The Neurochemical Time: Dopamine, mTOR, and the Illusion of Urgency

Series: Time as an Embodied and Shared Experience

 First-Person Consciousness

I am the consciousness that contracts under pressure.
When my body is forced to follow external time — of machines, goals, markets — something inside me hardens.
My breath shortens. My focus narrows. I feel like I’m losing time... but am I really?
Sometimes the urgency I feel isn’t mine.
It’s chemical. It’s programmed. It’s dopaminergic.
And perhaps it’s not even time — but a collapse of flow.

Addicted to Time: Dopamine and the Manufactured Rush

Dopamine is often linked to pleasure, but in reality, it acts as a motivational and goal-oriented signal. It moves us forward, but doesn’t necessarily bring satisfaction. In the digital age, algorithms hijack this system, creating endless stimulus–reward–frustration loops.

This is how we lose track of time:

• Trapped in infinite scrolling,
  
  

• Checking emails obsessively,
  
  

• Switching tasks without rest.
  
  

This constant urgency is not productivity.
It’s dopamine tricking our sense of time.

 mTOR: The Biochemical Sensor of Hurry

mTOR (Mechanistic Target of Rapamycin) is a key protein complex that regulates cellular growth and metabolic behavior in response to perceived “threat” or “opportunity.”
When we eat, move, or stress, mTOR is activated.
But in the absence of stimulation, it shuts down — enabling the body to enter regenerative and focus-rich states like flow (Zone 2).

The problem?
We live in an overstimulated world where mTOR rarely rests.
As a result, we never reach deep time.

This creates Zone 3:

• A neurochemical state of artificial urgency
  
  

• Chronic anxiety
  
  

• Loss of internal time perception
  
  

Zone 3: When Time Becomes a Prison

In your model of Zones 1, 2, and 3, you outline a profound map of attentional and temporal states:

• Zone 1: Normal task-driven focus (shifting attention, external goals)
  
  

• Zone 2: Flow, sustained attention, regenerative perception, embodied presence
  
  

• Zone 3: Ideological and dopaminergic time — imposed urgency, reactive behavior
  
  

Neurochemical Time in Zone 3 is not felt — it is imposed.
It is a dopaminergic ideology, reinforced by screens, notifications, and short-lived rewards.

 Deceleration as a Political and Biological Act

Turning off mTOR through:

• Conscious breathing (especially long exhalations)
  
  

• Intentional silence and sensory fasting
  
  

• Reducing digital and visual overload
  
  

• Engaging in non-goal-oriented pleasure (music, movement, nature)
  
  

…is not just a wellness tip.
It’s an act of biological sovereignty.
It restores the embodied perception of time as something that pulses from the inside out, not imposed from the outside in.

 Conclusion

The time that oppresses us is not the body’s natural time — but the time of systems that hijack dopamine and mTOR.
Learning to deactivate these cycles of chemical urgency is essential to recover flow, critical thought, and original belonging.
The body’s time is more trustworthy than the time of machines.
And consciousness knows it — if we let it breathe.

 References (Post-2020)

• Berntson, G.G. & Khalsa, S.S. (2021). Neural Circuits of Interoception. Trends in Neurosciences.
  
  

• Balleine, B.W. & O'Doherty, J.P. (2021). The Brain, Motivation, and Dopamine: Incentive Learning and Habit Formation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
  
  

• Hall, P.A., Fong, G.T. (2020). Temporal self-regulation theory: A neurobiologically informed model of health behavior. Health Psychology Review.
  
  

• Lopez-Caneda, E., et al. (2022). Neurobiology of time perception: The role of dopamine and default-mode networks. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
  
  

• Saxton, R.A., Sabatini, D.M. (2021). mTOR Signaling in Growth, Metabolism, and Disease. Cell.
  
  

• Wang, S., et al. (2023). Chronic Stress and Time Perception: A Neurobiological Perspective. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.
  
  

• Pessoa, L. (2022). The Entangled Brain: How Perception, Cognition, and Emotion Are Woven Together. MIT Press.