So while sitting around today, I thought back to a conversation I had with the Grandkids about how Time works in the brain. I told them they had a "Time Machine" in their brain. I also said they had more than four different kinds of time in their heads. And that led to a wonderful chat.
So first, the Time Machine. I asked them to go back to their earliest memory. And surprisingly they went back to age four. Just a tad early for a truly well formed memory, but they remembered enough to qualify. Then I asked them to remember any "first" time. First ice cream, first car ride, first toy...etc. And like a lot of people they couldn't remember the first, but they did remember at least one experience of each. Now that they are older, they have stronger memories - partially because they have rehashed them a bit...and added or subtracted from that memory...or misplaced it in Time.
Then I shifted to something most folks just take for granted but just fills me with awe. I had them say something to me while sitting across from each other. Then I had them move three feet from the table and say something else to me. I answered and had them back up again...finally, when they were more than twenty feet away, they stopped. (And believe me the whole little restaurant was now paying attention too....wondering what in the World these young kids and the old man were up to!)
In that whole time, and distance, they understood me. And I explained that part of their brain "edited Time and motion" so that my lips moving and the sounds they made, reached their ears at approximately the same time. So I didn't look like a badly dubbed Japanese Godzilla movie. I told them it wasn't just their ears editing, that their eyes, which are never motionless, were also stitching time and movement to be in synchronicity. So they have different clocks in their heads, working at different speeds, and doing the calculus in their brains... without calculator or calculation.
And that underneath it all, was yet another system running the Body Clock, which we label circadian rhythm. And it keeps time for things like Hormones, Digestion, and sleep.
So we can go back in time...forward and see what that might look like, and it is almost impossible to stay in the present moment. Because, well, by the time we think about where we are, everything has moved.
They were stunned.
And I think they stated to understand just how powerful the Mind is, how much it can bend, warp, or even erase time. And how much timing is necessary just to look at someone, or talk to them.
Yep. We have a lot of clocks, and rarely do we use the time well. LOL