Biology

You are a time machine

Not really, and you would not want to. Your brain never sits in a single instant. It stitches each "now" from a roughly three-second window of just-past and just-coming, and it spends nearly half of waking life somewhere other than the present moment. That time-travelling mind is what lets you plan, speak, and hear music.

Sources & further reading

Science (AAAS)A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy MindA large phone-based study finding the mind is 'elsewhere' about half of waking life, and that this wandering makes people less happy.Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society BThe Cognitive Neuroscience of Constructive Memory: Remembering the Past and Imagining the FutureThe study showing your brain builds memories of the past and images of the future with the very same machinery.MIT PressSweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of ExpectationThe book arguing that the feeling of music is your brain guessing the next note, the same machinery as real-world anticipation.Nature NeuroscienceAnatomically Distinct Dopamine Release During Anticipation and Experience of Peak Emotion to MusicThe brain-imaging study showing the reward chemical spikes in anticipation of a musical peak, before the sound arrives.Trends in Cognitive Sciences (Cell Press)Predictive Processes and the Peculiar Case of MusicThe review casting music as your brain forecasting the next sound and feeling the gap between guess and reality.Henry Holt and CompanyThe Principles of Psychology, Chapter XV: The Perception of TimeThe classic text arguing the 'now' we feel is a short stretch of time, never a single instant.Trends in Cognitive Sciences (Cell Press)A Hierarchical Model of Temporal PerceptionThe finding that the brain stitches events into a roughly three-second window that we experience as the present moment.The New YorkerThe Abyss: Music and AmnesiaThe neurologist Oliver Sacks's account of a musician who lives in a seven-second present yet can still play and still loves his wife.Doubleday / TransworldForever Today: A Memoir of Love and AmnesiaThe wife's memoir of living with Clive Wearing's seven-second memory.Clinical Psychology ReviewMindfulness-Based Therapy: A Comprehensive Meta-AnalysisA review of 209 studies finding mindfulness meaningfully lowers anxiety, depression, and stress.Harper & RowFlow: The Psychology of Optimal ExperienceThe book that named 'flow', the state of total absorption where the self and time fall away.NatureEpisodic-like Memory During Cache Recovery by Scrub JaysThe study showing scrub jays remember what they hid, where, and when, a memory of specific past events.NaturePlanning for the Future by Western Scrub-JaysThe study showing scrub jays store breakfast for tomorrow even when not hungry now, a form of planning ahead.