Autobiographical memory plays an important part in overcoming crises of different kinds. An experimental study has discovered three phenomena pertaining to transformation of the time component of the autobiographical memory that emerge in a difficult for a person situation of being held in custody: "impoverishment of the past", "loss of childhood" and "ontologization of the present". The data show that a difficult situation transforms the subjective present, the past and the future lose their significance, the time transspective of a personality diminishes.