Everyone experiences time differently. I thought I understood that. But it was only recently that I realized just how far my own sense of time deviates from the norm.
For me, the boundary of perceivable time sits at around three minutes. Past and future alike. Four minutes ago and an hour ago feel roughly the same distance away. Five minutes from now and tomorrow feel equally far. In either direction, the moment something crosses the three-minute threshold, its edges dissolve. But within three minutes, time suddenly becomes tangible — visible, felt, still here, or almost here. Between four minutes and three, there is a perceptual cliff.
This is probably connected to short-term memory, working memory, something along those lines. But putting a number on it changes things. Only the inside of that three-minute window feels vividly real; everything beyond it fades to the same flat distance. Once I saw that structure, the way I relate to time started to make a lot more sense.
I wish I had known sooner. Understanding how my sense of time is shaped is understanding the shape of my own cognition — not to correct it, but to design around it.