Experiencing timelessness and the phenomenology of temporal flow
Philosophical Psychology December 19, 2024 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2024.2444508 via OpenAlex
Summary
The investigation focuses on how deep meditative and psychedelic states can alter the experience of time. It argues that these altered experiences serve as contrast cases to ordinary perceptions of time, helping to establish and theorize about the typical feeling of time passing. This exploration aims to clarify the elusive and intangible nature of temporal experience.
Study at a glance
| Key finding | Altered states from deep meditation and psychedelics provide contrast to ordinary experiences of time, supporting the existence of a subjective sense of time passage. |
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Abstract
Our conscious experience seemingly involves the subjective sense or feeling of the passage of time. However, in recent years, several authors have denied that such an aspect or feature of experience can be found. If the experience of the flow of time exists, it remains elusive and intangible. My aim here is to try to pin it down. For this purpose, I will investigate acute disturbances of normal temporal experience that accompany deep meditative and psychedelic states. I will argue that these experiences of altered temporality provide phenomenal contrast cases to ordinary passage phenomenology, allowing us to establish the existence of the latter and making it amenable to theorizing.