Awareness of the passage of time and self-consciousness: What do meditators report?

People often describe time as passing quickly or slowly. This article examines how judgments of time passage relate to judgments of physical durations, including during meditation when consciousness is altered. The authors distinguish between the "self-time perspective," "self-duration" (internal duration), and "world-duration" (external duration). They link self-time perspective to the narrative self and self-duration to the minimal self, a connection supported by qualitative analysis of testimonials from four meditators. Awareness of self-duration is tied to awareness of the embodied self; when bodily consciousness decreases, the subjective experience of internal time changes. The mechanisms by which the sense of self disappears and one feels outside time during meditation remain unclear.

Study at a glance

Abstract

What do humans mean when they say that time passes quickly or slowly? In this article, we try to respond to this question on the basis of our studies on the judgment of the passage of time and its links with the judgment of physical durations. The awareness of the passage of time when consciousness is altered by meditation is also discussed. A dissociation is then made among the "self-time perspective," the "self-duration" (internal duration), and the "world-duration" (external duration). A link is also established between the self-time perspective and the "narrative self," on one hand, and the self-duration and the "minimal self," on the other hand, that is confirmed in our qualitative analysis of testimonials of four meditators. The awareness of self-duration is thus related to the awareness of the embodied self. When the sense of self is altered and the consciousness of the body is lower, then the subjective experience of internal time changes. However, the mechanisms allowing the disappearance of the self with the feeling of being outside time during meditation remains to be elucidated.