THE PULSE

The Pulse by Phoebe Pope is a carefully curated magazine that emphasizes the concept of time in its scientific being as well as in daily life. Its incorporation of uniquely picked photography paired with text helps voice multiple perspectives of what comes to mind when thinking about the concept of time. Within the magazine, there are many featured moments people share throughout the human experience that help build perspective of ourselves in the world. One can notice these intersections take place as new articles transition into one another. From the moment you begin to read this, remember, you are here right now.

Eleven

Sandra Cisnero

How Time Flies Growing Up

Nicole Dean

Now Means Nothing, How Time Works in Our Universe

Carlo Rovelli

Dear Photograph

Unique To Each Photo

Why We Romanticize the Past

Charlotte Lieberman

Time Shifting and Dementia

Dementia Society

7 Ways to Get Through the Existential Crisis

Alehia Pink Floyd’s “Time”

Chris Huber

SANDRA CISNERO EVIEWHY PHOEBE POPE

What they don’t tell you about birthdays is when you turn a year older, you’re also all the years that came before that year. I just turned 21 but I’m also still 20 and 19 and 16 and 11 and seven and one. When you wake up on your birthday you expect to feel your new age but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything is just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel your new age at all. I still feel like I’m 20 and I am underneath the year — that makes me 21.

One day I might say something stupid and that’s the part of me that still 18 or maybe some days I don’t trust myself and that’s the part of me that’s 16 and some days for no reason at all I need to cry like a baby and that’s the part of me that’s one. The way we grow older is kind of like an onion, each year inside the next one and our birthdays are just a celebration of all the years that came before and a welcoming of the next.

Growing Older

Growing Up

And the Perception of Time.

How Time Flies

This statement, or something close to it, was repeated many times by survivors interviewed by media outlets on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Indeed, to most people old enough to remember that day, it does seem like yesterday. Except it was not yesterday; it is a full decade-and-a-half later. In that same period of time, 3-year olds grew into full-fledged adults. Clunky Blackberries, carried by a few, evolved into sleek smartphones carried by almost everyone. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all went from nonexistent to ever-present.Similarly, time seems to speed up as we get older.

When we were 5, Christmas took forever to get here as we anxiously awaited the fulfillment of our wish list. At 50, however, we remark, “It’s Christmas already? Again?” Of course, objectively, we know that a year always takes the same 365 days to pass (except on a leap year, of course), and that each of

those days contains the same 24 hours. Yet we all know that this is not at all how it feels.

Why is it that some things that happened years ago seem like yesterday, while other things seem lost in the past? And why is it that time seems to pass faster as we get older? Why does it seem that our brains warp the perception of time based on circumstances and subject matter?

Psychologists have been noticing this feature of the human mind, and have been forming theories about its origins, since psychology began as a discipline. In 1890, William James wrote in his classic text, “Principles of Psychology,” that this phenomenon was essentially the result of life becoming increasingly boring as we age.

NICOLE DEAN

In other words, adulthood is marked by fewer and fewer events worth remembering as we grow older.

The younger we are, the more firsts we experience.

As small children, almost every moment is filled with novel experiences. In adolescence and young adulthood, life has become more habitual, but there are still many firsts — first kiss, first car, first apartment.

Looking at older adults, James grows rather glum about the thrill of living: “The days and weeks smooth themselves out and the years grow hollow and collapse.” Because they lack unique significance, our days pass us by in rapid succession, according to the theory.

Another long-standing theory is called the “ratio theory,” first proposed in 1877 by French psychologist Pierre Janet.

According to this premise, days seem to pass more quickly because they equal an increasingly smaller portion of our entire lives.

For example, one year is one-fifth (20 percent) of the entire lifespan of a 5-year-old, so a year to a tot of this age seems an eternity. By contrast, a year is only one-fortieth (2.5 percent) of a 40-year-old’s life.

The ratio theory, although offering a

“Time perception, just like vision, is a construction of the brain and is shockingly easy to manipulate experimentally.”

DAVID EAGLEMAN

partial explanation of the phenomenon, does not quite fit people’s actual experience, however. In one study conducted at Munich University, participants were asked the question, “How fast did the last 10 years pass for you?” Interestingly, people of all ages reported that a decade felt like much less than 10 years. And as expected, the older they were, the shorter people perceived those 10 years to be. However, the tendency largely dissipated after age 50. People over 50 experienced the 10 years as much shorter than an actual decade, but the estimated passage of perceived time did not decrease by much after that age. In other words, the ratio of time-tolifespan continued to decrease, but the perception of time speeding up did not increase by an equivalent amount, as the ratio theory would suggest it should.

The Munich researchers suggested a reason why 50 was an age at which time slows its perceived acceleration: Time doesn’t just fly “when we’re having fun,” as the old adage says, but whenever we are very busy. A 50-year-old perceives time passing more quickly than a 25-year-old because they have more responsibilities in life and in work. There is never enough time in the day to get everything done.

The perception of time speeding up levels off in middle age because our

busyness typically increases up to that point as we advance in our careers and become more involved with the activities of our growing children. Then, after 50, it levels off as we reach the zenith of our career and our children become more independent.

If you want to slow the perceived passage of time, you have to stay in what researchers call “specious time.”

Interestingly, this is similar to what spiritual teachers call “the present moment” or “the now.”

Psychologists, including pioneers like Janet and James, have noted that time slows and ex-

perience is deeper when we stay completely focused on what we are doing and what is happening in the present.

Toddlers live almost completely within this mental space, so time has no past or present; it is essentially infinite. Older people, on the other hand, tend to be anywhere but the present, spending much more time worrying about the to-do list for the day ahead and reliving a hurtful comment made two weeks ago by a friend.

But how does this explain the seeming warping of time that occurs with big events like 9/11? Why does that event seem like yesterday, while others from the same time period seem so distant? This effect is probably the result of the way our memories process negative experiences. Any novel event will stand out in the memory, but negative ones, especially those that evoke great fear, will stand out in even greater detail.

Brain researchers believe this is true for a couple of reasons. First, it is a survival adaptation — our ancestors needed to remember where dangers lurked in order to avoid them. Second, our psyche needs to process these events, to make sense of them and to integrate them into our understanding of the world. So, it could be that 9/11 feels like yesterday because our minds are still consciously and unconsciously processing the tragedy, both for our own survival and for our sense

of ourselves in the world.

The same holds true individually. Surprising events, including positive ones like receiving a marriage proposal or winning a prize, will likely remain more vivid in memory, and our brains will want to keep the tough moments of life, such as confrontations with bullies, car accidents, and nasty breakups, front and center in the mind, in order to deal with their lingering psychological ramifications.

David Eagleman, director of the Laboratory for Perception and Action at Baylor College of Medicine, has considered this feature of the human brain from the physiological point of view. In an article written for the popular e-zine Edge, he explains that different kinds of sensory information

are processed by different structures of the brain.

For that reason, the brain has to reconstruct the parts of each experience to have them make sense as a whole. Even at an early age, we are very good at doing this, unless the details are so nonsensical to us that we can’t make them make sense. The ones we have a difficult time reconstructing become what he calls “temporal illusions” — similar to

optical illusions but with time instead of visual information.

When we look at optical illusions, our brains are given contradictory information disrupting their ability to translate all the visual information in a concrete way. In temporal illusions, our brain’s ability to reconstruct time has been disrupted, so we end up with a distorted version of time that never quite matches with reality.

One more thing is known about perception of time by the human brain — humans everywhere have the same tendencies. The results of these time-perception studies have been practically identical among German, Austrian, Dutch,

Japanese, and New Zealander participants. All of them experience the speeding up of time with age and the distortion of time when experiencing surprising events.

This suggests that it is a brain-based phenomenon, not something created by cultural differences. As neuroscientists unravel the many mysteries that remain about the nature of consciousness, and the nature of our brain’s existence within the time-space continuum, many questions will certainly be asked about how and why the brain perceives time as it does.

SLOWING THE SLOWING

How Time Works In Our Universe

DOWN OF TIME

CARLO ROVELLI

We conventionally think of time as something simple and fundamental. It flows uniformly, independent of everything else, from the past to the future, measured by clocks and watches. In the course of time, the events of the universe succeed each other in an orderly way: pasts, presents, futures. The past is fixed, the future open ... and yet all of this has turned out to be false.

One after another, the characteristic features of time have proved to be approximations, mistakes determined by our perspective, just like the flatness of Earth or the revolving of the sun. The growth of our knowledge has led to a slow disintegration of our notion of time.

What we call “time” is a complex collection of structures, of layers. Under increasing scrutiny, in ever-greater depth, time has lost layers one after another, piece by piece.

The Elasticity of Time

Let’s begin with a simple fact: Time passes faster in the mountains than it does at sea level.

The difference is small, but it can be measured with precision timepieces that you can buy on the internet for a few thousand dollars. With practice, anyone can witness the slowing down of time. With the timepieces of specialized laboratories, researchers can detect this slowing down of time between levels just a few centimeters apart: A clock on the floor runs a little more slowly than one on a table.

It is not just the clocks that slow down: Lower down, all processes are slower. Two friends separate, with one of them living in the plains and the other going to live in the mountains. They meet up again years later. The one who has stayed down has lived less, aged less, the mechanism of his cuckoo clock has oscillated fewer times. He has had less time to do things, his plants have grown less, his thoughts have had less time to unfold. Lower down, there is simply less time than at an altitude.

Is this surprising? Perhaps it is. But this is how the world works. Time

passes more slowly in some places, more rapidly in others.

The surprising thing, perhaps, is that someone understood this slowing down of time a century before we had clocks precise enough to measure it. His name, of course, was Albert Einstein.

The ability to understand something before it’s observed is at the heart of scientific thinking. In antiquity, the Greek philosopher Anaximander understood that the sky continues beneath our feet long before ships had circumnavigated the Earth. At the beginning of the modern era, the Polish mathematician and astronomer Copernicus understood the Earth turns long before astronauts had seen it do so from the moon.

In the course of making such strides, we learn the things that seemed self-evident to us were really no more than prejudices. It seemed obvious the sky was above us and not below; otherwise, the Earth would fall down. It seemed self-evident the Earth did not move; otherwise, it would cause everything to crash. That time passed at the same speed everywhere seemed equally obvious to us. But just as children grow up and discover the world is not as it seemed from within the four walls of their homes, humankind as a whole does the same.

Falling Objects

Einstein asked himself a question that has perhaps puzzled many of us when studying the force of gravity: How can the sun and Earth “attract” each other without touching and without utilizing anything between them?

He looked for a plausible explanation and found one by imagining the sun and the Earth do not attract each other directly. Instead, each of the two gradually acts on that

which is between them — space and time — modifying them just as someone immersed in water displaces the liquid around them. This modification of the structure of time influences the movement of bodies, causing them to “fall” or gravitate toward each other.

Now Means Nothing

What is happening now in a distant place? Imagine, for example, your sister has gone to Proxima b, the recently discovered planet that orbits a star

approximately 4 light-years away from us. What is your sister doing now on Proxima b?

The only correct answer is that the question makes no sense. It’s like asking, “What is here, in Peking?” when we are in Venice. It makes no sense, because if I use the word “here” in Venice, I am referring to a place in Venice, not in Peking.

If you ask what your sister, who is in the room with you, is doing now, the answer is usually an easy one: You look at her, and you can tell. If she’s far away, you phone her and ask what she’s doing. But take care: If you look at your sister, you’re receiving light that travels from her to your eyes. That light takes time to reach you — let’s say a few nanoseconds, a tiny fraction of a second. Therefore, you’re not quite seeing what she’s doing now but what she was doing a few nanoseconds ago. If she’s in New York and you phone her from Liverpool, her voice takes a few milliseconds to reach you, so the most you can claim to know is what your sister was up to a few milliseconds ago. Not a significant difference, perhaps.

What does it mean, this “modification of the structure of time”? Precisely the slowing of time described above. A mass slows down time around itself. The Earth is a large mass and slows down time in its vicinity. It does so more in the plains and less in the mountains, because the plains are closer to it. This is why the friend who stays at sea level ages more slowly.

Therefore, if things fall, it is due to this slowing of time. Where time passes uniformly, in interplanetary space, things don’t fall — they float. Here on the surface of our planet, on the other hand, things fall downward because, down there, time is slowed by the Earth.

Hence, even though we cannot easily observe it, the slowing of time nevertheless has crucial effects: Things fall because of it, and it allows us to keep our feet firmly on the ground. If our feet adhere to the pavement, it is because our whole body inclines naturally to where time runs more slowly — and time passes more slowly for your feet than it does for your head.

Does this seem strange? It’s like when watching the sun set, disappearing slowly behind distant clouds, we suddenly remember that it’s not the sun that’s moving but the Earth that’s spinning. And we envision our entire planet — and ourselves with it — rotating backward, away from the sun.

Speed And Time

Ten years before understanding that time is slowed down by mass, Einstein realized that it was slowed down by speed. The consequence of this discov-

ery for our basic perception of time is the most devastating of all.

The fact itself is quite simple. Instead of sending the two friends to the mountains and the plains, respectively, let’s ask one to stay still and the other to walk around.

As before, the two friends experience different durations. The one who moves ages less quickly, his watch marks less time passing, he has less time in which to think, the plant he is carrying takes longer to germinate, and so on. For everything that moves, time passes more slowly.

But one must move very quickly for this effect to become perceptible. It was first measured in the 1970s, using precision watches on airplanes. The watches aboard planes display a time behind that displayed by the ones on the ground. Today, the slowing of time can be observed in many physics experiments.

Even before this 1970s demonstration, Einstein had already figured out that time slows down — when he was just 25 years old and studying electromagnetism.

It turned out to be a not particularly complex deduction. Electricity and magnetism are well described by the equations of James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish mathematical physicist. These equations contain the usual time variable t but have a curious property. If you travel at a certain velocity, then for you Maxwell’s equations are no longer true (that is, they don’t describe what you measure) unless you call time a different variable: t´. Mathematicians had become aware of this odd feature of Maxwell’s equations, but no one had been able to understand what it meant.

Einstein, though, grasped its significance. t is the time that passes if I stay still; t´ is “your time.” That is, t is the time my watch measures when it’s stationary, and t´ is the time your watch measures when it’s moving. Nobody had imagined previously that time could be different for a stationary watch and one in motion.

A moving object therefore experiences a shorter duration than one that’s stationary: A watch marks fewer seconds, a plant grows more slowly, a young man dreams less. For a moving object, time contracts. Not only is there no single time for different places — there isn’t even a single time for any particular place. A duration can be associated only with the movement of something, with a given trajectory.

“Proper time” depends not only on where you are and your degree of proximity to masses; it depends also on the speed at which you move. It’s a strange enough fact in itself, but its consequences are extraordinary. Hold on tight, because we are about to take off.

But, if your sister is on Proxima b, light takes four years to reach you from there. Hence, if you look at her through a telescope, or receive a radio communication from her, you know what she was doing four years ago rather than what she is doing now. Now on Proxima b is definitely not what you see through the telescope, or what you can hear from her voice over the radio.

So perhaps you can say that what your sister is doing now is what she will be doing four years after the moment that you see her through the telescope? But no, this does not work. After you have seen her through the telescope, four years ago in her time, she might already have returned to Earth and could be (Yes! This is really possible!) 10 terrestrial years

in the future. But now cannot be in the future …

Perhaps we can do this. If, 10 years ago, your sister left for Proxima b, taking with her a calendar to keep track of time, can we think that now for her is when she has recorded that 10 years have passed? No, this does not work, either: She might have returned here after 10 of her years, arriving back where, in the meantime, 20 years have elapsed. So when the hell is now on Proxima b?

The truth of the matter is that we need to give up asking the question. There is no special moment on Proxima b that corresponds to what constitutes the present here and now.

Dear reader, pause for a moment to let this conclusion sink in. In my opinion, it is the most astounding conclusion arrived at in the whole of contemporary physics.

It simply makes no sense to ask which moment in the life of your sister on Proxima b corresponds to now.

It is like asking which football team has won a basketball championship, how much money a swallow has earned or how much a musical note weighs. They are nonsensical questions because football teams play football, not basketball; swallows do not

busy themselves earning money; and sounds cannot be weighed. “Basketball champions” refers to a team of basketball players, not to footballers. Monetary profit refers to human society, not to swallows. The notion of “the present” refers to things that are close to us, not to anything that is far away.

Our present does not extend throughout the universe. It is like a bubble around us.

How far does this bubble extend? It depends on the precision with which we determine time. If by nanoseconds, the present is defined only over a few meters; if by milliseconds, it is defined over thousands of kilometers. As humans, we distinguish tenths of a second only with great difficulty; we can easily consider our entire planet to be like a single bubble where we can speak of the present as if it were an instant shared by us all. This is as far as we can go.

There is our past: all the events that happened before what we can witness now. There is our future: the events that will happen after the moment from which we can see the here and now. Between this past and this future, there is an interval that is neither past nor future and still has a duration: 15 minutes on Mars, eight years on Proxima b, millions of years in the Andromeda galaxy. It is the expanded present. It is perhaps the greatest and strangest of Einstein’s discoveries.

A World’s Essence

The growth of our knowledge has led to a slow disintegration of our notion of time. What we have been left with is an empty, windswept landscape almost devoid of all trace of temporality. A strange, alien world that is nevertheless still the one to which we belong. It is like arriving in the high mountains, where there is nothing but snow, rocks and sky. A world stripped to its essence, glittering with an arid and troubling beauty. The physics on which I work — quantum gravity — is an attempt to understand and lend coherent meaning to this extreme and beautiful landscape.

To the world without time.

Dear Photograph,

This was taken 12 years ago when I was 6. I still remember going up the hills with my grandma and coming down to sit down at the cabin. She always gave me candies, played with me, and treated me dearly. My grandma was my best friend. Our conversations consisted of gossips of relatives, life stories, advices full of wisdom, and eyesight problems. I mostly listened to her talk, and it never bore me. Last year, she passed away. It was hard to believe that she was gone. It still is.. But she will always be in my heart and memories. Love you Grandma -Ochko

Dear Photograph,

The roles have reversed but you’re still the best woman in my life.

Love, Pav

Dear Photograph,

Thank you for showing us all how to love for the long haul.

Love, John

A year into the pandemic, it’s easy to find yourself reminiscing about the past: bustling restaurants, sweaty spin classes, grocery shopping unburdened by face masks and cascades of adrenaline. You may even miss things you never thought you would, like your annoying co-workers or your long commute.

Yes, this is the definition of “taking things for granted” — so perhaps it’s not surprising that we’re all suddenly appreciating what’s no longer available. But it’s also evidence of a cognitive tendency we share to selectively remember the past as better than it was, especially when the present doesn’t feel so good.

As we look back on “the good old days,” we need to ask ourselves: Was the past actually as great as we remember it? And what can we learn from all these walks down memory lane?

Why We Romanticize The Past

Wait. Are you saying my memories aren’t

true?

Not exactly. But there’s a common misconception that memories are accurate records of the past, pristinely preserved in a mental filing cabinet.

Memory doesn’t really work like that,” said Anne Wilson, a professor of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University whose research broadly focuses on memory, time and identity. “We reconstruct what happened in the past on the basis of little bits and pieces of memory. We’re acting like archaeologists — picking up the pieces and putting them back together.”

This doesn’t mean we consciously distort or embellish our memories. But the process of retrieving memories is “highly reconstructive and prone to various biases,” said Daniel Schacter, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and the author of “The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers.”

For instance, researchers have observed that memories associated with negative emotions fade more quickly than those associated with positive emotions. This phenomenon is known as fading affect bias.

“It’s a coping mechanism,” said Felipe de Brigard, a

professor of philosophy, psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, who studies the intersection of memory and imagination. “You have to carry your past with you. If a memory hurt every time that you recalled it as much as when you experienced it, that would be unbearable.”

A 2019 study found a correlation between fading affect bias and perseverance, suggesting that diminished negativity allows people “to put positive and negative events into the proper emotional perspective.”

Then there’s the simple fact that most of us prefer reminiscing about positive experiences, which gives us “preferential access” to those memories, Dr. Schacter explained. In other words, aspects of the past that we enjoy thinking about tend to stick with us over time, while elements we don’t think about fade away. Researchers call this retrieval-induced forgetting. “This may contribute to a positive memory bias because we tend not to rehearse, rehash and retrieve negative experiences,” Dr. Schacter added. Traumatic memories, which are often intrusive and persistent, are the notable exception.

Makes sense.

Is this always the case?

Our general tendency to recall positive memories over negative ones is especially pronounced when we feel discomfort in the present. That’s because the process of recalling the past is always dictated by “the perspective that we’re coming in with and the questions we’re asking about the past,” Dr. Wilson said. She called this our “current lens.”

Your current lens acts as a kind of filter, determining what details you dredge up and what you make of them. Living amid a deadly pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, we’re all primed with some degree of collective nostalgia as a baseline. “If we start out with the hypothesis that things were better in the past, then we’ll pull out memories to confirm that,” Dr. Wilson said.

Part of this has to do with what researchers call “mood repair” — doing what we can to lift ourselves up when we’re feeling down. “Memory isn’t just there to help us remem-

ber where the car is parked,” Dr. de Brigard said. “It also plays other roles, and one of them is to help us feel better.”

None of this is incidental — autobiographical memory has evolved this way for good reason.

In her research, Dr. Wilson found that we manipulate our personal memories to create a coherent identity and favorable sense of self over time.

This may mean embellishing our memories with imaginative elements, or omitting details we’d rather not dwell on. “We know that memory and imagination interact enormously,” Dr. de Brigard said. “We often imagine ways in which the past could’ve happened. Then our imagination penetrates the original memory and modifies the content.”

While the malleable quality of our memory makes it vulnerable to manipulation, and er-

ror, it’s also a real adaptation of the human mind. “Recalling past positive events is an adaptive way to regulate emotion in the present and enhance optimism about the future,” Dr. Schacter said.

In fact, Dr. Schacter’s research has shown that, on both neural and cognitive levels, the same regions of the brain come online when we remember the past as when we imagine the future.

It makes sense. To plan for the future, we have to look to the past. In less-than-ideal

times, we may recruit positive memories in order to envision the future with greater hope, motivation and resilience.

No, chatting by the water cooler with colleagues may not have felt that extraordinary at the time. But glorifying experiences like these in our current moment may actually serve a purpose. Who among us doesn’t need a boost these days?

OK. But what about memories I know are great?

Just because memories can change when we reconstruct them doesn’t necessarily mean all of them have changed significantly. But it does mean that they are still all shaped by various cognitive processes, including those meaningful moments, like holiday gatherings or trips.

We’ve all felt it: The family vacation was full of arguments, sunburns and hangovers, but somehow you remember only the quality time, gorgeous weather and delicious meals.

In 1994, two psychology researchers, Terence Mitchell and Leigh Thompson, sought to offer and test a theoretical model for this phenomenon,

which they called “rosy retrospection.” In their paper, Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Thompson explained rosy retrospection as one of three ways our mind creates the effect of “rose-colored glasses.” First is rosy projection — the “great, positive anticipation” that often leads to “overblown expectations,” said Dr. Thompson, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Second, the researchers said, is the “dampening” of pleasure in the present: “We are hard-wired to give negative stimuli a lot more cognitive attention in the present,” Dr. Thompson said. But these details “disappear by the wayside in our memories.” The result? Rosy retrospection: recalling the past more fondly than we experienced it at the time.

Multiple studies document rosy retrospection in action. A 1992 study found that visitors to Disneyland reported significantly more positive recollections of their trips than the details they reported during the trips themselves (like crying children or long lines).

In 1997, Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Thompson found similar results when they put their theory of rosy retrospection to work, examining participants’ anticipation of, experiences in and recollections of a trip to Europe, a Thanksgiving vacation and a three-week cycling trip in California. Across the board, reported

recollections were far more positive than experiences recorded in the present.

Put simply, we’ll always grab onto the details that confirm our current lens (“What a great vacation that was!”) and stitch together our memories accordingly.

“Part of this is driven by self-enhancement: ‘I want to think of myself as a lucky, fortunate, probably somewhat talented, capable person,’” said Dr. Thompson. “We construct a story after the fact and selectively choose the things that were romantic.”

So, what’s the problem?

There is no glaring problem with romanticizing the past. As long as we’re aware how memory works, we can keep ourselves accountable, try to learn from the past and live more fully in the present.

But particularly during challenging moments of life, there are real benefits to taking a step back from whatever is going on in the present.

“We have the ability to get some space from our own experiences, which can be really useful for helping us

think about them more objectively,” said Ethan Kross, a psychologist and the director of the University of Michigan Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory.

Dr. Kross has dedicated much of his research to studying what he’s called “self-distancing” — “the ability to step outside yourself and view yourself from a more distanced perspective, similar to how we might think of another person.”

He added: “There are lots of ways you can gain distance from your experiences. The act of thinking about the past is one way.”

Looking back at the past, romanticized or not, “allows us to get a broader sense of perspective, which can help people make sense of their experience,” he said.

A 2015 study found that “temporal distancing” (or, thinking about ourselves in the past or future) enhances our ability to cope with negative events by helping us realize their impermanence: “This too shall pass,” an idea we’re better prepared to believe when we see the proverbial bigger picture.

Self-distancing has also been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, support self-reflection, and improve decision-making and emotion regulation, among other benefits.

Spending time with glorified memories in particular may also have additional benefits.

“Nostalgia is an important psychological resource,” Dr. Wilson said. “People can dip into the past, especially when the present is not sustaining them.”

A lot of research backs this up. Reaching for nos-

talgia has been shown to counteract loneliness and boredom. Research by Xinyue Zhou of Sun Yat-Sen University in southern China has shown that nostalgia not only has psychological benefits, but potentially also physiological ones. In a 2012 study, Dr. Zhou found that people experienced nostalgia more readily on cold days or in cold rooms; in addition, participants who engaged with nostalgic memories reported feeling warmer.

If nostalgia “warms” not only our hearts but also our bodies in the face of difficult conditions, then thinking fondly about the past may have evolutionary utility beyond emotional comfort.

The question, then, isn’t how do we appreciate the past less — but how do we learn to appreciate the present more?

What can I do to appreciate my day-to-day more, even now?

Consider what you’ll be nostalgic for: Because of the pandemic, we now have evidence that we get nostalgic about even the most boring aspects of life. So, flip your mind’s own logic on its head, and consider what elements of your present situation, however dull and repetitive, you’ll reminisce about once all this is over.

Maybe it’s the bread you learned to make — and the ritual of making it. Perhaps it’s spending more time at home with your children. Allow yourself to really notice the details about these experiences in order to give more texture to your future memories. “Try to become nostalgic for the present,” Dr. de Brigard said. “Help your future self by making the present more memorable. Embellish the dullness.”

It may help to snap a few photos and make your seemingly mundane moments into memories worth keeping and revisiting. By thinking about your present experience in terms of its memory-potential, you may even find yourself paying more attention to the

rosier moments rather than those “dampening” distractions. “I guarantee you won’t photograph your dog who keeps soiling the carpet, but you will photograph the perfect croque-madame that you have perfected during lockdown,” Dr. Thompson said.

Put the present in context: It seems as if everywhere we look, we’re told to “be present.” It’s valid advice: Doing things like meditating or going for a walk can help us connect more directly to our experience and let go of mental chatter.

But immersing ourselves in the present isn’t the only way to appreciate life more. In fact, embracing our capacity to think about the past and future can help us develop a healthier perspective and find more meaning in the present.

“We’re constantly trying to make meaning out of our experiences, and our mind is flexibly constructed to help us do so,” Dr. Kross said. “I wouldn’t want to give up this ability to go back in time to make sense of what I’m experiencing and then create a story that propels me forward.”

So, take a step back from the nitty-gritty details of your life right now and consider how this period might fit into your “life story.” It will feel cliché, but giving yourself a bit of distance from the day-to-day will help you see yourself more clearly — and with greater compassion. Imagine yourself in the future thinking back on this time. What’s the story you will tell? What did you learn? How did you grow?

Finally, make a treat out of what you used to take for granted: Before the pandemic, we gathered with friends, went to bars, saw live music and didn’t think anything of it. Now, you might notice yourself savoring small pleasures a bit more, especially if those things weren’t available during

the earlier months of the pandemic.

It’s not a coincidence: Studies have shown that when we have less, we savor more. “It’s an economic principle,” said Jordi Quoidbach, a psychologist and an associate professor of people management and organization at the Escuela Superior de Administración y Dirección de Empresas in Spain. “What is rare tends to be cherished more than what is readily available.”

Even when life returns to normal and the simple pleasure of eating out at a restaurant, for example, becomes available, we can “deprive ourselves of the overabundance of pleasure,” Dr. Quoidbach said. “To prolong the excitement of going back to restaurants even when life gets back to normal, we can make it a treat and decide actively that we’re not going to eat out three times a week, but make Thursday a special night, or even the third Thursday of every month.”

When all else fails, consider the fact that this period of time, like any other, will be susceptible to the infinite distortions of memory. Your hair may be gray and your anxiety may be through the roof, but you can imagine the story you’ll rewrite when it comes time to romanticize the past once again.

TimeAnd Shifting DEMENTIA

A person who is time-shifted may seem to be experiencing a different reality to you. Try to remember that what they perceive is as real to them as your reality is to you.

The person may not understand what more recent technology is or does. They may not recognise friends and family as they look now, expecting them to be much younger. They may think that people who have died are still alive. They may also not recognise themselves in a mirror, as they are expecting to see a much younger version of themselves.

DEMENTIA SOCIETY

HOW CAN DEMENTIA AFFECT PERCEPTION?

Information from the sense organs, for example the eyes or ears, travels to the brain. The brain processes this information, to understand it. The brain then analyses it alongside other information already in the brain, such as thoughts and memories and their associated emotions. Then the person becomes aware of what has been sensed (perceived).

Dementia can interrupt or slow this process down, which changes how a person understands the world around them. Damage to the eyes or parts of the brain may cause misperceptions, misidentifications, hallucinations, delusions and time-shifting.

WHAT CAUSES TIME-SHIFTING?

Memory is important in understanding the world. To understand what is happening now, the brain uses information from the senses, and memories.

A person with dementia often has damage to their short-term memory. This means they may rely more on older memories to make sense of things now. A person with dementia may not recognise an object, or how to use it, even though they can see it clearly.

For example, the person you care for may put their electric kettle onto the stove to boil water. If the parts of the brain that store and find more recent memories are damaged, they cannot remember using an electric kettle.

They may, however, be able to recall earlier memories from their life, perhaps one which they put on a gas hob or the stove. They have shifted to a time in their life before they used electric kettles. The person may feel like they are living in the past, because they’re using older memories to fill in the gaps to make sense of the present.

Time-shifting may be more common in Alzheimer’s disease than other types of dementia. However, people with all types of dementia are more likely to experience it as their condition progresses. A person may not always be time-shifted, but they may move in and out of being time-shifted and living in the present, perhaps over the course of a day.

WHO GETS TIME-SHIFTED?

HOW DOES A PERSON EXPERIENCE TIME-SHIFTING?

Asking if they can collect the children from school, or when they can speak to their mother. They are recalling memories from much earlier in life, and possibly showing an unmet need.

Not recognising themselves in the mirror, as they believe they are much younger, and the reflection is of someone much older. They can’t access recent memories of themselves.

Not recognising their adult children or family, believing their children to be much younger. Their memory of them is from a much earlier time.

Struggling to identify newer technology and what it is for.

Interpreting people around them in a role they were familiar with in the past. For example, if the person used to run a bed and breakfast, they may think other care home residents are guests. They could help to set out tables for lunch, which is a meaningful occupation for them.

SUPPORTING A PERSON WHO IS EXPERIENCING TIME-SHIFTING

As with delusions, pointing out mistakes to a person with dementia who is time-shifted can be very upsetting. Often you won’t often be able to convince them to recognise their current situation or surroundings, or that time- shifting is not logical.

This is because time-shifting is due to damage to the brain and is not a choice for the person with dementia. It is real to them. If the person with dementia is happy and content, think about whether correcting them is in their best interests.

Not contradicting their experience. They shouldn’t be told what is or is not true in a confrontational manner. They may become frightened or upset.

Remembering that emotional memories are often easier to retrieve. Staying open, calm and friendly can help the person with dementia to associate a carer with positive emotions, even if they struggle to understand who you are in the present.

Announcing their name when entering the room by saying ‘Hi, it’s (name)’ or similar. Other family members friends and professionals should do the same. This may help prevent the person from becoming confused and mistaking them for someone in their past.

Attend carefully to what the person is saying and doing, to understand their reality. Acknowledge their worry, and explain you will try to help. They are more likely to be gently distracted, once they feel heard.

Remaining calm. If a carer becomes frustrated that the person is struggling with the present, they should take themselves out of the situation until they feel calmer. Perhaps making a drink for them both, to take some time out of the room.

Remembering the positive difference they make to the person with dementia. The person with dementia does not need to fully understand your reality for them to feel happy, so continue to try and do what makes them feel content.

PREVENTING OR REDUCING TIME-SHIFTING

Remove or replace mirrors and shiny surfaces at eye height. Some people may not recognise themselves in the reflection, if they have time-shifted to when they were much younger. They may believe their reflection to be a stranger in their home, and this can cause distress and alarm.

Unless there is a problem with any appliances they have, such as their TV, avoid changing them for newer technology. They may not be able to use newer and unfamiliar items. It is better that they continue to use their appliances without help, than to introduce newer technology that they need assistance with.

Talk to them about simple solutions. For example, if using the radio causes confusion, try replacing it with a model that they used when they were younger.

Try and find out about their life history. This can include former job roles, daily routines, interests and important relationships. Understanding their past may help to understand how they are interpreting their present. It may also help understand questions and actions that seem odd to others (for example, someone getting up very early ‘to clock on for work’). Giving someone meaningful occupation often helps.

Existential

Put simply, an existential crisis is a period in life where a person is at a crossroads and is questioning their entire reality.

ALETHIA

Existential Crisis

They may wonder what the meaning of their life is and whether they have a higher purpose. They may wonder whether life itself has meaning or is just a random, chaotic product of chance. And as a result, they may suffer from tremendous anxiety, depression, isolation, and feelings of being lost. The existential crisis is often spiritual in nature and is sometimes a byproduct (or trigger of) the spiritual emergency.

What you’re going through may be horribly painful, but you’re experiencing a death and rebirth. You’re undergoing a mental, emotional, and spiritual renewal process.

Here are some paths/practices you may like to explore. Many of these I have used myself during my existential crisis period – and they helped tremendously:

The existential crisis is an opportunity for you to find your life purpose, figure out what truly matters in life, and connect with your spiritual nature.

RECORD (JOURNAL) ALL YOUR THOUGHTS EVERY DAY

This one was a BIG help for me – and I believe it can be for you too. Writing down all your thoughts and feelings is a good way of getting them out of your mind. The more you let your thoughts accumulate, the more overwhelmed you can feel. So let it all out. Journaling is extremely therapeutic and is recommended by professionals and depressed folks alike constantly.

Here’s an example of a journal entry:

I’m feeling horrible today. I watch and listen to people talk about their lives, but it all seems futile. I can’t relate to any of them. Not even a bit. All their plans, goals, and shallow desires – can’t they see that it’s all going to perish one day? Their banality suffocates me and I feel like I’m walking in the land of the dead. Everyone is asleep. Why can’t they just wake the fuck up? Maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow, but for now, I just wanted to get these feelings out.

As you can see, your journal entry doesn’t need to be long. It can be a tiny paragraph or even a few words. It also doesn’t need to be wordy, well-written, or poetic. The point is to benefit from it by making a habit out of it.

TURN YOUR PAIN INTO ART

Some of the best art (think Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Goya, etc.) has come from those who have suffered tremendously. You don’t need to be good at art (or an “artist”) to benefit from artistic self-expression. The point isn’t to create something that will please others, but something that helps you feel better and process what you’re going through.

If you need ideas, go on Pinterest and look up different art projects. Places to start include watercolor, sketching, collage, and paint pouring. You can also read our art therapy ideas article and see if that interests you.

GET IN TOUCH WITH YOUR INNER WARRIOR

When we go through an existential crisis it can feel like all our power, all our energy, has been drained from us. We may struggle to get up in the morning and keep moving forward. We may feel small and defenseless in the face of life.

The way to move through these feelings is to reconnect with your inner warrior, in whatever way he/she/it appears to you. We like to see this fiery essence as the wolf, but you may see it differently.

To connect with your inner warrior, you may like to turn to your dreams. Before going to bed, ask your unconscious mind to present to you an image of

your inner warrior. Then, pay attention to your dreams. Note down anything significant when first rising in the morning. If you struggle with this activity, repeat it for a week.

You may even like to take a herb like mugwort, blue lotus, or a lucid dreaming supplement to make your dreams more vivid (please do your own research regarding dosage requirements and look into the precautions).

An alternative is to practice visualization. Imagine you’re walking down a staircase and at the bottom is a golden door. Once you open that door, you’ll come face-to-face with your inner warrior. What does he/she/it look like? You might like to play some music that puts you in the right frame of mind for this activity (think warrior music which you can find for free on Youtube).

Once you’ve connected with your inner warrior you can work with this inner image in your daily life for strength and guidance. You may like to journal with this inner force, talk with it through visualization, or create a piece of artwork that you put somewhere noticeable and special in your home.

CONNECT WITH NATURE

If you struggle to connect with others, go out in nature. Connect with the birds, trees, and plants. Sit and watch what happens around you and find delight in the small things.

Spending time in nature was one of the major ways I got through my existential crisis. I would often spend hours sitting outside observing how the clouds moved through the sky and the way the wind danced through the trees.

If you don’t live near nature, try taking regular trips to your local wildlife reserve, forest, or park. Nature is soothing to the soul and will help you to get out of your head. If you’re interested, I wrote this article on the art of forest bathing (shinrin yoku) a few years ago.

FIND WHAT BRINGS YOU JOY AND MEANING

Even the smallest things can bring you joy like a patch of sunlight on the floor or the feeling of cold water against your hands as you wash the dishes.

By practicing mindfulness exercises, you can connect with the present moment more and step out of the cycles of dark thought that accompanying the existential crisis.

Finding the meaning of life is a longer path, but something that can also bring you a sense of pur-

pose. We’ve written more on the topic of finding the meaning of life and you’re more than welcome to go check that out.

SIMPLIFY AND MINIMIZE SOURCES OF STRESS

You’re going through enough inner stress as it is, so don’t be afraid to let go of people/responsibilities that cause you more harm than good.

PRACTICE SELF-CARE AND SELF-LOVE

Take care of yourself. This is a tough time. I know it’s hard, and I know that most days you don’t have the energy for much. But treat yourself with as much love as you can muster. Even opening the window for some fresh air can be seen as a small act of self-love or putting on some warmer socks.

Two forms of self-love and care that you may like to start with are affirmations and gratitude. I know you may feel skeptical toward them, but there’s a reason why they’ve entered the mainstream: they work.

You may like to start a gratitude journal and list five things you’re thankful for each day (being grateful has been scientifically proven to help you feel better). And you may like to find/create one or two affirmations that you carry with you and repeat throughout the day. Examples may include, “I am strong, and I’ll get through this,” “It’s okay to not know all the answers,” “I surrender to the cycles of life,” “I’m feeling better every day.”

One way of minimizing your stress is by creating a calm and clear mind. Try guided meditations that soothe your mind and body each morning and evening. I love the free app “InsightTimer” for all its variety and I use it on my phone each day. I encourage you to do the same.

CONNECT WITH OTHERS

See if there are any depression support groups around you. Not everyone experiencing depression is going through an existential crisis, but some are. And you can find a sense of kinship there.

Otherwise, there are many groups online (such as on social media) that you can join for support. Alternatively, you can simply browse around this website and see that you’re not alone in your existential difficulties.

You may also wish to call a mental health hotline if you desperately need to talk with someone or go to a website like 7cups that offers free support.

EXPLORE SPIRITUALITY

As psychologist Christa Mackinnon writes: Studies find correlations between spiritual well-being and positive psychological responses when people are confronted with existential crisis situations. A recent study of 60 lung cancer patients in America, for instance, found that aspects of spirituality, namely meaning in life and prayer, have positive effects on psychological and physical responses, and an in-depth study of 160 terminally ill patients in palliative care came to the conclusion that spiritual well-being provides a sense of peace and offers some protection against end-of-life despair in those for whom death is imminent.

You don’t need to buy into anyone’s bullshit – find what type of spirituality works for you. That might be simply praying or lighting a candle, or it could mean learning how to be a spiritual healer and finding a higher sense of purpose.

I personally enjoy the path of inner work and I incorporate many eclectic practices into my spiritual path like working with the archetypes, spirit guides, practicing meditation and mindfulness, creating sigils, connecting with nature… the list goes on.

TIRED OF LYING IN THE SUN -

SHINE, STAYING HOME TO WATCH THE RAIN

YOU ARE YOUNG AND LIFE IS LONG, AND THERE IS TIME TO KILL TODAY AND THEN ONE DAY YOU FIND TEN YEARS HAVE GOT BEHIND YOU

NO ONE TOLD YOU WHEN TO RUN, YOU MISSED THE STARTING GUN

PINK FLOYD’S TIME

EVERY YEAR IS GETTING SHORTER, NEVER SEEM TO FIND THE TIME PLANS THAT EITHER COME TO NAUGHT OR HALF A PAGE OF SCRIBBLED LINES HANGING ON IN QUIET DESPERATION IS THE ENGLISH WAY THE TIME IS GONE, THE SONG IS OVER, THOUGHT I’D SOMETHING MORE TO SAY

I wrote that when I was 29 years old. The bits in the song where it goes, ‘No one told you when to run/ You missed the starting gun,’ it’s about my experience of being 29 years old and certainly going, ‘Fuck me. It’s the middle of life. I’ve been told that I was preparing for something.’

-Roger Waters on “Time”

TEXT

Aletheia. “Existential Crisis: 9 Ways to Get through Life’s Darkest Times.” LonerWolf, 30 Sept. 2022, https:// lonerwolf.com/existential-crisis/.

Anderson, Susan. “I Am Every Age I’ve Ever Been.” Sue’s News, Views ‘n Muse, 1 Jan. 1970, http://grannysuesnews.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-am-every-age-iveever-been.html.

Dean, Nicole. “How Time Flies: Growing up, Growing Older, and the Perception of Time.” Brain World, 29 Feb. 2020, https://brainworldmagazine.com/time-fliesgrowing-growing-older-perception-time/.

Dear Photograph, https://dearphotograph.com/.

Huber, Chris. “The Meaning of Pink Floyd’s ‘Time.’” Extra Chill, 13 Dec. 2021, https://extrachill.com/2021/12/pinkfloyd-time-meaning.html.

Lieberman, Charlotte. “Why We Romanticize the Past.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Apr. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/smarter-living/ why-we-romanticize-the-past.html.

Rovelli, Carlo. “Now Means Nothing: How Time Works in Our Universe.” Discover Magazine, Discover Magazine, 24 May 2020, https://www.discovermagazine.com/ the-sciences/now-means-nothing-how-time-works-inour-universe.

“Time-Shifting and Dementia.” Alzheimer’s Society, 20 Dec. 2018, https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/symptoms-and-diagnosis/time-shifting.

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Chavez, Ashlie. You Can’t Escape Her. http:// www.ashliechavez.com/i-swore-part-ii/.

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