It is only in consciousness that we experience time

It is only in consciousness, it seems, that we experience time at all. A little baby has no time; he can't distance himself form the past and understand how it relates to his present, or plan how his present might relate to his future. He does not know time passes; he does not understand death. The unconscious mind of the adult is like that still. In a dream there is no time, and succession is all changed about, and cause and effect are all mixed together. In myth and legend there is no time. What past is it the tale means when it says 'Once upon a time'? And so, when the mystic makes the reconnection of his reason and his unconscious, he sees all becoming as one being, and understands the eternal return.

Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed (Gollancz, 2002) p. 184