How Do You "See" Time? Or Do You?

time-space synesthesia and the origins of my Spiral Time metaphors

I’ve had enduring images of time in my mind’s eye since I was a child, but I had no idea that these ways of “seeing” time, called time-space synesthesia, are relatively rare, affecting about 10-15% of the population. Apparently it’s not as rare as other types of synesthesia, which is the phenomenon of experiencing more than one sense simultaneously, like “seeing” music as well as hearing it, or having strong color associations with certain words, numbers, letters, or concepts. For example, when my daughter, who is a synesthete, was in middle school, they gave her class color-coded folders for each of their subjects in an effort to help the kids get organized. It was endlessly frustrating for my daughter, who is naturally organized and didn’t really need the color-coded folders, because they had assigned the “wrong” colors for the various subjects. “Math isn’t red, mom. It’s blue! How could they not know that??”

The thing about synesthesia, and so many other neurodivergent traits, is that we often don’t realize until much later in life that the way we experience the world diverges from that of most other people. We have the sense that everyone is like us, and we wonder why things seem so much easier for them. I think this is part of the relief many of us feel when we do get a diagnosis, or begin to self-identify with other people who diverge from the norms in similar ways—we start to realize that no, most people don’t experience the the world this way, and yet we are not alone.

It didn’t occur to me until pretty recently that the way I “see” time is at all unusual, or that it was a form of synesthesia at all. And I don’t think it’s necessarily disabling (I don’t think? I’d be curious to know if other time-space synesthetes feel differently), but I do think the way I experience time as a neurodivergent person is quite disabling in a Western, industrialized society where conformity to a very specific idea of time is demanded of us all. As many of you know, in the past few years I have developed and offered a number of metaphors for time that can serve as an alternatives to the linear, commodified notions of time that the West has forcefully exported throughout the world. I am coming to understand that my time-space synesthesia is at the heart of these metaphors I have collectively called Spiral Time (or sometimes neuroemergent time).

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In my last essay, Freak, I wrote about how spirals and ellipses began to emerge for me through visual art during a period where words seemed to abandon me. It was in the aftermath of that wild and generative period that these resonant metaphors for time began to emerge. It was only later that I began to realize they not only had always been with me, but also that they are ancient and recurring motifs for time that span many indigenous cultures, in sharp contrast to Western, imperialist notions of time.

For example, in his essay “A rainbow serpent theory of time” in Garland Magazine, Tyson Yunkaporta writes:

First Peoples and Second Peoples seem to have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of reality and the basic laws of existence. It all comes back to notions of time, and the existential acrobatics required for Second Peoples to make time run in a straight line, to create a beginning, middle and end of things. First Peoples’ law says that nothing is created or destroyed because of the infinite and regenerative connections between systems. Therefore time is non-linear and regenerates creation in endless cycles. Second People’s law says that systems must be isolated and exist in a vacuum of individual creation, beginning in complexity but simplifying and breaking down until they meet their end. Therefore time is linear, because all things must have a beginning, middle and end.

In my mind’s eye, time is not at all linear, but rather a lopsided oval. I’ve tried to draw it, but to really reproduce it in visual art, I think I would have to make a three dimensional representation. But here is a very rough approximation:

this is a really rough approximation of what I “see” when I think about a year

This image represents one year, and in it, I have a perspective, where I am viewing the year from the lower left hand corner, in the spring, and looking across the oval toward autumn, and specifically September (perhaps because that is my birth month). This is my perspective always, regardless of what season we are in at the moment. Down in the corner where I “am” are the spring months (in the Northern Hemisphere, at least) of March, April and May. I thought about trying to clean up that part of the drawing to make them easier for you to read, but this is actually how I see them, all scrunched up together and hard to distinguish.

For example, if you ask me what months come before and after August, it’s right on the tip of my tongue that they are July and September, because I can “see” that clearly. But if you ask me what month comes after February, or before May, I have to say the months to myself in order, sort of like singing the alphabet song. I can’t just “see” it, so I can’t immediately tell you that April comes after March. Another oddity is that the cycle of the year, in my mind’s eye, runs counter clockwise.

My image of time does not line up exactly to the metaphors I have shared for time—time as a spiral, time as an elliptical orbit, etc. But it seems clear to me that these images and their associations with time have been inside me for a very long time, and similar images have been in the world and in the human consciousness for much much longer. They are not new metaphors, but they have been so eclipsed by Western, colonial images for time as a straight line that for many of us, our natural inclinations to “see” time differently have been shamed out of us.

Metaphors matter, and relearning, reclaiming, and reimagining metaphors for time that are more gentle and more generous than those imposed by Western “civilization” are all part of reclaiming and accommodating our Selves and each other, and rebuilding a world where we can have satisfying, meaningful lives on our own terms.

Are you a synesthete? I’d love to hear about it. And if you experience time-space synesthesia, I’d love to know how you “see” time!

Leave me a comment please! I love hearing from you.

PS, if you are a new paid subscriber and you have sent me your mailing address in the expectation of receiving a home-made, hand-written post card from me—I haven’t forgotten! I’m just way behind, as all my art supplies have been stowed away in the far reaches of my basement while I have been working on my big house project. I will be getting to those soon(ish), but never fear, a snail mail postcard will arrive shortly(ish) ;-)