Please -- my mind is a quagmire of confusing thoughts; somebody clear them!

1. Are there 4 time zones (including Alaska) in the USA?
2. For what duration are the clocks set back during daylight savings time?
3. What is the offset from GMT from each of these time zones during / not during daylight-savings?
4. Which states fall in each of the zones?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

See here: http://www.time.gov./
There are 4 time zones in the U.S. Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific Standard times.
Clocks are set forward during daylight savings time beginning in the spring (spring, forward); in the fall, clocks are set back (fall, back) one hour to get back to standard time.
The offset from GMT and the states which are involved in each time zone is illustrated in the site, above.

In the U.S. from right to left, the time zones are Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii-Aleutian.

The first four are a part of the continental United States. The last two include the other two states.

In that order, each of the following time zones is an hour behind the one before it. If it is one o’clock in Central, it is twelve o’clock in Mountain and two o’clock in Eastern.

Eastern is five hours behind Greenwich.

In April, we “spring forward” an hour, or in other words, go into Daylight Saving Time. In October, we “fall back” an hour into Standard.

A few areas don’t observe Daylight Saving Time.

Which states are a part of which time zones can be found on site.

Thank you, fjohn and Lanni, for enlightening me on that!

Britain also has the daylight saving and our clocks change within a week or two of the US. The clocks go back on the last weekend of October, forward the end of March.

Just to confuse you further, Hawaii, Illinois, and Arizona do not recognize daylight savings time. Weird, huh?

And to add even MORE confusion, Australian clocks go forward an hour at the end of October, with the exception of Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin', into the future.
I want to fly like an eagle, to the sea,
fly like an eagle, let my spirit carry me...
-Yes

If the clock wasn't invented, then farmers wouldn't have to turn them back!

LOL Uroborus! Time is an illusion and created by man to keep order... it has always been my theory. Kind of why when you see a star in the sky...it may not even be there...could have supernova'd a long time ago but it takes the light... lightyears to get here and we are looking at the distant past. So what we are seeing in the sky NOW is not actually NOW but THEN! Interesting, huh?

Just for fun (and I'm interested) Just post with the place (general area) and exact time of the post (LOCAL TIME)- for example
This is Leicester, England at 9.40 pm 15th October 2003 you can work out the difference from the time of the post

My screen shows that you posted at 2:32 pm on Oct. 15. With the Universal Time offset, this puts your post at plus 6 hours (8:32pm)from where I am (Mountain Time zone). Add another hour for daylight savings time and you posted at 9:32 pm. I think.