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Relativistic time perception

cory

Well-Known Member
time.PNG
It seems like a common aspie trait combination is to have poor short-term memory but excellent or even photographic long-term memory. This is the case with me. Because of my difficulty with short term memory I tend to switch between living in the moment and living in my memory. If I recall something early in childhood the picture is not always clear. It is looks similar to an impressionist photograph. Important moments in my life stand out and I can see these pictures or movies (sequence of events) very clearly. I also have buried memory; things that don’t stand out as important (that I’ve never thought or obsessed over) but I will randomly recall very clearly as an image. When I’m in a memory I relive it, and I can’t always perceive the difference in time when these events occurred (i.e. something that occurred 1 year ago feels the same as something that occurred 10 years ago). I have the sensation that I am reliving a memory but I don’t have a sensation that I am reliving the past. It’s kind of like my memories are all stacked up upon each other and they all exist at the same point outside of time. So if I see some pattern or have some experience similar to what I have had before my mind will go back to the picture or movie in my past and I’ll relive it outside of time. So, for me, the present exists in one place and my entire past exists in another. Often the two will overlap, giving me the sensation of existing in two places (times) at once. This continual shifting from living in the moment to experiencing memory outside of time gives me a very different perception of time than a NT.
The only thing I have been able to compare this to is Relativity. Relativity is a phenomenon in nature where the passage of time changes for one actor relative to another actor. This is called time dilation. It’s a quantifiable, measurable observable fact. If one actor is moving at a faster speed than another they will perceive the passage of time in exactly the same way but the actor moving at a higher speed will have experienced less time passing relative to the actor moving at a slower speed. Currently, a Russian cosmonaut holds the record for experiencing the most time dilation. He traveled at a high rate of speed on the international space station for a year. The same phenomenon is true when an actor experiences a higher level of gravity compared to another actor (anybody seen the movie Interstellar?).
 
Suspect that I consider time; although I've not thought about this very much, as either the past or the present. Rarely consider the future unless it's somehow connected to something that's occurring in the present on a continuum.

Memories of the past, whether it be yesterday or twenty years ago are continually being compared and reinterpreted. Very early memories, before the age of two or so are pictorial with sound, vignettes that don't change. They seem similar to early 'flash' videos of a few minutes. They're fixed in time and unchangeable.

Interestingly enough, my memory is related to touch, sound, texture and scent. I can recall something I put away in a box in storage forty years ago. If I had some kind of contact with it, if I touched it for example or read it or used it for some reason. I can remember it, where it is, what it looked like, and somehow remember its texture, shape or colour or it's function.

My long term memory is related to objects, not people. Things that I have used and touched. A long cotton skirt the colour of indigo, a stone polar bear, a metal charm that my father carried (that may have been a stim object), a basket of apples on the back porch of the family home. All come to mind on a regular basis, when I consider the past.

When I think of people, I recall conversations, statements, perceptions. Not their physical presence.
 
I have a chronic short term memory and so, the longer the event goes past, the easier I remember the event. Also, someone can say just one word and suddenly, I remember the whole thing.

I also doubt my memory, because it is so long; it is like a vague sense of knowledge but not sure if it is accurate enough and then something happens and immediately I have that sense of: I have read this before, but in fact, it is my memory.

I have a partial photograpic memory.

My husband is always saying to stop putting emotion in to the memory, but I am unable to stop, because it is like I am right there,, feeling it all.
 
My memory is almost entirely composed of 'video'. It plays like a DVR recording. To recall a person or something that was said or done, I have to sort through the video cabinet, play the associated films, and pick out the relevant information. Unlike Mia, I don't seem to center on objects, but on events. The interesting thing is that I can 'edit' the past and 'create' an alternate scenario for entertainment purposes. I suppose I could replace the actual past with my own version of things, but that would come at the expense of truth. Knowledge, experience, and love are the things we take with us from this world, and I feel blessed to have this kind of memory ability. It greatly contributes to spiritual development. I need to be careful though, lest I forget what year it is!
 
Care to elaborate on this?
This isn't on purpose but another scientific concept comes to mind. Superposition. You may have heard this concept described as Schrodinger's cat. I can be in my head (or memory) seeing pictures of something in the past in vivid recall while also interacting with the world (I'm not withdrawn; although I do get withdrawn at times). So I can experience my past along with my present simultaneously (as a superposition). When I become aware I'm doing that I shift my focus to the present or the past but not both at once.
 
My memory is almost entirely composed of 'video'. It plays like a DVR recording. To recall a person or something that was said or done, I have to sort through the video cabinet, play the associated films, and pick out the relevant information. Unlike Mia, I don't seem to center on objects, but on events. The interesting thing is that I can 'edit' the past and 'create' an alternate scenario for entertainment purposes. I suppose I could replace the actual past with my own version of things, but that would come at the expense of truth. Knowledge, experience, and love are the things we take with us from this world, and I feel blessed to have this kind of memory ability. It greatly contributes to spiritual development. I need to be careful though, lest I forget what year it is!
I get more than pictures also. Like a DVD library. Although it is fairly rare for me. It usually only happens when it's a very important (negative or positive) event. I have to focus on these for a while in order for them to become ingrained (for the video quality to improve). But once it's there it's there forever. I'm to the point now where (sometimes) I can tell when I'm experiencing an event that I will have video-like recall of.
 
Care to elaborate on this?
I experience the present. My memories are constructed in such a way that I can re-experience them in the present. There is no delineation of time when I'm recalling my past. I'm experiencing my past from a fifth-dimensional perspective.
 
I experience the present. My memories are constructed in such a way that I can re-experience them in the present. There is no delineation of time when I'm recalling my past. I'm experiencing my past from a fifth-dimensional perspective.
The part I was questioning is how you would know that you as an autie could experience something as cut and dried as to be able to state how another neurotype did? In other words,can you prove it?
 
No I cannot prove that. All I could say concretely is that this is my perception. I guess my intuition tells me NT do not think this way. However I've read (I forget the exact percentage) a portion of the population as a whole has some sort of photographic memory. That type of memory not limited to someone who is Aspie. It seems perfectly reasonable that a NT who's memory is structured in a similar way to mine would have the same altered sense of time.
 
When I recall memories, I can picture it clearly, smell the smells, hear the sounds, feel things that were there to be felt... Its like being right there... I just thought that was what everyone did? That's how memory works, isn't it?
 
When I recall memories, I can picture it clearly, smell the smells, hear the sounds, feel things that were there to be felt... Its like being right there... I just thought that was what everyone did? That's how memory works, isn't it?
I used to think this way to until until I read "thinking in pictures" by Temple Grandin. When she was in grad school she started asking her colleagues about how they thought/how their thought process works and she found that her way of thinking was profoundly different than how most NT's operate. That was the seed planted in my head and why I am curious as to exactly what is different about my thought process.
 
I used to think this way to until until I read "thinking in pictures" by Temple Grandin. When she was in grad school she started asking her colleagues about how they thought/how their thought process works and she found that her way of thinking was profoundly different than how most NT's operate. That was the seed planted in my head and why I am curious as to exactly what is different about my thought process.

Hmmm, I'm going to do a bit of reading this evening now :)
 
I also have good long term memory and bad short term memory. However, at 70, my short term memory seems to be getting worse. I think that in the very near future, I may get to meet new people and go new places every day.
 
This isn't on purpose but another scientific concept comes to mind. Superposition. You may have heard this concept described as Schrodinger's cat. I can be in my head (or memory) seeing pictures of something in the past in vivid recall while also interacting with the world (I'm not withdrawn; although I do get withdrawn at times). So I can experience my past along with my present simultaneously (as a superposition). When I become aware I'm doing that I shift my focus to the present or the past but not both at once.


This is a very interesting idea, Cory... I initially checked out your posts because of your use of words like relativistic and superposition... I'm very interested in Quantum Physics, but I also have also been looking into a new kind of understanding about the differences between the NT and Aspie minds, and this has thrown up some interesting ideas about implicit (unconsciously learned) and explicit or 'declarative' (consciously learned) memory: How they are formed and how they are accessed. The idea is that in NTs, implicit memory is recorded and accessed without effort, allowing NTs to engage in social interactions that seamlessly draw on this implicit memory (often anchored by the emotions associated with the event/person). Because of "mind-blindness" (the inability of Aspies to 'read' peoples' minds/know what they are thinking), implicit memory is ess helpful, and not our first port of call. We tend to stay firmly rooted in the present in our interactions, and our forrays into longterm memory tend to hook more explicit or 'declarative' memories. This, together with our detail-oriented/systemising tendencies (borne out of what is derisively known as 'weak theory of mind') means that we can pull up fully-formed, highly detailed memories, but that they may not be coherent, chronologically or in some other sense... (For me, I get mixed up with things I have seen on TV, in films, or heard other people describe in detail, as wells a chronologically - but they are always highly detailed and very plausible 'memories', but have no 'emotional anchor')...
 
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This is a very interesting idea, Cory... I initially checked out your posts because of your use of words like relativistic and superposition... I'm very interested in Quantum Physics, but I also have also been looking into a new kind of understanding about the differences between the NT and Aspie minds, and this has thrown up some interesting ideas about implicit (unconsciously learned) and explicit or 'declarative' (consciously learned) memory: How they are formed and how they are accessed. The idea is that in NTs, implicit memory is recorded and accessed without effort, allowing NTs to engage in social interations that seamlessly draw on this implicit memory (often anchored by the emotions associated with the event/person). Because of "mind-bindness" (the inability of Aspies to 'read' peoples' minds/know what they are thinking), implicit memory is ess helpful, and not our first port of call. We tend to stay firmly rooted in the present in our interactions, and our forrays into longterm memory tend to hook more explicit or 'declarative' memories. This, together with our detail-oriented/systemising tendencies (borne out of what is derisively known as 'weak theory of mind') means that we can pull up fully-formed, highly detailed memories, but that they may not be coherent, chronologically or in some other sense... (For me, I get mixed up with things I have seen on TV, in films, or heard other people describe in detail, as wells a chronologically - but they are always highly detailed and very plausible 'memories', but have no 'emotional anchor')...
You're bringing up some intriguing topics. I think whenever I've been in an interpersonal situation where I missed something big I repeat it and analyze it in my mind in order to understand what I missed and why. My TOM is more declarative than implicit. Because it's a learned skill I believe I have gotten better at it over time. i.e. (two often shared aspie deficits that I've read about) I used to find it very hard to tell the difference between when a girl was flirting with me or just talking to me. Also I would say things when I meant no offense but upon reflection I could tell were really really offensive. I still do these things but I think I have learned a lot based on past experience and can apply that knowledge. I never really thought that NT "normal" TOM was a reflexive, but that makes perfect sense. I don't know how verifiable the study was but I read somewhere that aspie mirror neurons don't operate in the same way as a NT. Normally, if a NT saw an emotion or situation someone was having their mirror neurons activate and they will 'feel' that same perceived emotion(s). Aspie mirror neurons activate at a much lower level. That seems like something that could impair TOM.
I like hearing this Richard Feynman talk about physics. He did about an hour interview that survived and is on youtube if you haven't seen it.
 

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