ABSTRACT
Time, including its experience, definition, and measurement, has interested the human species for centuries. Shadow clocks, sundials, sandglasses, and water clocks represent but a few of the ancient timekeeping devices ingeniously created by our early counterparts. Prisoners, hostages, and others held in dark, windowless dwellings for long periods frequently develop a disrupted and disjointed sense of time perception, robbed of the cues and time measurement strategies available to the rest of us. Becoming agitated, confused, and depressed in this state of time disorientation, many devise makeshift time-tracking systems, cutting marks into their bedposts or belts fashioning a type of time tabulation calendar. The extent to which this time scheme actually reflects the “real” time experienced in the outside world seems less important than the degree to which it provides a framework of consistency, regularity, and predictability for the disoriented individual. We, as human organisms—at least here in Western culture—seem to be uniquely motivated to anchor ourselves in, and orient ourselves in relation to, time.
