon. The brain lays downs memories for novel experiences. However, it doesn't do that for familiar ones. So when you experience a lot of new things, like everything in childhood, there are a lot of memories to go with that time period. However, when you experience fewer new things, like much of adulthood, you have fewer memories. So the same time period can seem either long or short depending on how many memories you have associated with it.
I'm not sure this explains how time seemed to jump from July to October, but it does explain some other things like why I remember and quote more things from my childhood that any other time. This subject needs more examination. When I have time. :)
Do you notice time in different ways?
