Time, like everything else, is part of the Universe. It exists within the realm of physics. And as such, we believe time is consciousness. From our everyday perspective, the passage of time is a continuum, a linear structure of past, present, and future in succession. However, since matter, as well as odors, pictures, and sounds, seem to derive from a primary waveform, and since that particular waveform structure seems to be the base building block of the Universe, it is likely that time follows this model too, and is a waveform itself, expanding out of the source of consciousness, and returning back into that source.
In that different perspective, that model of time as a "signal", there are recognizable patterns.
Which echo the symbology of spirals, a universal symbol of evolution, and of the God of life, Kundalini (that which is coiled in Sanskrit). These patterns and their connections to evolution are often represented as follows : when we face a challenge and do not change our ways, the missed challenge will come back, forming a circle. If we change for worse, we enter a collapse phase, the downward spiral. If we change for better, we open up and expand our circle and rise. Lifting up our whole reality in the process.
Astral travelers, as well as people who went through Near Death Experiences, have reported different perceptions of time in different areas of their journeys. Some have experienced time travel, and according to their testimonies, many entities of higher order are simply able to alter any moment in what we perceive as a continuum, altering our learning experience in the way they think is useful through a given lesson. Others, particularly those who have experienced altered states of consciousness such as shamanic journeying, report experiences in which past, present, and future are all perceived to be occurring at once in an eternal Now, in a truly cyclical rather than linear fashion.
Kindly note the prevalence of the learning process itself, assuming these testimonies to be accurate, regarding the passage of time and the perception thereof. Theoretical physics has recently explored similar tracks, hoping one day to produce time traveling devices for the industry, giving a whole new meaning to the idea that "time is relative". That idea, however, is common to Einstein, to quantum physics as a whole, and to the experiences reported by many astral travelers. Time seems to be a mechanism valid in the physical world, and other lower worlds, in order to support diversity of experiences and to make them measurable. But at higher levels of existence, the limitations of linear time seem to be completely transcended.