The Psycho/Bio/Neurological Bases of Subjective Time Flow

Time is one of the things that people face for a long time throughout their lives. Time has continued to mark itself from the time the concept was first created until today. Subjective time that flow while living daily life has a different speed, and it affects other psychological functions. However, to best of our knowledge, it is little known about psycho/bio/neurological bases that contributed to of one’s subjective time. Considering the psycho/bio/neurological mechanisms of subjective time flow, we hypothesize that the interaction of fantasy and metacognition, and these bio/neurological components. Fantasy makes time flow faster, and metacognition makes time flow slower are suggested. Looking at the hypothesis of biological and neurological mechanism of these processes, the relationship between opioid, oxytocin, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis), and cortisol are important. This biological and neurological mechanism causes differences in flow of subjective time. Then, I explain the psychological, biological and neurological variability in individual with Alzheimer’s dementia who has abnormality in subjective time flow. As suggests, when abused child grows up, he/her may immerse himself/herself in a fantasic world to avoid recalling aversive memories. They may speed up subjective time in order to forget (avoidance) aversive memories. Neverthless, there are limits to the accompanying biological and neurological changes. When that limit is exceeded, their subjective time becomes very slow, and eventually time will stop.