Sample characteristics.

During the Covid-19 restrictions, people reported various surprising disruptions in their experience of time, such as time simultaneously passing slower and faster, or feeling unreal. This hints at instances of dissociative time experiences in the general public in times of crisis. We investigate the temporal experience of the pandemic through a corpus-based thematic analysis and a multiple correspondence analysis of 149 subjective reports gathered in March 2021, during a period of long lasting and ongoing restrictions in France and the UK. We argue that three forms of temporal disorientation constitute a fitting umbrella over a heterogeneous phenomenology. The loss of temporal landmarks made it harder to orient oneself and induced episodic forms of temporal disorientation. Distinctively, sustained temporal disbelief, an existential form of temporal disorientation, could occur when people’s past perspective was severely distorted. Finally, a future-oriented form of temporal disorientation whose hallmarks were feelings of anxiety and hopelessness could occur alongside inabilities to project oneself into the future. Our findings suggest that future landmarks should be provided to those most exposed to dissociative temporal experiences during crises.

在新冠疫情管控期间，民众报告称其时间感知出现诸多令人讶异的紊乱表现：例如时间同时呈现出快慢不一的流逝状态，或是产生时间虚幻不实的感受。这一现象暗示，普通公众在危机时期可能存在解离性时间体验（dissociative time experiences）的相关案例。本研究针对2021年3月于法国与英国长期持续封控期间收集的149份主观报告，通过基于语料库的主题分析与多重对应分析（multiple correspondence analysis），探究了疫情背景下的时间感知体验。我们提出，三类时间定向障碍可涵盖异质性的时间现象学表现：其一，时间地标丧失会使个体难以进行自我定向，进而引发情境性时间定向障碍；其二，持续的时间怀疑作为一种存在主义层面的时间定向障碍，可能在个体的过往视角被严重扭曲时出现；其三，以焦虑与绝望感为特征的未来导向型时间定向障碍，往往伴随个体无法对未来进行自我投射的情况。本研究结果表明，针对危机时期最易遭遇解离性时间体验的人群，应为其提供明确的未来时间参照。