A GEOMETRICAL CHART OF ALTERED TEMPORALITY (AND SPATIALITY)

The paper presents, to our knowledge, a first fairly comprehensive and mathematically well-underpinned classification of the psychopathology of time (and space). After reviewing the most illustrative first-person accounts of “anomalous/peculiar” experiences of time (and, to a lesser degree, space) we introduce and describe in detail their algebraic geometrical model. The model features six qualitatively different types of the internal structure of time dimension and four types of that of space. As for time, the most pronounced are the ordinary “past-present-future,” “present-only” (“eternal/everlasting now”) and “no-present” (time “standing still”) patterns. Concerning space, the most elementary are the ordinary, i.e., “here-and-there,” mode and the “here-only” one (“omnipresence”). We then show what the admissible combinations of temporal and spatial psycho-patterns are and give a rigorous algebraic geometrical classification of them. The predictive power of the model is illustrated by the phenomenon of psychological time-reversal and the experiential difference between time and space. The paper ends with a brief account of some epistemological/ontological questions stemming from the approach.