Here’s what happens when your phone’s clock automatically changes on November 2nd

“Jump forward, fall back.” This is the mnemonic we all use to remind ourselves of how much pain lies ahead when time changes. It’s fall, the less painful one, and with the time on every smartphone now changing automatically, it will feel like your alarm clock is going off an hour late. Pro: You may get more sleep. Con: Your cat doesn’t care what the clock says and will just wake you up for feeding at 7:00 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m

But if you’ve never thought about the time change for more than a moment, and you’ll be up late tonight when the daylight saving time switch to standard time occurs, here’s what’s literally happening.

At the moment time is short, the day is being unnaturally stretched to give us more daylight. Every place that observes Daylight Saving Time agrees that during the sunny months, astronomical noon – the point where the sun happens to be – is 1:00 p.m. We correct this in the fall by repeating an hour, putting noon back in the correct place, and making the sundials accurate again.

When you watch the time change on your smartphone or smartwatch in the early hours of the morning, you can literally see the time. If you’re using an Android phone, set your lock screen clock to Analog Input Settings > Style. If you’re using an iPhone, just stare at the icon of the Clock app, a fully functional analog clock. In my experience, the time change occurs at 2:00:01 on Apple devices. I don’t know why.

When the big moment comes, the little hand jumps to the left again and your perception of quantifiable time as a fixed law of the universe is shattered. The truth is revealed as an artificial construct and everything you think makes sense is replaced with a void.

For an hour you will now exist in a kind of purgatory of strange time. You shouldn’t be awake. If you have ever read Stephen Kings The LangoliersYou know what awaits you in this zone. No birds in the sky. The food tastes stale. The air in your lungs feels empty. Machines don’t work. Huge, disembodied mouths could eat you. The usual. (Of course I’m joking. But read The Langoliers.)

And you’re probably going to hate what’s happening tonight: The time you associated with sunset on November 1st suddenly shifts to an hour earlier on November 2nd, meaning the day feels “an hour shorter.” In the late afternoon the sun disappears below the horizon and you will suddenly feel vampiric and nocturnal and eat dinner in the middle of the night. Young children who are not used to staying awake late will suddenly feel like they are learning the secrets of the night, because that is the case.

Oh, and don’t forget to manually change the little clock on the speedometer in your car. This is really important.