How do you visualize time?

[funxus]

Usually I don't think about this, but when I do I realize that time always has a direction in my mind. (This doesn't have anyting to do with physics.) The direction varies depending on how long the time is that I'm thinking of. Example:

Weekdays always go from right to left. Tomorrow is always to the left of today. It's the same with months over a year, or the weeks over a year. Spring is to the right of winter, week 5 is to the right of week 6 (Counting weeks is common here).

However, when I'm thinking of years, imagining the years in the 20th century, the years since the beginning of time or just this decade, time flows from left to right.

Is this odd? Is it odd even thinking about this? How do you visualize time? Is it in any direction? If so, always the same?

 

[WillJ]

With any sort of thing progressing continuously (including time), I always instinctively visualize it left to right. Like when I make a timeline, it's left to right. It's probably because I've been taught to read left to right.

Originally posted by funxus
Is this odd?

Do you read right to left? And do timelines that you see run from left to right? If both are true, then it makes perfect sense. If not, I have no idea. Maybe you're just wacko.

 

[GotD?]

I visualize things from left to right. I cant think of anything that I visualize from right to left.

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by WillJ
Do you read right to left? And do timelines that you see run from left to right? If both are true, then it makes perfect sense. If not, I have no idea. Maybe you're just wacko.

Well, I don't, and that's why I think it's weird

I hope I'm not totally alone on this...

 

[Kinniken]

I visualise most "flowing" things from left to right, but for long chronogies, I view them more like from bottom-behind to top-in front.
And I visualise seasons as a circle with winter at the bottom and summer at the top. Kinda like a clock.
And lastly, I visualise the execution of computer code from top to bottom, probably because that's how it appear in a text document. If I was asked to draw a graph of what happens at what time in a program, it would definitly start from the top.

 

[CivCube]

This is very interesting. I've been always wondering how other people thought of time.

In terms of weeks, I go by the calendar, as in tomorrow is always to the right of today.

For some reason I always picture the year in my family's first house's kitchen. January begins right by the dining room, and December goes right by the back door. In the meantime, it's morning around spring, afternoon by August, and night by December.

In terms of history I have kind of a weird way of visualizing it. Earlier time is, like stated above, to the back, while now is always in the front. However, the timeline zigzags, like so:

 

[Perfection]

I use time to visualise time, I also occasionally use a spacial coordinate to do so, but then it's hard to display all three spacial dimensions

 

[Håkan Eriksson]

I just visualizetime as going from left to right.


With one exception... the time left in my life, 70 years or so, I pivture as a hourglass. With the sand constantly leaking down throu it.

 

[Cimbri]

I cannot possibly answer that… But the question conjured up some very psychedelic images in my mind…

Cimbri