Spanish athlete Beatriz Flamini thought she had only stayed in the cave for 160-170 days. Almost half a year ago, she agreed to participate in a study attempting to understand the effects of isolation in humans, and her estimate meant that she still had over 300 days to go. Only it wasn't half a year ago. When the support team came to retrieve her, she was surprised to hear that her time was up. She had already spent over 500 days. On April 14, 2023, Flamini finally went out of the cave with a smile (although her mind was still stuck on November 21, 2021). Imagine enduring a year and a half inside a cave with almost no contact with the outside world.
Flamini explains that she quickly lost her sense of time during her stay in the cave. But how could one lose sense of time?
We keep track of time using environmental and social cues like the rising and setting of the sun and our daily routine like work. Flamini lost these cues during her time in the cave alone, and she may have relied more on her psychological processes, specifically her memory.
As it turns out, the memories we create during certain events become our reference in tracking time. The more memories created during an event, the more we perceive said event to have lasted longer. We perceive busy days as longer compared to days when nothing significant happens.
Because Flamini had no social interaction and no schedule to follow except her own, Flamini was free to do whatever she wanted anytime. This situation may have made the passing of time irrelevant.
But we can only let go of our sense of time when we believe we have control over our own time and behavior. Prisoners who serve sentences, for example, report becoming obsessed with monitoring time.
Flamini's 500 days inside the cave provide many insights into how we perceive time. The full story is told over at ScienceAlert.
(Image Credit: Jorge Guerrero/ AFP)