One thing that is commonly confused for perceptions of it or for some other such thing is time. Some pretend like time is invented by humans with the creation and use of clocks and other timepieces like hourglasses, with people being prompted to design these by the strong but illusory impression that there really is such a thing as duration. Others believe that because societal units of measurement for time, such as hours and minutes, are created by people, the thing those units apply to does not really exist outside of perception or convention; however, moments still exist and pass without people using words to refer to it, units to track it, and devices to mark it elapsing.
The passage of time is a nonphysical thing without which physical and mental events could not take place. Existing independently from matter though it was ultimately created by either the uncaused cause or something created by the uncaused cause (an eternal past is logically impossible because the present moment would never be reached), time is not a thought, a feeling, or a preference. Time can be grasped as it is by the intellect if one looks to the laws of logic without making assumptions, but it is not the same thing as a sense of time any more than a physical item is the mental perception of it. In actuality, one can realize that the present moment cannot be an illusion, while many particular material environments one and the objects within them cannot be proven to exist outside of one's mind (yet the existence of matter can be proven [1]).
That time objectively exists, both in the sense that it is real and the sense that it does not depend on perception or even events in order to elapse, is still something that can be known amidst a subjective sense of time, sometimes called chronoception. A dull, uneventful, terrifying, or bothersome experience can make it seem like time is passing more slowly, while an engaging, elating, or desired experience could make it seem like time is passing more quickly. Common phrases like "time goes by fast when you enjoy yourself" hint at this as they still, if meant literally, would be communicating the erroneous idea of time itself speeding up or slowing down rather than time simply being perceived differently.
Five minutes is still five minutes no matter how thrilling or dreadful the events that occurred during those five minutes were. Time cannot change in its rate of passage, though the words people use for units of time can be changed, nothing but arbitrary communicational constructs. Time is not the electronic or mechanical timepieces that are made to measure it, nor is it anything else but the immaterial duration in which events happen, though it does not depend on the events in order to exist. It is the other way around. The notions of time being a very thorough illusion of perception, a physical part of the natural world, or a pragmatic, intentional construct for social coordination are very obviously false.
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