I have no idea why people say that time speeds up as you age. Maybe they need to read more books to fill their lives with intense emotional and intellectual experiences if they have that problem.
I’m completely shocked that a year ago was just one year ago. It feels enormously longer.
Clarissa's Blog 
Perceived time is influenced on how much you’re changing in that period of time, and many people ossify after the first bloom of their youth.
A year ago also feels to me like another life, tbh – which is a bit strange since I can’t quite pinpoint at anything that changed.
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“completely shocked that a year ago was just one year ago”
I get both, my trip to Malta last December seems like at least a year ago (as does most of January). The break between semesters (from Feb 04 till today) seems like a couple of months at least.
On the other hand, I’m constantly thinking of something that happened that I think was maybe a year ago and find it was…. a lot longer ago than that… and the order of some things is all mixed up in my head too.
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The excellent 12-novel series A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell treats experience more or less like that quoted diagram.
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Time perception is extremely interesting to me.
I personally feel that there is several levels to this. On the first hand I do think that Janet’s Law if that is what its called is in fact true, or at least can be considered a good starting point or baseline.
However I think that time perception can also be effected by other stuff. For instance right this moment, over the last two months, time has felt like its running faster, slower, and stretched all at the same time. And yes I do mean faster, slower, and stretched. No I am not joking, it is running both fast and slow simultaneously
Members of the watchman community have noted recently that time seems to be running much faster than normal. The last 6 months of 2025 flew by to the point it was almost like one week into a month and it was done. January and February iof 2026 have been even faster. This is not just my personal observation, but also being observed by about a dozen individuals of various ages scattered across both America and Canada.
Back to my personal observation. Typically for me while a day generally seems to run at a normal rate, weeks and months do not. I frequently find myself viewing events as if they had taken place weeks or months previous, but then being reminded by someone else that said events were actually just a day or three prior. Yet to me up until someone reminded me, these events had long since passed by.
Now all that being said a few weeks ago someone posted about the game Skyrim being having been released 15 years ago. I was in shock. I had played that game when it came out, and if you had asked me before I read the post I would have told you it was only about 5, maybe 7 years old at most.
Now all of this to say, when I ask family members about their perception of time, its wildly different. For some it runs faster, for others slower, it really is quite wild.
And then there are the clocks. I understand now why my Grandfather had clocks in very room of the house, and each clock was set to chime every 30 mins. (Old Wooden Gear Clocks, not modern clocks.)
The reason being time doesn’t act right in certain areas. In the bathroom or shower, or around clocks. Time can be warped. It can stretch out so you have hours in between 30 min sections, or sped up so hours pass in mere minutes.
I suspect that was the reason for all the clocks. Its hard for time to warp if you are constantly being alerted continuously to the passage of time. Well that and the fact that those type clocks were and are awesome.
But yea. Time perception is extremely weird and very interesting to look into.
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If you continue to learn and explore new things, that slows things down. It is one of my dad’s primary reasons for continuing to work, and traveling. He says he gets a year back for every month overseas, not speaking English.
However.
I had the most awful experience recently (or was it?). Obviously in middle age, my time perception was not like at age 5 where 30 minutes was an eternity.
But I was very ill in October. Needn’t go into details. One of the most disturbing bits of fallout from that was: it changed my perception of time dramatically, and almost overnight. The days have been absolutely whizzing by. I am overcome with the conviction that there is so little time left. It became difficult– anxiety-inducing– to think about the future, whether that was next year or tomorrow. Things are, mercifully, slowing down again. Haven’t reached baseline yet. Still some difficulty telling a week ago from two days ago. I cling to the calendar.
It has been a learning experience.
I had not realized that at least part of time perception is physiological. At the same time this happened, my face aged visibly, as though five or ten years had gone by in the few weeks I was ill. Brand new wrinkles under my lower lip, changes in sleep pattern that have not resolved . That was startling. The change in perception was unquestionably a result of illness. I did not know that was a thing.
-ethyl
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I’m so sorry. This sounds terrible. I will be praying for your complete recovery.
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It has been… good for my prayer discipline 😉
Don’t ask for recovery: only whatever God wills.
-ethyl
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