快猫短视频

FROM THE MOMENT the alarm clock goes off in the morning, our lives are governed by time. Anyone yearning to escape the daily grind might start to wonder: what would happen if you ditched your watch and tried to live without time altogether?

Our bodies evolved to be in sync with the spinning of Earth on its axis, and this intimate connection is vital for our health. Daylight hits specialised cells on the retinas in our eyes that send signals about the time of day to a master clock in the brain (see 鈥淗ow do we sense time?鈥�). This, in turn, regulates the multitude of clocks ticking in cells and organs throughout the body, keeping us working as a coordinated whole.

With access to artificial light, many of us are staying awake when our brains and bodies are expecting sleep, throwing the body into uncoordinated chaos. For evidence on why this is bad news, look no further than night shift workers. This type of working pattern is so bad for our health that in the past few years has classified night shift work as 鈥減robably carcinogenic鈥�. It is also linked to , heart disease, stroke, sleep problems and depression. in this group, too. Ditching your watch would probably be good for your health, and maybe even your relationship, as long as you also did away with artificial lighting and followed nature鈥檚 clock of day and night.

But to truly experience a life without time, you鈥檇 want to do away with sunlight altogether. In 1962, French geologist Michel Siffre did just that, spending 63 days in a deep cave, cut off from all light except his torch. His escapade revealed that the body has its own clock that will shift if not kept in check by exposure to both light and dark. In a follow-up experiment, Siffre extended his cave time to an epic six months, during which his circadian rhythm stretched to 48 hours, his sense of time passing slowed and he also became depressed, much like those shift workers.

These experiments were just the start. Today, specialised sleep labs can create an alternative to the cave life that is more comfortable, but just as removed from the real world. The floor is raised to insulate from noise, there are no windows or clocks and staff must be careful not to mention the time of day or wear clothes that could give anything away. Researchers must arrive clean shaven so as not to reveal the passage of time.

Without these time cues, artificial lighting and rigged clocks can be used to manipulate people鈥檚 sense of time passing, and in doing so answer all sorts of questions. Among some of the most pressing are what happens to our mental health when our body clocks get out of sync, as well as looking at how the many clocks across the body might respond better to things like food or drugs at different times of the day.

Another benefit of timelessness, as Siffre reported in his caves, is an intense feeling of being in the present. This is something Marc Wittmann at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany, has been exploring too, and so can you 鈥� no cave needed. Just book into a flotation tank.

The brain is effectively a prediction machine, making sense of what has just happened to anticipate what comes next. Without sensory inputs from the world around us, whether in a cave or a tank, this system breaks down. Without time, it seems, we may quite literally lose ourselves in the moment. 鈥淚nitially, you have a very strong awareness of the body and time passes very slowly,鈥� says Wittmann. 鈥淏ut then, at some point, you get into this altered state of consciousness and then you lose your sense of self.鈥� Such an experience might be a fun distraction from the tyranny of the clock, but being able to track time helps bring people together too. So we should probably be wary of throwing away our watches for good.