The Subjective Collapse of Time: How Emotion, Memory, and Meaning Shape Our Temporal Perception

This study explores the phenomenon of subjective time perception over long durations—months and years—through the lens of emotional intensity, memory richness, and perceived personal accomplishment. As individuals age, many report that time seems to "pass faster," a subjective experience that may influence identity, motivation, and even mental health. We propose that time is not simply felt as a constant, but actively reconstructed through meaning, narrative, and emotional weight. Using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, we examine how people perceive their own pasts, how this perception changes with age, and how the brain encodes and retrieves time through psychological and neurological processes