Timeless Minds: The Clock Time And The Narrative Time Of Us

As a result, events from the past five years may feel temporally equivalent, whether 30 or 60, because they have been compressed into fewer and more significant mental bookmarks.

This compression also causes the early years, rich with novelty and “firsts,” to feel longer, while later years, often filled with repetition, seem much shorter.

Memory is not a vault of static data but a constructive process where imagination plays a crucial role. As we recall an experience, our brains reconstruct rather than replay it, combining factual memory with creative elements to form what neuroscientists call “episodic simulation”. This intertwining of memory and imagination blurs the line between past and present, especially for more recent memories that are fresher and, thus, more vivid.

This mental simulation also impacts our subjective sense of age. Since our self-image is heavily based on our recent episodic memories—compressed similarly across decades—we experience a continuity of self. Our brain’s need for narrative coherence leads us to maintain a unified and stable self-perception over time, regardless of age.

So when people say, “I still feel like I’m in my twenties,” it’s less about vanity and more about how our memory system maintains a sense of psychological constancy.

Time perception isn’t just about clocks and calendars—it’s deeply psychological. As we age, fewer events stand out as novel or emotionally intense, resulting in fewer unique memory traces being formed. Consequently, the brain compresses large spans of similar experiences into gist-like recollections, which accelerates the passage of time.

Young children, in contrast, perceive time as expansive. Their brains absorb new patterns, social interactions, and sensory experiences. Adults, particularly those caught in routines, create fewer “first-time” memories. This diminishes the cognitive landmarks used to signify the passage of time, leading to the feeling that years fly by.

However, even older adults can “slow time down” by actively engaging in novel activities, traveling, or learning new skills. These activities create richer mental timestamps that expand the perceived duration of life phases.

”I don’t feel my age” lies not in denial but in neurobiology. Our brain, designed to compress, abstract, and reconstruct our experiences, treats recent memories similarly across ages. This creates an illusion of temporal uniformity, where five years feels like five years, whether we’re fresh out of college or nearing retirement. While time marches objectively, our internal narrative—crafted by selective memory and episodic compression—follows its own rules.