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The Atlantic has an article about people with a type of synesthesia which causes them to see time around them.
The English polymath Francis Galton first described calendar forms in 1880, and the phenomenon has been rarely studied since. But Vilayanur Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego who has been studying synesthesia for a long time, has been slowly amassing and studying people with this odd perceptual quirk.
He met one such person, a 25-year-old woman named Emma, a year ago. Her calendar is a hula hoop, which stretches horizontally in front of her and touches her chest at one point—always December 31st, no matter the actual time of year. Emma uses her calendar to organize her life, attaching events to the various months and zooming around the hoop to access them.
The hoop is anchored to her body; it doesn't move if she tilts or rotates her head. "Obviously, this is a construct in her head, not a real hula hoop stuck to her chest," says Ramachandran. But if she turns her head to the right, the left side of the calendar became fuzzier, as it would be if it was an actual physical object. More bizarrely, the memories that she had appended to those months also became indistinct and harder to recall.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @08:28PM
This is an interesting curiosity, but why does this matter? What difference does it make how this specific person visualizes time?
I can see why it's interesting how certain people see numbers as colors (so they can quickly spot specific numbers which makes doing math easier), or can taste sounds (so they can easily tune pianos)... but what difference does it make if a person visualizes time as a hoop (or line, or square, or whatever)?
Is there some practical use or research avenue for this which I'm not seeing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:21AM
Science is the exploration of things new and strange. To be able to use something we first have to have at least a minimal understanding of it.
(Score: 2) by Popeidol on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:54AM
I can't speak for what it's value from a research or medical perspective, but her view of time sounds like it might make a useful calendaring system if augmented reality takes off. Even if it's only available on demand, it'd give a real and visceral feel to how you're planning time that standard calendaring tools don't. I like the idea of being able to glance down and see what's on today, but look up a little and you can see that big holiday you've got planned creeping in slowly from the distance.
I'm sure much smarter people than me hashed that out as a concept long ago but it's the first time I've come across it.