Time and its relationship to memory

Memory is what allows us to have a sense of time. If we did not have any memory of the past then we would be living continuously in the present with no understanding of what is a day an hour or a minute. Think about your first memory, the first thing you can remember. I am standing at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning, deciding when to come down to see what Santa brought. Usually people don’t remember anything before the age of three or four, and even when we do remember events from those early years it is hard to place them in chronological order. It is also amazing that we cannot remember anything from when we were newborns. This is partially due to the development of the hypothalamus and its ability to store memory. In JG Whitrow’s “What is Time?,” he points out that we develop a sense of time by learning, meaning having an understanding of linear time is not a purely automatic process. This idea reminds me of the times when I have babysat my neighbors. When their parents left, Alec and Andy, ages 3 and 5, would not have an understanding of how much time would pass before their Mom and Dad would come back home. Saying “just two more hours” would only result in them asking five minutes later if two hours had passed. It takes years to be able to develop a sense of time and what two hours passing feels like.

The speed in which time passes never changes, however, at times we feel like it does. An hour in a gly boring class seems like an eternity, while time spent doing something fun goes by in a flash. Even though that one hour in class seems like forever, the hours all blend together, and weeks later I can’t distinguish that one slow moving hour from all the others. The speed in which time passes also changes as you get older. In “What is Time?,” Whitrow includes a poem by Guy Pentreath, which represents the feeling that time goes faster as you get older.

For when I was a babe and wept and slept,

Time crept;

When I was a boy and laughed and talked,

Time walked;

Then when the years saw me a man,

Time ran,

But as I older grew, Time flew.

Another interesting topic the reading discussed was déjà vu. Moments of déjà vu are surreal and confusing. They always seem to come at random times and I am left at a loss as to what moment in time I am remembering. In Beyonce’s song, she describes having constant moments of déjà vu that cause her to feel like she is seeing something that she isn’t. She describes the feeling like being in a dream and seeing things she knows can’t be really happening. I wonder what causes déjà vu and why some people experience it while others don’t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ9BWndKEgs