I'm not sure if this makes sense, but I'll try:
I found that when I had DP and DR, my narrative was fragmented in every sense. That also happened with time: life was no longer one long story so to speak, but chopped up/fragmented. Taken to the extreme, this became the feeling like each second or time I could even blink my eyes was like a separate frame unconnected to the previous second -- like each second I had a new motive/existence/driver/meaning in life, if that makes sense.
Most people have one long frame of reference, what we (non-DP people) do now is loosely connected to what we did an hour or two ago, and even 6 hours ago -- while we may not be paying attention to the same task at hand, those previously completed tasks/chores/actions (whether doing laundry, walking to the grocery store, etc) -- while those tasks are now 'complete' for me, they still continue on into my evening, influencing it, by my memories of earlier in the day and how I felt during that time (for example say the checkout girl at the store was nice, flirty, I might think about that into the evening) -- this is the way I experience reality at least. What I mean to say is that I can have multiple concurrent things going on in my life and they continue on throughout the day/week/etc.
With DP, the fragmentation inside of me was so strong that it felt like no single 'narrative' continued even from second to second. It robbed all meaning, along with emotional numbness, and in that, I think perhaps that is how time felt extremely distorted too -- either it felt really sped up, slowed down, or just missing... time is measured in the timeline of our day and the events that happen to us/we take part in. If you remove those events, or make them 'fragmented' to the brain -- it might adjust the sense of 'time' accordingly and totally distort it because it doesn't know how to place the events. Does it place them linear, in order? NO! It does it as one big jumbled MESS !
Time itself, and our sense of it, is constructed in part by how our memories can fill in the gaps. When your memories, and even the moment to moment feels like they are disconnected from the previous second (and the total lack of emotion binding it) -- then I think the brain has an impossible task of trying to assemble those things into a sense of timeline.
Put it another way: Let's say I ask you to come decorate a long hallway, that is 100 feet long. I ask you to bring with you, and order a series of 50 pictures from your life chronologically in that hallway corridor. You got some copies of memorable photos made and brought them to my house to begin ordering them. The natural way to do this would be to put photo of 4 year old you at halloween before the picture of 12 year old you at dance recital, which comes before the 25 year old you getting married. This is just an example of perhaps how our mind constructs our 'timeline'. You are able to do this (normally) when you have some emotional and logical sense about it that allows you to 'make sense' of the photos and where you belong. Now if I strip you of that capability, rob you of emotional meaning, and fragment/compartmentalize your mind as a defense mechanism (which some DP literature calls it -- defense mechanism, whether due to a bad drug experience, or trauma of another sort) -- and ask you to line the hallway with the images chronologically -- you will not be able to do it. Because you're confused/impaired somehow.
My guess is that DP, DR and other types of dissociation is that 'impairment'. Emotional numbing, shutting down emotional connections to memories, compartmentalizing experiences, etc. Now if you do that, you kind of strip the brains capability to also perceive a sense of time as a byproduct (THIS IS JUST MY THEORY).
Ultimately I'm trying to say that the fragmented memories, fragmented events of a day and the fragmented sense of timeline. I see them as probably connected. (At the time, with DP, I was so confused to probably not be able to make sense of this).
I hope this makes sense. I'm not saying it's right at all as I'm not a doctor, nor well read in dissociation -- just a thought on it based on my experiences with the disorder.
I also hope this can help you understand it in another way, and in that, lessen your fear/pain from this horrible disorder.
Take care and good luck to all.
