Phantom
![Phantom object syndrome
[Image of a Triangle-person standing on a step-ladder moving a clock from right to left. There is a hammer and nails scattered around.]
Couple of weeks ago we've moved a clock that hung there for years.
[Image of a Triangle-person looking at the missing clock, scratching their head and thinking about the original clock.]
I still keep looking at the old place where the clock used to be.
[Image of a pleased Triangle-person, thinking "6:05pm" and seeing a dashed-line phantom clock in the original position, showing the same time.]
My brain keeps insisting I can read the actual time from this phantom clock.](/images/259-phantom_object@1x.png)
Phantom object syndrome
[Image of a Triangle-person standing on a step-ladder moving a clock from right to left. There is a hammer and nails scattered around.]
Couple of weeks ago we’ve moved a clock that hung there for years.
[Image of a Triangle-person looking at the missing clock, scratching their head and thinking about the original clock.]
I still keep looking at the old place where the clock used to be.
[Image of a pleased Triangle-person, thinking “6:05pm” and seeing a dashed-line phantom clock in the original position, showing the same time.]
My brain keeps insisting I can read the actual time from this phantom clock.
This is a reference to a phantom limb syndrome, where the brain didn’t have time to adjust to the fact that it’s missing a limb. It keeps attempting to use it and even feel sensations coming from that limb.
In our case the missing limb is an external object. The clock hung there for at least 10 years, but we wanted it in a more useful position. It’s now been a couple of weeks of us staring at an empty wall.
Every time I want to know the time, it takes at least a couple of seconds for me to realise the clock is not there. During this few seconds I’m trying my best to tell the time from the screw sticking out of the wall. My brain seems to believe I’m looking at a real clock. It’s very disconcerting!
I have a feeling the whole situation isn’t helped by the clock being analog. The brain knows up front it needs to put some effort interpreting the position of the hands, and it’s so fixated on the task that it’s really attempting to read the time off that poor lonely screw.
The wiki article says it can take two to three years for the brain to adjust to a missing limb, so today I moved the clock back to where it was. I think we’ll need to get another clock.