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The conceptualization of time is a human trait. Other living creatures may have a fragmentary idea of time, but man alone understands time in its phenomenologic and subjective aspects. The perception of time is probably carried by the genes. It is intimately associated with consciousness itself. Indeed, all conscious phenomena and activities are “now” and “then.”
The contemporary normal adult is able to think of the present, to remember the past and to anticipate the future. The prelogical thinker or primitive man was concerned almost exclusively with the present. The inability to foresee the future is characteristic of the archaic ego, the primitive man and the schizophrenic. It has definitely been established by experiments dealing with delayed reactions that subhuman and prehuman species cannot foresee a future of more than a few minutes. Man, in primitive times, related everything to present circumstances and not to future events. He practiced hunting for compelling current needs, but not agriculture or hoarding to provide for future necessities. The future was beyond his grasp and comprehension. Only immediate dangers were considered by primitive man. He experienced fear when frightening stimuli were present. He was not anxious about future events. Anxiety came into being when man evolved a concept of time as a creator of future events.
Conscious time has only one dimension and two opposite directions which can be distinguished from each other. Conscious time