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Summary

In the previous chapters, we introduced the concept of temporal handwriting, traced the connections between the individual and the external rhythms of the Cosmos, and identified the key dimensions of time – past, present and future. This chapter develops a working map of the experience of time: it proposes a ternary model (1 – chronological; 2 – psychological; 0 – atemporality) as a tool for diagnosis and for designing interventions, especially in the context of altered states of consciousness (ASC). In addition to the model, we discuss «temporal fonts» and languages (cultural, familial, ornamental codes), mechanisms of shifts between temporal regimes, the practical logic of application, and ethical and methodological caveats.

Key concepts

Temporal handwriting – an individual style of experiencing time.

ASC (altered states of consciousness) – states (meditation, hypnosis, relaxation, autogenic training, trance or psychedelic practices) in which the usual organization of time changes: expansion or compression of duration appears, as well as access to atemporal insights and symbols.

Chronological (linear) time – the external, measurable axis (clocks, calendars, biorhythms, social schedules).

Psychological time – the subjective duration of experience: speed, retention, protention.

Atemporality (timelessness, «0») – a mode in which linearity loses its power; an experience of wholeness/eternity.

Ternary coding (1/2/0) – a working metaphor for coding temporal regimes.

Temporal font / language of time – stable cultural—familial and personified patterns of organizing time (ornaments, rhythms, narratives).

Aims of the chapter

– To propose a practical, operational model of the experience of time, convenient for diagnosis and for planning interventions.

– To show how altered states of consciousness (ASC) shift combinations of temporal regimes and open space for therapeutic work.

– To introduce the notion of «temporal fonts» and languages as cultural and symbolic codes of time, and to show their diagnostic and therapeutic value.

– To outline methodological approaches, criteria of success, and ethical constraints when working with ASC and temporal interventions.

1. Introduction – From Map to Instrument

We are moving from description to instrument. If the first three chapters served as a map (handwriting – external rhythms – internal dimensions), then here the task is to make the map operational: to learn how to see, code and manage temporal regimes. Altered states of consciousness (ASC) are not a goal in themselves, but an experiential—instrumental zone in which shifts of regimes become visible and thus available for observation, practical training and, when necessary, therapeutic influence.

The appendix to this chapter contains a list of exercises for developing ASC.

2. A Working Model of the Experience of Time

Three Interpenetrating Regimes

The model is based on three broad, but flexible, modalities of experiencing time.

1. Chronological (linear) time

This is the «external» axis – clocks, calendars, biological cycles, social schedules and institutions. It gives the world measurability and predictability. In the therapeutic context, chronological time is the sphere of regulation (sleep, nutrition, prescribed treatment), planning, and adaptation to the demands of society.

2. Psychological time

The subjective duration of experience: tempo, richness, retention (what is held from the past) and protention (what the future is reaching toward). Here the temporal handwriting of the individual is formed: one person lives «in long brushstrokes,» another – in «flashes,» a third constantly jumps between past and future. Psychological time is the key to understanding individual experience and to choosing interventions.

3. Atemporality (timelessness, «0»)

A mode in which habitual linearity loses its power: «before» and «after» disappear, and the main focus becomes the quality of «being,» the sense of wholeness and participation. This mode arises in meditative practices, deep ASC, mystical insights; it can be a resource (transformation, insight) or a risk (disorientation, intensified dissociation), depending on preparation and integration.

Dynamics and Interaction

The regimes combine and overlap: one and the same episode of experience may contain elements of all three regimes. In therapy, the important thing is not to «push» the client into atemporality as such, but to manage transitions: preparation → controlled entry → integration. ASC act as an instrument that makes these transitions visible and manageable.

3. The Ternary Metaphor: 1 – 2 – 0 and Its Meaning

Ternary coding is a convenient metaphor for thinking and operationalization.

– 1 (chronology) – support, measurability, everyday action.

– 2 (psychology) – inner flow, narrative, handwriting.

– 0 (atemporality) – resource or challenge, the «zero point» where meaning can be reconstructed.

Practically, this means that we can code the stream of experience as sequences of trits and analyze them as «temporal words.» This opens paths toward formalization:

– EMA (Ecological Momentary Assessment),

– diaries,

– Markov models of transitions (mathematical models describing a sequence of system states where the probability of the next state depends only on the current one),

– calculation of entropy of the temporal sequence (a quantitative estimate of how predictable or unpredictable this sequence is).

In therapeutic design we can conceive «rules of grammar»: preparation (strengthening 2), entry (allowing 0), integration (transition 0→2→1).

Limitation. The model is a tool; it does not explain the «essence of time,» but helps to set tasks, formulate hypotheses, and measure changes.

4. Temporal Fonts and Languages of Time

What Are the «Font» and «Language» of Time?

Temporal handwriting is an individual, stable style of experiencing and structuring time. It is one’s personal style of time – the way a person senses duration, holds the past, anticipates the future, and experiences atemporality. It manifests in speech tempo, actions, emotional cycles, and life rhythms.

Temporal font is a metaphorical «typeface of time» – a typical configuration of rhythms, sequences and cycles characteristic of a particular group, generation or social environment. It reflects a typological level of temporal organization – a general style of life, ways of anticipating, and responses to the future.

Temporal language is the totality of symbolic, verbal, bodily, visual and ritual forms through which a culture expresses, organizes and transmits its experience of time. This is the level of cultural grammar of time, where the «words» are rhythms, pauses, gestures, ornaments, narratives and rituals. Mastering temporal language in therapy means the ability to hear cultural forms of time and translate them into the experience of personal development and healing.

Script, font, and language of time: three forms of traces on the sand of human life

How Fonts Are Formed and Transmitted

– Culture and institutions. School, church, work schedules form notions of what is «chronologically correct.»

– Family and genogram. Family rituals, stories and scripts transmit temporal habits (what «soon» means, what «success» means).

– Material culture and ornament. Visual codes (patterns, architecture, clothing ornament) carry rhythms: closed forms – an intonation of an introverted font; open lines and waves – an extroverted one. This creates a diagnostic and design possibility: ornament can serve as a marker and an instrument (in comparison with the client’s scores on temporal handwriting scales).

Diagnosis Through Fonts

Hypothesis: stable visual and linguistic markers correlate with temporal handwriting. For example: in a society/family where strict, digital codes dominate (rigid rows, clear squares), one can expect a culture of «1→1→1»; in artistic communities – more frequent insertions of 2 and 0. Ornamental diagnostics is so far a hypothesis that requires empirical verification (comparing ornament traits with temporal handwriting scales and behavioral data).

Therapeutic Use of Fonts

Resemiotization: working with symbols and ornaments to restructure the sense of time (for example, introducing visual forms that stimulate slow attention into practice). This is the process of translating personal experience from one temporal dimension into another – from past into present, from dream into speech, from unconscious symbol into conscious idea. For example: in a dream (in an ASC) a symbol appears → in a drawing it becomes an image → in conversation – a word → in action – a deed → in the future – a new attitude toward the world. Each transition is an act of resemiotization in time, and this is the key to understanding how a person reinterprets and relives the time of their life. A practical example (from mask therapy). A patient makes a mask that expresses an inner shadow. This mask is a new semiotic form of old unconscious content. When the patient begins to speak from the mask’s point of view, resemiotization occurs: unconscious affect becomes image, then speech, then meaning. As a result, the person integrates a fragment of personality – a «temporal subpersonality» – into a more coherent Self. In philosophical terms, resemiotization is the life of meaning, its movement in time and in forms. Each sign is only a temporary shell, a «temporal form» of content that is always alive in its transitions. Thus meaning becomes a temporal being, moving from symbol to symbol, from state to state.

Narrative reconfiguration: rewriting family and cultural stories in which the temporal grammar changes (from «life is a plan» to «life as flow and creativity»).

Active interventions: mask therapy, creating ornamental paintings/portraits that help integrate 0→2→1 transitions.

5. Mechanisms – A Working Hypothesis

– Phenomenologically: ASC change the structure of retention/protention – past and future are redistributed in the present.

– Neurophysiologically (hypothesis): a shift in network dynamics (DMN, attentional networks), changes in rhythm synchrony (gamma/theta/alpha), increased short-term entropy of brain activation.

– Psychosocially: language, rituals, ornaments and family scripts modify readiness for the experience of atemporality and influence strategies of integration.

These levels must be tested jointly: phenomenology → physiology → long-term clinical outcomes.

6. Practical Logic of Application

– Screening: assessment of temporal handwriting (ch. 1), a scale of experiencing timelessness, checking for contraindications.

– Preparation: stabilization (sleep, nutrition, routine anchors), autogenic training, grounding, informed consent.

– Controlled entry: gentle techniques → deeper, according to readiness; recording 1/2/0 sequences (EMA, diary).

– Integration: translating experience into speech, symbol, action; using fonts/ornament to consolidate changes.

– Monitoring: short-term and long-term, supervision, biomarkers in research protocols.

7. Ethical and Methodological Warnings

– Deep ASC are not for everyone; contraindications: active psychosis, unstable medication, pronounced suicidality.

– Distinguish phenomenology from metaphysics; «I experienced eternity» ≠ proof of an ontological claim.

– Document and preregister research in order to avoid apophenia.

– Informed consent and an emergency plan are mandatory.

– Working with cultural symbols requires respect, avoidance of cultural appropriation, and a co-creative ethic.

8. Conclusion – A Bridge to Practice

The proposed working model of the experience of time is an instrument for diagnosis and for designing interventions. The ternary metaphor and the notion of temporal fonts provide a language for planning therapeutic grammars: how to prepare, how to allow, how to integrate.

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The Appendix to Chapter 4 contains a list of practical methods for entering ASC, a «dictionary of fonts,» and examples for recognizing the «language of time.»

Literature

Grof, S. – The Holotropic Mind (1993).

A systematization of transpersonal states of consciousness and the development of a methodology for integrating them into the therapeutic process. The book combines clinical experience, phenomenology and spiritual practices, laying the foundation of transpersonal psychotherapy.

Husserl, E. – On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (lectures, ca. 1905).

A foundational phenomenological analysis of the structure of time: retention, protention and the act of the «now.» A basic philosophical grounding for understanding how time is constituted in the stream of consciousness.

James, W. – The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).

A classic exploration of mystical states and experiences of «encounters with eternity.» Important for the phenomenological description of altered states of consciousness and their role in spiritual life.

Carhart-Harris, R. L. et al. – The Entropic Brain (2014) and subsequent works on the neural correlates of psychedelic states.

A modern neuroscientific concept explaining how changes in brain network dynamics are related to experiences of atemporality, expanded consciousness and ego dissolution. Provides a physiological basis for understanding the therapeutic potential of ASC.

Schultz, J. H. – Autogenic Training (1932 and later).

A practical method of self-regulation and controlled entry into altered states of consciousness. Serves as a tool for preparation, stabilization and recovery in deep psychotherapeutic work.

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Additions to Chapter 4