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After my mom's stroke she basically lost the concept of time. Apparently it's relatively common. Kids don't get the concept of time until an age, and you can lo

After my mom's stroke she basically lost the concept of time. Apparently it's relatively common. Kids don't get the concept of time until an age, and you can lose it. Amazing how much you need it how things fall apart in this modern life without it. Didn't help that she decided to use a 2017 calendar in 2018, I questioned my sanity as I unraveled the mess. It very much impacted her life. About the only good thing was that she'd just eat at any time we wanted. "I could eat" became the answer always, not that it wasn't before. Woman loved a good scallop and was quick with a fork if you tried to take hers.

ryanSrich 3y ago
How does that work in practice? She can read a clock right? So would she just not remember to look at the clock to see the time? Genuinely curious.
- haswell 3y ago
  My brother is dealing with a TBI, and in a nutshell, it’s exactly that. The reason most of us glance at the clock is because we feel the passage of time and wonder what time it must be now. He doesn’t always feel time passing, and he could go hours before it even occurs to him to look at his phone or a clock. He relies on timers and reminders to keep things on track.
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    I think there is a lot of promising tech to help people out with this stuff. Just having your phone prompt you when you need to do stuff. I saw Google maps (perhaps recently) added a feature where you tell it the time you need to be somewhere and it will notify you when it's time to leave.
    - haswell 3y ago
      He uses his iPhone extensively to do things like this. I recently learned that the native Calendar app can do the same thing for scheduled appointments that have a location specified. Reminders can be set for things like: (can set multiple) "30 minutes before travel time" or "Time to leave", etc. One thing he's struggled with is establishing the habits to set up these kinds of tools. There are often other issues associated with TBI and memory/new habit formation have been a challenge. Needs reminders for the reminders. He's determined to find the right combination of tools/processes so he can create a guide to help other people use their current tools to manage this aspect of their lives. The potential is definitely there.
    - jaggederest 3y ago
      > I saw Google maps (perhaps recently) added a feature where you tell it the time you need to be somewhere and it will notify you when it's time to leave. Has been doing this for me since 2009, a lifesaver in unexpected traffic or construction.
  - huytersd 3y ago
    Seems like forgetting a learned behavior.
  - samus 3y ago
    I wonder whether my work colleague has that issue. Every 20mins there are timers going off on his phone. On the other hand, he is a smoker, and I imagine that the nicotine dependency ought to act as sort of a replacement for that sense. Not a terribly precise one though.
    - henearkr 3y ago
      No I think it's more likely that he is using the Pomodoro method.
      - samus 3y ago
        Given how he often disrespects other people's efforts to stay focused, I doubt it. It might be a crude approximation of it though. And I don't 100% remember what they interval exactly is. Be as that may, I find the Pomodoro method to be a wonderful tool to structure one's time!
  - elcritch 3y ago
    That sounds very familiar. As someone with ADHD when I get hyperfocused I can completely loose track of time. It’s a large part of why many ADHDers struggle with being on time to things. However it can be great for getting into the flow programming.
    - Doxin 3y ago
      > It’s a large part of why many ADHDers struggle with being on time to things. The group of ADHDers that can be on time on the other hand will often accomplish this by spending the time up to an appointment doing nothing but worrying about being on time.
      - lsaferite 3y ago
        I frequently join a meeting 30m+ in advance just so I won't invariable be late when I get hyper-focused on something.
  - JCharante 3y ago
    Now I feel bad. I had an ex who would always lose track of time and I wasn’t understanding enough (being late by several hours and forgetting important things like her first chance at a covid shot, or getting lost while driving and having spent an hour driving around the neighborhood without realizing how long she’d been lost for). Timers make a lot of sense, if you can remember to set them.
    - haswell 3y ago
      I’ve gained a lot of empathy for folks dealing with this as I’ve seen my brother’s struggles up close. I definitely didn’t understand the dynamics before. One of the things we’ve talked about is how otherwise “normal” he seems to most people, and the problems this causes. The symptoms aren’t as obvious as wearing a cast on your broken leg, or having severe speech issues, etc. and as a result, people are more likely to get frustrated or not understand when the symptoms spill over and affect other people (being late, forgetting things, etc).
- otikik 3y ago
  What do you think makes you remember “oh, now I have to look at the clock?
  - ryanSrich 3y ago
    The fact that I wear one on my wrist and glance at it by chance without having to remember. The fact that there’s a clock on every appliance in my house and I look at those without intention to do so. Maybe all of that is subconscious action based on my perception of time. I’m not sure.
    - otikik 3y ago
      Imagine that your watch was jinxed. Every time you looked at it, you would be either either too early to prepare for the next thing you need to do, or already too late. That’s an approximation of what the problem is.
- slavik81 3y ago
  You judge the passage of time by remembering the things that have happened since the last time that you checked the time. If you can't remember what you've been doing, then it could have been minutes or it could have been hours since you've last checked.
- grogenaut 3y ago
  She could read clocks... but it didn't make sense to her. 24 hour clocks helped some. Is 10am before or after 2pm? She didn't know. Further, she didn't understand morning and evening, it's either bright out or dark out. It goes even so far as, she didn't really understand the causality of the sun coming up or going down and the east or west. So "the sun is just coming up it's breakfast time" was several levels of causality past her. A bridge game at 11am requires me to wake up at 9, To make people happy she'd just say "ok" when someone said a time. And so many people just didn't understand these limitations, including the scheduling folks at the neurology department who would setup 3-5 meetings well in advanced and then move them constantly.
jen729w 3y ago
Ha! What a lovely way with words you have. That made me laugh. I’ve recently ‘gone solo’ and I decided to experiment with caring a little less about time. The only starkly visible clock in the house is on the oven, so I reset it. But it still tells a time, and I knew I’d eventually figure out the delta, so I covered it with tape. It’s funny how lunch is supposed to be at ~midday, but when you don’t know when midday is, does it really matter when you eat lunch? It’s a really, really hard habit to kick. Gradually I get more to the stage where I eat “when I could eat”, but still. Lunch is at lunchtime. This experiment did make me realise just how much I looked at that clock. Check the time, check the time. To what end? I can’t tell you. That habit does appear to be on the wane.
- adiM 3y ago
  It will be fascinating if there were a way for you to record the actual time when you do eat lunch (without the time being revealed to you; say a Rasberry Pi where you press a switch to record current time but it has no display). I am curious how much our body clock synchronizes with real time. I see that in my kids, who don't yet know how to read time. But they are hungry right at noon and 7pm, and will get cranky if they don't get something to eat within 15 min of that. Do adults retain such strong internal body clocks?
  - m-i-l 3y ago
    > "I am curious how much our body clock synchronizes with real time" Various experiments have been performed with people in caves, where they don't have "time cues" such as natural daylight. From the Michel Siffre wikipedia entry[0]: "He found that without time cues, several people including himself adjusted to a 48-hour rather than a 24-hour cycle ... Several astronauts reported experiences similar to those experienced in underground experiments such as loss of short-term memory to being isolated from external time references." And for Stefania Follini[1]: "her biological clock drifted away from its regular rhythm to following first a 28-hour day, and later on a 48-hour one ... When she finally emerged from the cave at the experiment's end ... she estimated that it was ... only two months from the start of the experiment instead of the four that had actually transpired". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Siffre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Siffre [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefania_Follini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefania_Follini

ryanSrich 3y ago

How does that work in practice? She can read a clock right? So would she just not remember to look at the clock to see the time? Genuinely curious.

haswell 3y ago
My brother is dealing with a TBI, and in a nutshell, it’s exactly that. The reason most of us glance at the clock is because we feel the passage of time and wonder what time it must be now. He doesn’t always feel time passing, and he could go hours before it even occurs to him to look at his phone or a clock. He relies on timers and reminders to keep things on track.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  I think there is a lot of promising tech to help people out with this stuff. Just having your phone prompt you when you need to do stuff. I saw Google maps (perhaps recently) added a feature where you tell it the time you need to be somewhere and it will notify you when it's time to leave.
  - haswell 3y ago
    He uses his iPhone extensively to do things like this. I recently learned that the native Calendar app can do the same thing for scheduled appointments that have a location specified. Reminders can be set for things like: (can set multiple) "30 minutes before travel time" or "Time to leave", etc. One thing he's struggled with is establishing the habits to set up these kinds of tools. There are often other issues associated with TBI and memory/new habit formation have been a challenge. Needs reminders for the reminders. He's determined to find the right combination of tools/processes so he can create a guide to help other people use their current tools to manage this aspect of their lives. The potential is definitely there.
  - jaggederest 3y ago
    > I saw Google maps (perhaps recently) added a feature where you tell it the time you need to be somewhere and it will notify you when it's time to leave. Has been doing this for me since 2009, a lifesaver in unexpected traffic or construction.
- huytersd 3y ago
  Seems like forgetting a learned behavior.
- samus 3y ago
  I wonder whether my work colleague has that issue. Every 20mins there are timers going off on his phone. On the other hand, he is a smoker, and I imagine that the nicotine dependency ought to act as sort of a replacement for that sense. Not a terribly precise one though.
  - henearkr 3y ago
    No I think it's more likely that he is using the Pomodoro method.
    - samus 3y ago
      Given how he often disrespects other people's efforts to stay focused, I doubt it. It might be a crude approximation of it though. And I don't 100% remember what they interval exactly is. Be as that may, I find the Pomodoro method to be a wonderful tool to structure one's time!
- elcritch 3y ago
  That sounds very familiar. As someone with ADHD when I get hyperfocused I can completely loose track of time. It’s a large part of why many ADHDers struggle with being on time to things. However it can be great for getting into the flow programming.
  - Doxin 3y ago
    > It’s a large part of why many ADHDers struggle with being on time to things. The group of ADHDers that can be on time on the other hand will often accomplish this by spending the time up to an appointment doing nothing but worrying about being on time.
    - lsaferite 3y ago
      I frequently join a meeting 30m+ in advance just so I won't invariable be late when I get hyper-focused on something.
- JCharante 3y ago
  Now I feel bad. I had an ex who would always lose track of time and I wasn’t understanding enough (being late by several hours and forgetting important things like her first chance at a covid shot, or getting lost while driving and having spent an hour driving around the neighborhood without realizing how long she’d been lost for). Timers make a lot of sense, if you can remember to set them.
  - haswell 3y ago
    I’ve gained a lot of empathy for folks dealing with this as I’ve seen my brother’s struggles up close. I definitely didn’t understand the dynamics before. One of the things we’ve talked about is how otherwise “normal” he seems to most people, and the problems this causes. The symptoms aren’t as obvious as wearing a cast on your broken leg, or having severe speech issues, etc. and as a result, people are more likely to get frustrated or not understand when the symptoms spill over and affect other people (being late, forgetting things, etc).
otikik 3y ago
What do you think makes you remember “oh, now I have to look at the clock?
- ryanSrich 3y ago
  The fact that I wear one on my wrist and glance at it by chance without having to remember. The fact that there’s a clock on every appliance in my house and I look at those without intention to do so. Maybe all of that is subconscious action based on my perception of time. I’m not sure.
  - otikik 3y ago
    Imagine that your watch was jinxed. Every time you looked at it, you would be either either too early to prepare for the next thing you need to do, or already too late. That’s an approximation of what the problem is.
slavik81 3y ago
You judge the passage of time by remembering the things that have happened since the last time that you checked the time. If you can't remember what you've been doing, then it could have been minutes or it could have been hours since you've last checked.
grogenaut 3y ago
She could read clocks... but it didn't make sense to her. 24 hour clocks helped some. Is 10am before or after 2pm? She didn't know. Further, she didn't understand morning and evening, it's either bright out or dark out. It goes even so far as, she didn't really understand the causality of the sun coming up or going down and the east or west. So "the sun is just coming up it's breakfast time" was several levels of causality past her. A bridge game at 11am requires me to wake up at 9, To make people happy she'd just say "ok" when someone said a time. And so many people just didn't understand these limitations, including the scheduling folks at the neurology department who would setup 3-5 meetings well in advanced and then move them constantly.

jen729w 3y ago

Ha! What a lovely way with words you have. That made me laugh. I’ve recently ‘gone solo’ and I decided to experiment with caring a little less about time. The only starkly visible clock in the house is on the oven, so I reset it. But it still tells a time, and I knew I’d eventually figure out the delta, so I covered it with tape. It’s funny how lunch is supposed to be at ~midday, but when you don’t know when midday is, does it really matter when you eat lunch? It’s a really, really hard habit to kick. Gradually I get more to the stage where I eat “when I could eat”, but still. Lunch is at lunchtime. This experiment did make me realise just how much I looked at that clock. Check the time, check the time. To what end? I can’t tell you. That habit does appear to be on the wane.

adiM 3y ago
It will be fascinating if there were a way for you to record the actual time when you do eat lunch (without the time being revealed to you; say a Rasberry Pi where you press a switch to record current time but it has no display). I am curious how much our body clock synchronizes with real time. I see that in my kids, who don't yet know how to read time. But they are hungry right at noon and 7pm, and will get cranky if they don't get something to eat within 15 min of that. Do adults retain such strong internal body clocks?
- m-i-l 3y ago
  > "I am curious how much our body clock synchronizes with real time" Various experiments have been performed with people in caves, where they don't have "time cues" such as natural daylight. From the Michel Siffre wikipedia entry[0]: "He found that without time cues, several people including himself adjusted to a 48-hour rather than a 24-hour cycle ... Several astronauts reported experiences similar to those experienced in underground experiments such as loss of short-term memory to being isolated from external time references." And for Stefania Follini[1]: "her biological clock drifted away from its regular rhythm to following first a 28-hour day, and later on a 48-hour one ... When she finally emerged from the cave at the experiment's end ... she estimated that it was ... only two months from the start of the experiment instead of the four that had actually transpired". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Siffre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Siffre [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefania_Follini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefania_Follini