The Strange Progress of Time

Hello. Slight smile

Normally, I don't see any particular significance in dreams - so often, these just seem like a mix-up of different elements of a day's incidents. A while back, though, I had a dream that featured my late father *as if, in quite a matter-of-fact way, he were still alive*. Now, I'm wary of thinking that was merely consolation on my part and, besides, dreams are frequently nonsensical in nature and content; but this incredible feeling nagged away at me that my Dad was still living. And this feeling wasn't encouraged by anything especially emotional or important in that dream - if anything, it actually felt like I was foolish to believe that death might be the end...

This was a really strange, uncanny experience: to 'know' that my father had not really passed on, and to feel like a fool for believing the seemingly definite fact that he has passed on.

I've read that autists have issues with time, in various ways...but could this actually be an aspect of ASD that is, again, wrongly portrayed as a failing on our collective part in contrast to neurotypicals' 'success' in understanding the supposedly-linear flow of time? Is their understanding of time wrong, and the actual truth far more multi-dimensional than appearances might suggest?

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  • Great post, Caelus. Slight smile

    As examples of the struggles I have in comprehending the 'normal' passage of time:

    * I once watched a trailer, posted on a forum, for the film called 'Tenet'. I could not see anything especially unusual about the action depicted in the trailer, while others members raved about the action. So I asked them what they were excited about, and was told that time was portrayed as moving backwards or forwards or both; I hadn't noticed this at all, and everything looked normal to me.

    * Another film, this time an excellent Australian movie titled 'Lake Mungo'. In one part of the film, the featured family appeared to be driving in reverse (or was it just me and my misperception?). Just about everywhere I looked, regarding reviews, it was stated that the film was about grief/bereavement; to me, it appeared to be about time and our misunderstanding of time. Although I'm prone to seeking deeper meaning in things when perhaps none actually exists or is meant by the creator(s), that backwards journey seemed incredibly significant. Of course, I could well be completely wrong about that.