There are a couple of threads open currently discussing time, clocks, watches etc.
I don’t wear a watch because I generally know what time it is, within a few minutes anyway. I don’t carry a cell phone, but my car has a clock, so I just guesstimate my way along quite accurately until returning to the car. Of course receipts, and the like, help.
Anyway, I am a light sleeper and never have to set an alarm clock, because somehow I just know when to get up. Sometimes I will set the clock, for important meetings or something, but I will wake up 5 minutes before the alarm goes off, and turn it off before it even starts. If I wake up in the middle of the night I will say to myself, “it’s probably about 4:45 A.M. right now,” look at the clock, and I’m within minutes of the correct time.
My wife, OTOH could sleep in 2 hours easily if the alarm clock doesn’t go off for some reason. I don’t see how she can’t be aware that 2 extra hours have elapsed!
So, who else shares my uncanny ability to be chronologically synchronized?
I’m pretty much like that. Most of the time, I’m accurate to within 15 minutes, though it’s generally better during the day. It’s not a conscious calculation in the sense of having to look at the sun, just an awareness I’d say. I also wake up before the alarm - as long as I set it. I think there’s something about actually visualizing the time for me.
In terms of differential time, I’m even more accurate. I never set oven timers unless I might not be around to stop it. On occasion, I will attempt to do something for, say, exactly five minutes and can often hit it to within 10 seconds. Again, this is without consciously counting it - I’m probably actually worse if actively trying to measure.
If you’re good at ‘absolute’ time, are you also good at measuring time?
During the day I can usually tell the time to within an hour or so. At night less so.
Also, I can count seconds pretty accurately. The train I catch every day has a digital clock on the overhead display. It only shows hour and minute, no seconds, and doesn’t have any flashing dots etc to count off seconds. Sometimes for want of anything better to do, I’ll wait until the minute ticks over, then try and count seconds and hit the next minute. Often I’m right on the 60 seconds as it changes; almost always between 57 and 63.
I have supurb timing when it comes to the microwave oven.
I have to nuke a Hungry Man dinner for six minutes? Ok, toss it in, sit back down in front of the computer, walk back into the kitchen five minutes and 56 seconds later (no clock-watching involved).
All in all, useless – but I still do a little internal “yeah, still got the gift” every time it happens.
Back when my work life was regimented by a 10 minute centrifuge cycle, I could nail that time period +/- 10 seconds. I can still do it, but it is now more “ish” than 10. I’m getting better at timing an hour without a clock or timer, but I still overrun by about 5 -8 minutes, depending on how engrossed I am in something else.
Being an insomniac, I don’t wear a watch, and usually don’t look at the [dreaded] alarm clock. The clock in my vehicle is notorious for showing the wrong time, and I rarely look at my cell phone time. I am usually accurate to the half hour, day or night.
I have no sense of time or the passing of time whatsoever. Five minutes, five hours, 2 days, 2 weeks, yesterday, the other day, not too long ago (it happened at some point in my life before now).
None. To make matters worse, I can’t wear a watch as I have a tendency to kill them – they either run backwards or stop alltogether. A co-worker believes I put out heavy magnetic energy because I killed my cell phone and laptop just by their continual proximity to my body.
Not even remotely.
I only notice that 10 minutes have passed if I happen to be watching the clock at the beginning and end - or if there’s a timer. With no cues from a clock, I have no concept of short periods of time. If I’m outside, I may get “morning,” “midday,” and “night,” or for how much time has passed “hmmmm… I think I’ve been outside for a while.”
I’m also a light sleeper - but if there’s no changes in sound, I’m not going to wake up just because a certain amount of time has gone on. Ten hours, ten minutes - all I know is whether I’m still tired (which tends to mean less time). For even a semi-accurate assesment, I need to check the clock.
I think it partly explains (not excuses, explains) why I’m frequently late. I’ll think “I need to be there at 8 - which means I’ll need to leave here at 7:15. Right now, it’s 6. So, I have an hour-fifteen.” And then I’ll do something else, and the next time I look at the clock, it’s 7:35. Oops. (Yes, I know it’s my responsibility and I should have set a timer. I said explain, not excuse). But I didn’t feel an hour go by - how can you feel an hour?
I don’t tend to wear a watch. Even when I do, I often forget to look at it.
