BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like

Subject: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 03:15 PM

For practically all my life I have been aware of and utilized fairly inexplicable but reliable facets of my brain but it is only recently that I have become curious as to how it actually happens.

For instance, the most common feature I have used is my 'inner clock'. I have almost always known what time it is within five minutes or so. When I was a kid, friends and family used me for a watch. It was/is as if there is something ticking away inside of me that I access only when needed.

A recent feature is also of the ticking away variety.

I take a number of daily vitamins but there is one vitamin I take only about every five days (not sure, because I take it only when my 'clock' says it is time.)

I go to the vitamin bottle drawer and tune in to the bottle resting at the back and the knowledge comes back, like "not even close!" or 'two days" or simply, "Yes".

There are other time-keeping activities that my sleeping brain maintains for me.

Does anyone else have this experience? And dares to talk about it? *g*

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: bobad
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 03:39 PM

HERE are some interesting facts about biological clocks and circadian rhythms and how they are linked to the environment by external cues called zeitgebers (throw that word out at your next cocktail party).

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: gnu
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 03:40 PM

I used to be able to do that. And I also used to be able to "time" things without using a timer or alarm whether it be minutes or hours and minutes. I used to be able to wake from a night's sleep at whatever hour I had intended. There is more than one reason it has slipped away from me but I have a digital watch so... whatever.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: gnu
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 03:44 PM

"throw that word out at your next cocktail party"

Depends on the amount of cocktails. >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 03:47 PM

Internal clock? My bladder.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 03:48 PM

My biological clock would be more fun if I had to wind it with my dick.............


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 04:06 PM

"I used to be able to wake from a night's sleep at whatever hour I had intended."

I haven't heard the ring of an alarm clock in years, even when I have had to catch a plane or ferry at 3 or 4 o'clock.

I remember reading years ago that when 'on the road' so to speak, Native Americans didn't empty their bladders before they lay down to rest. I expect there are many tricks to training oneself.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 04:08 PM

Yeah.......like when you piss the bed (or your blanket) it is officially time to get up! Not my kind of training but,uh.............


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 04:18 PM

google circadian rhythm.

Time does run at different rates for different people

Some are on a microsecond sensitivity which is a talent athletes need and others are on turtle frequencies.

A man went to the doc and said that when he drove it felt like he was going 100 miles an hour even when he slowed down to 15 mph.
It turned out he had a tumor in the time measurement area of his brain.

The speeding up of time for older people is just a relative phenomena caused by total time lived relative to recent time.

Programming oneself to wake up at a certain hour is fairly common, especaily on mornings when it doesn't work.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jul 11 - 04:58 PM

I don't think biology has all that much to do with it; after all you're running your body in a spacetime continuum in which the fundamental is perhaps sub-nano-second, so why shouldn't you be entrained to a great accuracy of knowing time? I guess it depends on how one features oneself. That's my two bits' worth.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 01:29 AM

I have had some of those abilities.... but with differences. I 'practiced' being aware of passing time when I was about 13-14, when I wanted to know how much time I had between classes at school. Since then, I can estimate time needed for activites pretty closely... from a few seconds to hours.
I can't say that my internal clock does 5 day patterns like Ebbie, but alarm clocks in the AM? Sure...set it for 5:30, wake up at 5:20.
I amaze my family now & then when on a 2-5 hour car trip, I predict within a couple of minutes when we will get home. I suppose much of this is just reasoned practice, but it's fun.


Ummmm... it also irritates 'some' when I explain why we need to leave at 'X' time in order to be somewhere at 'Y' time, and that they need to allow for stuff like putting on coats, finding their shoes, making one last bathroom stop, getting in the car....and knowing what traffic is like at certain times of the day... etc. I LIKE being places on time..... not everyone agrees.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 01:58 AM

I share, or used to when I worked daily & it mattered, the in-built alarm clock thing: I would usually set an alarm as a failsafe, confident however that I would wake up 5-10 minutes before it was due to go off.

As to the phenomenon of time compressing as one gets older, wow, does it ever! My 48-year marriage to Valerie lasted something like one-hundredth of the time my schooldays plodded on; and the 1 year + 1 month + 5 days I have now been married to Emma have taken about 1½ minutes to pass.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 02:00 AM

Re Bill D's remarks: my father used to say, & I have always agreed, that it is better to be half an hour early than half a minute late; and I share Bill's ability to estimate the time needed to get there in time, allowing for all traffic &c.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 02:42 AM

I too am one of those who arrives early. I am always aware that as soon as someone is five minutes late, the other person has no idea AT ALL of when they will come.

I've probably mentioned it before but I like the saying: No matter how long one lives, the first 20 years will always be the longer half.

It has long bemused me when an eighty-year-old, say, quotes her mother's admonitions. It may have occurred 70 years before it's the guideline for that person's life.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 03:00 AM

OTOH, as I said in a letter I had published in The Times: "The trouble with punctuality is that there is never anybody else there to appreciate it". That is the downside, Ebbie, would you not agree?

♥Michael♥

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 03:11 AM

Over the years I've pretty much come to terms with that. I can go into a space in my head that is fairly peaceful.

Unless the person had insisted upon meeting, intimating an urgency about it. Then when they are late I worry- and can be angry when s/he was late for a stupid reason.

We are complex beings, ain't we.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 03:50 AM

Oh, ah, m'dear ~~ full of complexes, no doubt...

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 08:05 AM

Yes, I too am "terminally prompt" (a term coined by my late beloved). Even when I try to be late for something, knowing that things (or people) won't be on time, even when I deliberately (and painfully) leave late to get to where I'm going, I generally arrive on the dot of the scheduled time.
Like Bill D, I know exactly how much time it will take to get ready, and to get there. It's taken me a lifetime to relax and not get all twisted when things don't go according to schedule (I still do, too often!).

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 10:07 AM

Aw geeziz.......I got it too Double L...............and I still tend to freak out when it happens even though it is something that doesn't matter!


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 10:20 AM

Hey, Spaw, old buddy! It's been suggested to me that it may have something to do with the Force (aka Aspie/autism spectrum) being strong in my family- we're all this way!

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 06:31 PM

Now, the one time I cannot cope with is the amount of time one is supposed to the fashionably late for a general party. If the invitation says 8 PM, there is supposed to be an 'undersanding' that the host will NOT be ready at 8.... those who 'know' seem to arrive anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour or more after 8. I DO recognize that then are 'certain' people who consistently arrive 10-30 minute EARLY, and one does not wish to be the only ones there to interact with them, as there are often other eccentricities coupled with earliness. Would it be impolite to be very specific in the invitation?

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Janie
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 07:14 PM

I rarely entertain these days, but back when I did, I was ready for company at the time I said was ready for c"mpany. If a supper invitation, I usually say something like, 'come at 6:00, and we will sit down to supper at 6:30." When folks are fashionably late, I have a cold or overcooked supper to serve them.   grrrrr.

For non-supper invitations, I expected that many people will arrive late, but I made sure I was ready to receive guests at the appointed time.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 07:19 PM

One thing I have come to recognize is that when *some* people say they will meet you at 6:30, in reality they mean that 6:30 is when they will most likely leave their house. Add another 15 minutes for their arrival.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 08:15 PM

Ah ha. Finally Amos is dead wrong.

Biology has everything to do with time perception.
The differences are locked in ones genes.
I am speaking of biological differences in time perception and not cultural differences.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/01/the_doors_of_time_perception.html

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 11:59 PM

Donnie, do you really think it is genetic? I suppose it could be. Diarrhea is hereditary......it runs in your jeans.......so why not the time clock?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST,999
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 01:00 AM

A person with two clocks will never know what time it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 02:09 AM

Speaking of genes: I am also one of those people on whom wrist watches don't work. First, they register totally incorrect time and then they just stop.

I still have the first watch I was ever given, at age 16 or 17 by my boyfriend- I could never wear it, there was no point in it.

Wonder if the inner clock and the no-watch thing are related??

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST,keith A of hertford
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 03:01 AM

Bobad's link did not mention the influence of the moon.
Some experiments have found that people deprived of daylight settle into a 25 hour cycle of activity, the length of a "day" judged by the moon instead of the sun.
On holiday, we all gradually slip our sleep and waking times, maybe for that reason.

Then there is the 28 day menstrual cycle.
A lunar month.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 03:13 AM

I heard (can't remember where) that the watches failing to work was connected to the amount of static electricity in the body, and that this is also what causes ball-point pens to vomit ink if I have them in a pocket for more than a few minutes. I used to know the time by knowing where public clocks can be found - post offices, newsagents, laundrettes, banks - though not Abbey National (now Santander) for some reason.
Recently I find that the more prominent clocks on large buildings are much less reliable. Many people simply rely on the time on their phone screens. [I have a phone for emergencies, but I can't read the screen without first finding my glasses, and even then it isn't bright enough to read outside in daylight.]

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 03:19 AM

The 28 day cycle is only an average - some women have never had a 28 day cycle in their lives. If it was governed by the moon they would all menstruate at the same time.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST,keith
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 03:30 AM

Right Topsie, it could be just coincidence.
Who knows.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 02:52 PM

Thanks Topsie. Got there before I did. Not only does the cycle differ from woman to woman, it also differs in the same woman at different times in her life. In the absence of males, it can be much longer than 28 days. (Research carried out with nuns, along with work on women synchronising their cycles.) At times of stress the cycle varies as well.

If it were linked to the Moon, it would presumably also be linked to the Moon in our nearest primate relatives, much more outdoors than we are, and it isn't consistently so. 29 days in orangutans - closer to the actual lunar cycle than 28. 30 in gorillas. In view of the sample size, these are not significantly different from us. But in chimps, 35 to 37 days, and bonobos 34 to 36 days. But these are averages, and individuals vary, as in humans. In bonobos, cycles of 17 and 65 days have been observed.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: gnu
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 04:33 PM

"Then there is the 28 day menstrual cycle. A lunar month."

I went with one lass that had a looney monthly cycle. We shacked up together after I graduated Uni and at the end of the third looney cycle, the one where she was smashing dishes for no apparent reason, I recycled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZa3EYWCY3w

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 05:17 PM

Forgot to mention, there is no 28 day lunar month.

There is the synodic month from new to new, 29.53059 days. The anomalistic month, from perigee to perigee, when the Moon is closest to the Earth, is 27.55455 days. The sidereal month, in which the Moon returns to the same point against the stars, is 27.32166 days. The draconic month, in which the Moon returns to the same node where the Moon's orbit crosses the plane of the Earth's orbit, is 27.21222 days. The tropical month, the time for the Moon to return to the same ecliptic longitude, i.e. measured from the equinox, is 27.32158 days. It'll be the synodic month that is thought of as connected with cycles, because it is the one that is visible.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 05:23 PM

Ah, Donuel, no guarantees. The doors to perception are not well defined, whether in the cells or in the soul. Our sense of time, like our sense of space, often stretches and shrinks with the requirements of the viewpoint.

Your link says clearly it is a complex, not a simple, proposition. But I am not talking about the sense of timing, but the sense of time itself. I don't think you need a biological clock to decide effectively to be up at 4:15AM. I do it most days.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 11:39 PM

My father was compulsively early for everything he did. I remember hearing my mother pleading with him not to insist on leaving for church so early because she hated waiting on the steps for someone to come and unlock the doors. I believe that actually happened a few times.

I remember asking him once why he wanted to leave home so early, and he said, "What if we was to have a puncher?" (That's how he pronounced "puncture.") In other words, he believed he should allow enough time to fix a flat tire on the way to church and still get there on time.

To look at it another way, he had a phobia about being late. He was pathologically shy and didn't want to do anything that would attract attention to himself, especially if it might entail disapproval. He seemed oblivious to the fact that always being early would also be noticed and make people think he was rather odd.

Is it any wonder I would have the opposite problem?

I hate being early because I hate the enforced boredom, idleness, and (sometimes) anxiety that I experience while waiting for a meeting to begin. I hate having to kill time by making small talk with people I don't necessarily even like. (I have often had to work with, or for, people I don't like.)

Ah, well, it's all over now. I'm retired! And I don't go to church.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 04:00 AM

My inner thirst tells me when the pub's open.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 10:05 PM

I wonder if being closely tuned in to the natural world might help with knowing the time. We pay attention to the movement of the sun, the changing light, shadows, bird songs, etc. We learn over time how these signs fit with the clock time of the worldly.

And then there is my friend who at 5pm will say - oh I thought it was about 1! He has so little sense of "time" he wandered off the other evening and missed the whole show - OH, did all that happen? I was gone that long?

Guess what? Life goes on even when you are not observing it. Time passes.

Then there was the novel, The Timeless Moment, in which everything that had ever happened was happening now on some "plane" or other. IS there any such thing as time or have humans invented it??

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 11:26 PM

I think it was Art Thieme who said that time was invented so that we don't have to do everything at once.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 01:55 PM

I need two sleep times in 24hrs. I'm up at 5 or 6 am, then need a nap at 2pm for an hour. Then bed at 10pm. When I was teaching, it was dreadful during the afternoon session. I'd be smothering yawns and nearly nodding off. Since retiring I have a lovely nap each day and feel fine. I've been like this all my life, even as a child. It's a shame that our society runs so strictly to time. People are all different, some are owls and some are larks.
What kills me is travel. I've flown far and wide and adore it, but crossing time lines etc makes me quite ill. Luckily I can sleep anywhere, I must have been a dormouse in a past life.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: bobad
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 02:05 PM

Eliza, it sounds like you were meant to live in on of the countries where the siesta is tradition.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 02:40 PM

You're right bobad, and I do love the tropics, especially W. Africa.
People there have the sense to take a siesta during the hot part of the day. I'd love to live there, but of course there are threats to ones health eg malaria and innumerable fevers and tropical diseases. The 'White Man's Grave'. Spain would do, I suppose!

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 04:35 PM

Spain wouldn't do if you like to be in bed at 10 o'clock, that's when they are just thinking about having their evening meal.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: gnu
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 04:41 PM

It's just natural to have a nap after a meal in mid-day. But it doesn't fit the timeclock in many cultures.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 04:43 PM

Of course, the older you get, the faster time seems to go. So, about thirty ago, it suddenly became 2011! Wait a minute, now it's July 20! Oh my God, it's 4:45 p.m.!! AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 05:59 PM

I'd forgotten that topsie, they do go to bed very late in Spain. I'm useless after about 10pm.
Lighter, it's true. Time is now whizzing past, I wonder why that is? Any ideas anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Janie
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 08:42 PM

And they tell him "Take your time. It won't be long now
'Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down."

(Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game)

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 03:53 AM

It always interested me to see the threshing crews and other farm workers in late summer. They would be in the fields as soon as the dew was burned off the grain then come in to dinner at 12:00. They ate a hearty meal and then zoned out for a good hour. Men sleeping all over the place. And then back to the fields for another six hours.

Subject: RE: BS: Inner Clocks, and the Like
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 04:07 AM

From Wiki
The word "menstruation" is etymologically related to "moon". The terms "menstruation" and "menses" are derived from the Latin mensis (month), which in turn relates to the Greek mene (moon) and to the roots of the English words month and moon.[60]

Some authors believe women in traditional societies without nightlighting ovulated with the full moon and menstruated with the new moon,[61] and one author documents the controversial attempts to use the association to improve the Rhythm Method of regulating conception.[62][63]

A few studies in both humans [64] and other animals[65] have found that artificial light at night does influence the menstrual cycle in humans and the estrus cycle in mice (cycles are more regular in the absence of artificial light at night). It has also been suggested that bright light exposure in the morning promotes more regular cycles.[66] One author has suggested that sensitivity of women's cycles to nightlighting is caused by nutritional deficiencies of certain vitamins and minerals.[67]

Animal's menstrual cycles are frequently different from the 29.53 day lunar cycle; the average cycle length in orangutans is the closest to that of humans, 28 days,[68] while the cycle for chimpanzees is 35 days[69] and the cycle for sheep is just 16 days.[70] Some studies show a correlation between the human menstrual cycle and the lunar cycle, while a meta-analysis of studies from 1996 showed no correlation.[71][72][73][74][75][76] Dogon villagers did not have electric lighting and spent most nights outdoors, talking and sleeping; so they were an ideal population for detecting a lunar influence: none, however, was found