How do YOU see history's timeline in your mind's eye?

[Mexicola]

So I'm driving back to Dorset tonight after the looooooong car trip from Northumberland. The Mrs is getting tired from driving (I can't drive at the moment - injury - so she had to do all 375 miles herself) and so she asks me to talk to her to keep her awake. So I did and (apparently) I totally blew her mind in the space of 10 minutes.

I started by asking her how she 'saw' time/history in her mind's eye. (I'd like to point out that neither of us do drugs and we don't usually indulge in such abstract conversations.)

She didn't really have an answer. Apparently she doesn't really visualise a timeline when she thinks about the past/present/future, whereas I do. When I described MY vision of how the years, centuries, eons have been, are now and will be - I think I freaked her out a bit.

I've always had the same visual interpretation of this for as long as I can remember, but as it was always 'normal' to me, I didn't really give it much thought. It just 'was'. More recently, I came to think that maybe my vision wasn't the same as other people's, but I've never taken the time to compare or discuss with others. Mrs Mexicola has sworn me to secrecy - I think she thinks I can turn this into some kind of Inception-esque novel or something (she's a dreamer bless her!!) but it did get me thinking...

When YOU think about the past, present and future - do you have a visual timeline in your head, or not? If yes, how do the years present themselves to you? Is it a plain linear arrangement? Does it take another shape or form? If so, what? Or is this minds-eye interpretation of dates and time something that is completely alien to you?

For example, if I said to you, think of the years: 2011, 1990, 1973, 1946, 1890, etc, etc - would you simply see the numbers - or do you position these dates relative to one another? If so, how.

I'm curious to know if there's anyone else out there with the same 'arrangement' that I have.

By the way, I'm an X-Large in a straitjacket.

[Guido]

Yeah I have the same! I wish I could draw it but it's too abstract. My visualization of history is a play of mostly horizontal and vertical lines which change direction at certain decades and centuries and millennia. For example, there's a vertical line from 1900 to 2000 and then it turns 90 degrees, YET, when I think of 2000-infinity I see a vertical line too. Maybe I see everything as vertical and the rest is rotated accordingly, although I view 1000-1800 as a horizontal line. 1800 is "special" for me because certain historic things started to happen around that time like German philosophy which is something I often read about. I basically don't have any visualizations of before the year 0 (indoctrination by religion ).

What I personally find more interesting about my perception of history is that since 1940 or so every year has a DISTINCT emotion for me. That's why I'm very good at remembering what year a certain movie came out or what year a certain famous person is born in. I happen to mess up 1967 and 1969 though, they both signify the peak of the hippie era to me (probably because 1967 was the summer of love in San Fransisco and 1969 was the year Woodstock was held). Also, I basically started associating years with certain events in my personal life very strongly since 2005 and I know very well which events happened in which year now. I have a friend who is somewhat the same and we're so year-oriented that when discussing our lives we tend to chop everything into pieces of one year, assign a certain judgment to each year, record an MP3 of us talking, evaluating the year at the end of it, etc.

[sevenELIXIR]

great topic man. I was reading about this in a national geographic. I picture time visually, pretty much how a horizontal time line would look. according to what I read, the western concept of time is based on the gregorian calander and the events of the crucifixion of christ were in a sequence, so everything was based off of that. I'm trying to comprehend other ways of viewing time though, I read that some buddhists and eastern countries view time as cyclical, and that it can fold back in on itself. I'm not sure what that means, but it also said that multiple things can be happening at the same time, like studying, eating, praying (I don't' see how that's any different than what I do). one of the more interesting concepts was of african origin, where they viewed time as "backwards," or, picture time is flowing back from the future and what you are 'receiving' or experiencing now is the present. that probably doesn't make much sense to anyone.... hell it's hard for me to make sense of. if anyone can point me to some better explanations of the concept of time in different cultures, post away! great thread.

[Lens Larque]

A state. You could call a range of activity a year. All the stuff.

[Waterbagel]

yeah, i'm kinda more like a story-board.
everything's happening now, right now.
everything else happened previously, and isn't in the picture now. to think of it, i think of the event itself, not when it was or, more specifically, how long ago it was. it's more of a thought bubble in my head of "what used to be."

[Lens Larque]

yeah, i'm kinda more like a story-board.
everything's happening now, right now.
everything else happened previously, and isn't in the picture now. to think of it, i think of the event itself, not when it was or, more specifically, how long ago it was. it's more of a thought bubble in my head of "what used to be."

The particles are all in different places now.

[Synthestesia]

I'm the opposite of waterbagel. I'm usually not "in" the present. anyway, I almost picture being in a darkly lit cube (or a room) where the front and back go on forever and future dates are dots of light in front of me and past dates are behind me. The farther away the dates, the fainter the light. And time is basically just me moving forward in the room.

[Cryabetes]

I see time as something like an animation cell - layers determine the different events, but everything that's ever happened is happening. Location, for me, is more crucial to differentiation than durance.

[IanRedpoint]

Mine's a relatively straightforward timeline. However I always see it at an angle, so it is moving left to right but with perspective, so that the more distant past appears smaller and less distinct. The future is moving past me, through me and I can't see it because it is behind my back and to the right. I can feel the near future though, sense it's presence behind me.

I also think of possible alternate histories as faint echoes of the "real" timeline, running in parallel, like train tracks. The big decisions and changes in my life are like jumping tracks. The timeline is usually a slightly washed out green colour but it flares up with other colours at different significant points in my life.

[Spenner]

When I visualize it the images slowly go from more polaroid looking to black and white distorted film reels, and then after that I just picture vivid imagery for say, natives back when there was no type of film medium (there were cave paintings though...)

I just seem to picture the major events of the certain decade all in a sort of collage of images.

Cool thing to bring up

[Mexicola]

Wow! Thanks for the replies everyone. I honestly thought I'd 'lose' everyone with this one!!

I'm not giving away my own vision (yet), but there are strong similarites with parts of what Guido and IanRedPoint both said. Albeit with distinct differences too.

Keep them coming - I'm getting properly fascinated by this

[Negamuse]

I don't have an arrangement of years, in my mind - nothing spacial anyway. If I think of a year it's usually a combination of music, a snapshot like a picture from that year and the overall mood I was in that year.

What I DO have a spatial picture of is of the year, which is a very definite lozenge shape (not an oval, kind of like a racetrack with straight sides and curved ends. Christmas is the middle of one of the curved sides, July is in the middle of the other, then the other months fill in around clockwise. The orientation of the year depends where we are in it. In January, December is on the left. If I think of it being June, well, now December is right on the bottom and I'm just getting up to the top on the left side. August, and now December's on the right. I never conciously "flip" it, it just does itself.

[saturdayindex]

I haven't really ever visualized history in a visual or timeline way that you are describing. It's more of a "feeling" with different dimensions such as:

* The evolution of man's consciousness and self-concept
* the development of art and artistic appreciation
* ethics and social perception

I feel ancient history as this sort of fog that is contained in literature and/or memory and yet doesn't actually EXIST exist, provably. I suppose when I think back, I think of ancient history in a somewhat Biblical sense, having been raised quite without any knowledge of history outside of that which was presented to me through Christianity, although I came to pursue self-education of other histories as I grew older.

So HARD history as it is related to world events (as opposed to the dimensions I listed above) to me is divided into Mythos (the blurry portions) and I suppose you could call the opposite Logos (the defined, catalogued and difficult-to-deny portions). All the Biblical stories (and some other historical ones from other religions) are kind of in this mythological dreamworld that inhabits the spacetime before the birth/death of Christ (which is also an illusory event in my mind). So for example the story of Adam and Eve and the Great Flood, I see as mythological, spiritual events (and I do believe these two particular stories are unrestricted to the Bible). And as we move forward in time, closer and closer to the present, the lines become less blurry and events start to coalesce into something more comprehensible. The Aztec civilization, discovery of America, John F Kennedy, etc.

However, lately I also see all of time and history (even all of reality) as only a product of perception. It all exists simultaneously in one infinitely complex equation. Everything is happening at the same time, it's just that we perceive bits and pieces of it with our human minds. We are agents of experience.

[T. Intel]

I don't think I visualize the timeline of history a certain way, but I definitely visualize the calendar in a certain way. I picture January through July on an upper row and August through December on a bottom row. Then there's a strange sort of inexplicable divider that marks the new year, and it begins again. I've been visualizing the months and days this way since childhood. I think it might have to do with a large calendar that I once saw in preschool or kindergarten.

[Infinite E]

fascinating topic mex. I guess, if you pushed me, that I see history as kind of a case of 'the past inside the present' (i'm such a hack)

What I mean by this is everything innately carries within itself the tensions and contradictions inherited from previous states; I'm not a kid any more,but my childhood experiences determine my present state, which determine where i go next. The same is true for material objects, nature, society. You can look on it like the formation of stalagmites; the gradual process of accumulation forms structures, which then determine the course of accumulation, and so on in dialogue.

Kinda like Marx/Hegel's dialectical idea of history, except that implies some kind of post-historical social form. Even if you accept that it won't stop the passage of time. It's a little too human-centric for me.

So in regard to the question of the relation of the present to past years, I see it kind of like a series of russian dolls, but instead of growing outward spatially, comprising more or less stuff, one that grows outward in time, possibilities, combinations.

I get the feeling I've over-complicated this a little, but there you go
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[Vexille]

I see it as every individual has their own line of history knotted up with the people they interact with and influence throughout their lives and after their lives are over.

[saturdayindex]

fascinating topic mex. I guess, if you pushed me, that I see history as kind of a case of 'the past inside the present' (i'm such a hack)

What I mean by this is everything innately carries within itself the tensions and contradictions inherited from previous states; I'm not a kid any more,but my childhood experiences determine my present state, which determine where i go next. The same is true for material objects, nature, society. You can look on it like the formation of stalagmites; the gradual process of accumulation forms structures, which then determine the course of accumulation, and so on in dialogue.

...

So in regard to the question of the relation of the present to past years, I see it kind of like a series of russian dolls, but instead of growing outward spatially, comprising more or less stuff, one that grows outward in time, possibilities, combinations.
[/i]

I like this.

[pointlessdude]

However, lately I also see all of time and history (even all of reality) as only a product of perception. It all exists simultaneously in one infinitely complex equation. Everything is happening at the same time, it's just that we perceive bits and pieces of it with our human minds. We are agents of experience.

I'd give you a hug if I could, but since this is the internet I can only offer a brofist.

This thread overwhelms me.

[Mexicola]

OK, so what I'm learning here is that there is no standard 'hard-wired' view of our place in time. Everyone appears to construct their own, very unique and different, methods for making sense of our 'place'.

Having said this, there are some similarities in places. Common threads and ideas that at least sound like distant cousins of 'my' version.

Feel free to carry on the discussion, but I think I've got what I needed from this, so let me say a geniune THANK YOU for participating. Once I've drawn out my version (and it IS something I believe I can actually draw), I'll share it with you all. Not that it's any more interesting or valid than any of your interpretations, but I do now feel that I should at least offer up my own vision of where I am in relation to everything that's been and everything that will be. Seems fair.

[Enoch]

To help clarify my understanding of time, I'll use other examples people have already mentioned.

For time in relation to numbers of years, I usually think of atmosphere when I think of a specific year, decade, or century. Some are specific, and some have no atmosphere at all. '65 to '75 has me thinking of a time when, while everyone still had their own problems, everyone else had a conscious/subconscious understanding that everyone was also in their own heap of trouble, so this led to the "summer of love." The 80's were a very glitz and glammy time, but on video, everything looks a bit fuzzy. The 90's were the calm clouds after the storm of war, glamor, bright lights, and high fashion. Everyone did their own thing because a variety of things were becoming more accessible. No real trends, and that's moved down into the 00's, because now we really do have a lot of things that are accessible to us, and free too. Of course, now we're kinda distracted.

Waterbagel mentioned the "storyboard." I can relate to this visualization, but it's mainly for music at times. Lets use Since I Left You as an example. For this, the main path is that everything that can move would be moving to the right of a storyboard, while backgrounds would be going to the left, showcasing movement. Throughout many different parts of the album, though, the entire storyboard may zoom in, go up, down, or spiral. It's a very fun record, and I hope to show what this looks like in motion someday.

Another thing I've thought about at times is dreams, but more importantly, chaos. I wanted to visual what chaos looked like at one point, and I eventually got a good visual down through the BoC Poppy Seed remix.



This is a three-dimensional structure. The main "vein" moves to the left from the right, and everything inside it could move in any random direction. Why I associate this with dreams is that in this visualization, any subject could pop up in there. A facial expression, a string of words, the way a human body moves, and many other things. If I follow these subjects within this vein long enough, it would eventually end up like a scene in a dream. I believe dreams are outside of time, or at least they don't work like how time works in the way we're already familiar with.

Saturdayindex mentioned biblical stories being in their own sort of mythological dreamworld, and I agree with this. The Adam and Eve story makes sense in a metaphorical sense, but others think that it really happened. Both of these can be true, and also not, but as long as we're aware of the story itself, how we interpret it can be entirely up to us. The story itself is eternal, but the knowledge and understanding we gain from our own interpretation of it, and from the interpretations of others, is changeable.

But, that's a tad off-topic.