Marc Wittmann

Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene

Based on the paradigm of previous waiting-time studies (Jokic et al., 2018; Witowska et al., 2020), participants in our study (n = 133) were left alone in an empty room for 7.5 minutes and subsequently asked to report on their perceptions of time and subjective experiences during the waiting period. Participants completed personality questionnaires...

The term “afterglow“ was first used to describe the heightened mood, relaxation, and overall sense of tranquility reported by individuals hours or even days after the use of psychedelics, after their most immediate effects had dissipated. The use of the word “afterglow” was then extended to similar states achieved after other altered-state experien...

In accordance with Bud (A.D.) Craig’s theories, we maintain that ascending physiological signals in their temporal dynamics are a necessary prerequisite for human time judgments. Functional neuroimaging and psychophysiological evidence have increasingly demonstrated that the subjective judgment of time is based on the physical and emotional self. T...

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the conceptual and empirical study of altered states of consciousness (ASCs) induced pharmacologically or otherwise, driven by their potential clinical applications. To draw attention to the rich history of research in this domain, we review prominent classification schemes that have been propos...

Starting with the Stoics’ notion of self-regulation, we discuss philosophical conceptualizations and juxtapose them with empirical evidence from psychology and cognitive neuroscience. We disagree with a strong mainstream account that excludes the possibility of free will. We argue for a meaningful way to speak of free will largely independently of...

Meaning in life and nature connectedness are indicators of a healthy life and correlate with health and well-being. We conducted a validation study of German versions of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (Steger et al. 2006) and Nature Connection Index (Richardson et al. 2019) and assessed mindfulness as a trait and personality (big five personalit...

Recent studies suggest that time estimation relies on bodily rhythms and interoceptive signals. We provide the first direct electrophysiological evidence suggesting an association between the brain's processing of heartbeat signals and duration judgment. We examined heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP) and contingent negative variation (CNV) during an...

Floatation-REST (Reduced Environmental Stimulation Therapy) minimizes stimulation of the nervous system by immersing subjects in an environment without sound or light while they effortlessly float in thermoneutral water supersaturated with Epsom salt. Here we investigated the relationship between altered states of consciousness (ASC) and its associ...

During affective priming, perception of an emotional “prime stimulus” influences the reaction time of the subsequent emotional “target stimulus”. If prime and target have the same valence (congruent trials), reactions to the target are faster than if prime and target have different valences (incongruent trials). Bem introduced a backward priming pa...

The aim of the present study was to test and validate the German version of a new instrument for measuring “wakefulness”, defined as “an expansive, higher-functioning, and stable state of being in which a person’s vision of and relationship to the world are transformed, along with their subjective experience, their sense of identity and their conce...

It has been hypothesized that time estimation relies on bodily rhythms and interoceptive signals, such as heartbeats. Extending previous research demonstrating this connection, we provided further electrophysiological evidence that the brain registers heartbeats while tracking time intervals. We evaluated the heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP) and th...

Objectives: This study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire assessing an ongoing state of wakefulness, a psychological state occurring in secular and spiritual contexts. Wakefulness is an expansive, self-transcendent, relatively stable state of being in which a person's perception of and relationship to the world are transformed. No such q...

Floatation-REST (Reduced Environmental Stimulation Therapy) is a sensory isolation technique where subjects are immersed in an environment without sound or light while they float in thermoneutral water that is supersaturated with Epsom salt. Here we investigated the relationship between altered states of consciousness (ASC) and its association with...

Music and dance can change our sense of time. They rely on synchronizing our movements with auditory events and with other people, both involve memory and anticipation for audiences and performers alike, and both facilitate moments of flow and pleasure. Performing Time captures the manifold facets of our experience of time in music and dance, from...

Nausea often occurs in stressful situations, such as chemotherapy or surgery. Clinically relevant placebo effects in nausea have been demonstrated, but it remains unclear whether stress has an impact on these effects. The aim of this experimental study was to investigate the interplay between acute stress and placebo effects in nausea. 80 healthy f...

Introduction: There is growing evidence of the beneficial effects of exposure to nature on health and well-being. Time spent in nature can decrease stress, anxiety, depression, and improve mood. In the present study, we compared the experience of a short period of silence in the natural environment of a forest with the same amount of silence in a s...

Most interval timing research has focused on prospective timing tasks, in which participants are explicitly asked to pay attention to time as they are tested over multiple trials. Our current understanding of interval timing primarily relies on prospective timing. However, most real-life temporal judgments are made without knowing beforehand that t...

The role of the heart in the experience of time has been long theorized but empirical evidence is scarce. Here, we examined the interaction between fine-grained cardiac dynamics and the momentary experience of subsecond intervals. Participants performed a temporal bisection task for brief tones (80-188 ms) synchronized with the heart. We developed...

Temporal metacognition (TMC) is defined as the ability to consciously self-regulate cognitive focus on the past, the present, and the future by utilizing metacognitive skills, emotions, knowledge, and experience. TMC stems conceptually from the idea of a balanced time perspective — the ability to switch between time horizons — and it builds upon th...

The passage of time pertains to the dynamic happening of anticipated future events merging into a present actuality and subsequently becoming the past. Philosophers and scientists alike often endorse the view that the passage of time is an illusion. Here we instead account for the phenomenology of time passage as a real psycho-biological phenomenon...

Zeit und Existenz: Wenn die Zeit knapp wird Spätestens wenn der Mensch die Halbzeit seines Lebens erreicht hat, wird ihm die Zeitlichkeit und damit seine Endlichkeit bewusst. Die Midlife Crisis kann donnernd als Zäsur über uns hereinbrechen, vielleicht am 50. Geburtstag. Das Gefühl einer zunehmenden Zeitknappheit ob der ins Bewusstsein rückenden En...

Visual snow is a condition of unclear prevalence characterized by tiny flickering dots throughout the entire visual field. It appears to result from visual cortex hyperactivity and possibly correlates with propensity to be engrossed in sensory and imaginary experiences (absorption). The prevalence and correlates of visual snow, and emotional reacti...

The role of the heart in the experience of time has been long theorized but empirical evidence is scarce. Here we examined the interaction between fine-grained cardiac dynamics and the momentary experience of subsecond intervals. Participants performed a temporal bisection task for brief tones (80-188 ms) synchronized with the heart. We developed a...

Through my contribution in this symposium on subjective time, I wish to bring attention to the body. The physiological processes of the body are a necessary prerequisite for understanding how we, as humans, perceive time on the scale of seconds to minutes. My talk will proceed as follows: (1) First I will introduce the standard cognitive model of t...

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns triggered worldwide changes in the daily routines of human experience. The Blursday database provides repeated measures of subjective time and related processes from participants in nine countries tested on 14 questionnaires and 15 behavioural tasks during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 2,840 partic...

This study examined the effects of meditative states in experienced meditators on present-moment awareness, subjective time, and self-awareness while assessing meditation-induced changes in heart-rate variability and breathing rate. A sample of 22 experienced meditators who practiced meditation techniques stressing awareness of the present moment (...

Antura and the Letters was chosen by EduAppSyria as innovative digital game solution to promote literacy and psychosocial well-being in refugee children. This article reports the international assessment of its effectiveness in the Azraq Camp in Jordan. The study used a longitudinal, quasiexperimental method and compared literacy, emotional and psy...

The characteristics of the individual’s time perspective in relation to changes in social, economic, and political conditions are of major conceptual interest. We assessed the time orientations of 1588 Ukrainian students living in two different regions (western and south-eastern Ukraine) with the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) before (2...

In the meditative state time appears to slow down and in the present moment it expands. However, to date, there is no investigation of the effect of meditative state on the structure of the “psychological moment”; this is the measurable, minimal duration of the moment “now.” In this study, we examined the effect on the psychological moment of a min...

Several COVID-19 studies on the felt passage of time have been conducted due to the strong feeling of time distortion many people have experienced during the pandemic. Overall, a relative decelaration of time passage was generally associated with negative affect and social isolation; a relative acceleration was associated with an increase in routin...

The flow state-an experience of complete absorption in an activity-is linked with less self-referential processing and increased arousal. We used the heart-evoked potential (HEP), an index representing brain-heart interaction, as well as indices of peripheral physiology to assess the state of flow in individuals playing a video game. 22 gamers and...

Temporal metacognition (TMC) is defined as the ability to consciously self-regulate cognitive focus on the past, the present, and the future by utilizing metacognitive skills, emotions, knowledge, and experience. TMC stems conceptually from the idea of a balanced time perspective - the ability to switch between time horizons - and it builds upon th...

In dieser theoretischen Arbeit soll versucht werden, das Rätsel der subjektiven Zeit in gewöhnlichen und außergewöhnlichen Bewusstseinszuständen (ABZ) mit der Selbstwahrnehmung zu erklären. Die Erfahrung der Veränderlichkeit des Zeitverlaufs ist in ABZ noch extremer ausgeprägt. Dort kommt es zu einer gemeinsamen Modulation der Zeit und des Selbst....

Abstract: Previous approaches regarding the topic of silence in music therapy can be characterized as versatile and heterogenous. Explanations and statements are commonly heuristic- based and derived from personal experience. Empirical research on this topic is lacking. The authors conducted a series of five non-clinical studies with healthy stude...

Im Erleben von Flow spiegelt sich ein Kreativität und Innovation begünstigender Zustand (Csikszentmihályi, 1997). In diesem Zustand optimaler Leistungsfähigkeit und gleichzeitigen Wohlempfindens ist das Zeiterleben markant reduziert. Im vorliegenden Beitrag gehen wir darauf ein, von welchen Faktoren das menschliche Zeiterleben abhängt und wie es si...

Through my contribution in this symposium on subjective time, I wish to bring attention to the body. The physiological processes of the body are a necessary prerequisite for understanding how we, as humans, perceive time on the scale of seconds to minutes. My talk will proceed as follows: (1) First I will introduce the standard cognitive model of t...

Hans Bender, German parapsychologist and professor at the Freiburg University, met with C. G. Jung on December 8, 1960. The discussion was recorded, and the transcribed version is available here for the first time in English. A key aspect of our article is a description of the phenomenon of synchronicity based on Hans Bender’s concrete experiences...

The Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns triggered worldwide changes in the daily routines of human experience. The Blursday database provides measures of subjective time and related processes from more than 2,800 participants (over 9 countries) tested on 14 questionnaires and 15 behavioral tasks during the Covid-19 pandemic. The easy-to-proc...

We aim to recast the famous debate between Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson in 1922 in the context of contemporary psychology and neuroscience as informed by phenomenological analysis. We show that their disagreement is not as deep as has been considered previously, including Einstein and Bergson themselves. We argue that Bergson’s dynamic view of...

In this process-oriented study, we examined the influence of the time dimension on Psi effects in two experimental conditions (present vs. future). For data collection, selected viewers with experience in the remote viewing method gathered information about targets that were distant in space (the present) and time (the future). The present conditio...

Visual snow is a condition of unclear prevalence characterized by tiny flickering dots throughout the entire visual field. It appears to result from visual cortex hyperactivity and possibly correlates with propensity to be engrossed in sensory and imaginary experiences (absorption). The prevalence and correlates of visual snow, and emotional reacti...

Philosophers and scientists alike often endorse the view that the passage of time is an illusion. Here we instead account for the phenomenology of passage as a real psycho-biological phenomenon. We argue that the experience of time passage has a real and measurable basis as it arises from an internal generative model for anticipating upcoming event...

Previous studies have shown that the choice reaction time to a positive or negatively valenced photo can be influenced by following positive or negative words. Congruent photo–word pairs led to shorter reaction times than incongruent pairs. Since the potentially influencing word appears after the button is pressed, this effect has been described as...

There is lack of research on effects of red wine on consciousness when drank in wine bars designed to enhance the pleasurableness of the wine drinking experience. Effects of a moderate dose of red wine (≈ 40.98 g of ethanol) on consciousness were examined in a naturalistic study taking place in a wine bar located in one of the most touristic areas...

Virtual environments are typically associated with entertainment and a fast subjective passage of time. This study examined the opposite effect by exposing participants (n = 83) to a virtual reality (VR) waiting room for 7.5 min. We assessed the participants' capacity for emotion regulation and self-control as well as their level of boredom, affect...

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has majorly disrupted many aspects of people's lives, provoking psychosocial distress among students. People's positive and negative attitudes towards the past, present and future were a dispositional pre-COVID-19 reality. Faced with a pandemic, people have reported disruptions in the speed of passing time. Peop...

A philosopher and a cognitive neuroscientist conversed with Buddhist lama Tilmann Lhündrup Borghardt (TLB) about the unresolved phenomenological concerns and logical questions surrounding “pure” consciousness or minimal phenomenal experience (MPE), a quasi-contentless, non-dual state whose phenomenology of “emptiness” is often described in terms of...

Associations between Big Five personality traits and sexual function have been reported by many studies. Additionally, temporary alterations of consciousness influence sexual functioning. The present study examined how sexual responsiveness is independently associated with Big Five Personality traits and intensity of awareness of body, time, and su...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1093/nc/niab011.].

The power of Dionysus-Effects of red wine on consciousness: a naturalistic study in a wine bar Abstract There is lack of research on effects of red wine on consciousness when drank in wine bars designed to enhance the pleasurableness of wine drinking experience. Effects of a moderate dose of red wine (≈ 40.98 g of ethanol) on consciousness were exa...

Flow is a mental state characterized by deep absorption during challenging activities, which was first studied by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. One of the defining characteristics of this state is the loss of the sense of time. Despite the widespread scientific interest in flow, there are few quantitative studies specifically on the aspect of time perce...

There are plenty of issues to be solved in order for researchers to agree on a neural model of consciousness. Here we emphasize an often under-represented aspect in the debate: time consciousness. Consciousness and the present moment both extend in time. Experience flows through a succession of moments and progresses from future predictions, to pre...

A widely reproduced finding across numerous studies of different cultures is that adults perceive the most recent 10 years of their lives to have passed particularly fast, and that this perceived speed increases as they grow older. Potential explanatory factors for this effect are believed to be more routines in life as we age as well as an increas...

There are plenty of issues to be solved in order for researchers to agree on a neural model of consciousness. Here we emphasize an often under-represented aspect in the debate: time consciousness. Consciousness and the present moment both extend in time. Experience flows through a succession of moments and progresses from future predictions, to pre...

Gegenwartsgesellschaften funktionieren über enorm dynamische Zeitlogiken und eröffnen vielfältige Handlungsräume. Das transdisziplinäre Glossar bietet Einblicke in die vielseitigen Erkenntnisse und Perspektiven zum Thema Zeit im Lebensverlauf. Die einzelnen Stichworte beschreiben Aspekte individueller Zeitlichkeit und sozialer Zeitstrukturen in ihr...

The flow state is defined by intense involvement in an activity with high degrees of concentration and focused attention accompanied by a sense of pleasure. Video games are effective tools for inducing flow, and keeping players in this state is considered to be one of the central goals of game design. Many studies have focused on the underlying phy...

We aimed to validate four established questionnaires related to time perception in German (Consideration of Future Consequences-14 scale (CFC-14), Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS), Metacognitive Questionnaire on Time (MQT), and Self-Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ)) using a back-translation method. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted on the data o...

Over the weeks of social isolation during the COVID -19 pandemic, people typically reported that time had passed comparably quickly. Although time might have passed slowly during moments of anxiety and boredom for some, many felt a speeding up of the passing days and weeks. Here I attempt to explain the experience of time during the pandemic with c...

A brief and comprehensible overview in German about the theorized mechanisms of both prospective (referring to the present) and retrospective (past periods) perception of time.

A Ganzfeld is a homogenized visual and auditory perceptual field which can induce altered states of consciousness (ASC; Metzger, 1929; Schmidt & Prein, 2019). Using a balanced intrasubject design, we compared participants' experience during two differently colored (red, green) 25-min Ganzfeld sessions with brown noise as acoustic stimulation. Parti...

We discuss the three dominant models of the phenomenological literature pertaining to temporal consciousness, namely the cinematic, the retentional, and the extensional model. By relying on the distinction between acts and contents of consciousness we first discuss the explanatory merits of these three views vis à vis our temporal experience. In th...

Various aspects of psychological time, such as time perspective and time perception, have been studied separately. In the present research, we aimed to integrate these two approaches by examining the link between time perspective and time perception, conceptualized as the subjective passage of time and duration estimation. We also examined the role...

This article presents the results of a study which focused on the application of combined Depth Relaxation Music Therapy (DRMT) and silence in preventing music performance anxiety (MPA) in music students. Participants (n=12) were divided into two groups. Each group received either 16 minutes of DRMT followed by 6:30 minutes of silence or a 16-minut...

Do people who are diagnosed with cancer with good chances of recovery still feel close to death? And what does the confrontation with the finitude of life mean for the design of the living environments of these people? The researchers present here parts of the results of their study ‘Perception of time in subjective proximity to death’ and prove pe...

Research on the perception of silence has led to insights regarding its positive effects on individuals. We conducted a series of studies during which individuals were exposed to several minutes of silence in different contexts. Participants were introduced to different social and environmental settings, either in a seminar room at a university or...

Boredom is an everyday experience during uneventful situations and while waiting. Such situations are typically described as unpleasant since oneself becomes the focus of awareness, and the subjective duration expands. Self-control is an individual trait that helps to cope with unpleasant situations. Hardly any systematic studies exist on real wait...

Subjective time emerges through the existence of the self across time as an enduring and embodied entity. This relation is prominently disclosed in studies on altered states of consciousness such as in meditative states but also in everyday states of consciousness such as transiently being in states of boredom or flow. Mindfulness meditation, as th...

The minimal neural correlate of the conscious state, regardless of the neural activity correlated with the ever-changing contents of experience, has still not been identified. Different attempts have been made, mainly by comparing the normal waking state to seemingly unconscious states, such as deep sleep or general anesthesia. A more direct approa...

Patients with borderline personality disorders (BPD) show heightened negative affect and maladaptive emotion-regulation strategies. An individual's time perspective towards the past, present, and future as well as the feeling of time passage are strongly related to affect and emotion regulation. We therefore assessed the time perspective (Zimbardo...

Introduction: Nature and silence and their interrelationship have been rarely-discussed topics in music therapy research. We therefore compared the experience of silence in an indoor setting (university lecture room) with silence in a natural outdoor setting (city garden). Methods: Following a non-randomized repeated-measure design, we conducted tw...

Abstract – Hans Bender, German parapsychologist and professor at the Freiburg University, met with C.G. Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and analytic psychotherapist, on December 8, 1960. In connection with his mother’s sudden death a few months earlier, Hand Bender had had impressive synchronistic experiences which he wanted to discuss with the famous ana...

This article investigates the impact of waiting in Virtual Reality (VR) on the perception of time. We manipulated the visual quality of a virtual room replicating a real one (360-picture vs. 3D-model) with and without avatar embodiment (no-avatar vs. avatar). We only observed a significant difference in the estimated time duration between the real...

During the observation of an ambiguous figure our perception alternates between mutually exclusive interpretations, although the stimulus itself remains unchanged. The rate of these endogenous reversals has been discussed as reflecting basic aspects of endogenous brain dynamics. Recent evidence indicates that extensive meditation practice evokes lo...

The subjective experience of duration varies considerably depending upon fluctuating mental states. When feeling bored, time seems to slow down, and duration expands. When we are entertained, time passes quickly. We propose that felt time is modulated together with the awareness of the bodily self. Regarding inter-individual differences in the perc...

(1) Background: Mind-body interventions (MBI), such as meditation or other relaxation techniques, have become the focus of attention in the clinical and health sciences. Differences in the effects of induction techniques are being increasingly investigated. (2) Methods: Here, we compared changes in the individual experience of time, space, and self...

A series of studies by Wilson and colleagues in 2014 suggested that participants (mostly students) did not enjoy a 6 to 15 min silent period of "just thinking". Students in our study (n = 64) similarly spent a period of silence (6:30 min) alone in a room with nothing to do but concentrate on their own thoughts. They sat on a chair facing the door....

Mindfulness training is a novel method of leader development but contrary to its rising popularity, there is a scarcity of research investigating how mindfulness training may affect leader capabilities. To gain a better understanding of the potential of a new research field, qualitative research is advantageous. We sought to understand how senior l...