Can't tell whether it's fast or slow

[Gargamel]

just wondering if this has ever happened to you.  I was practicing and practicing in slow motion in my mind but at the piano too.  I was practicing a section of my piece that is supposed to go quik but I was practicing slow but I started getting really into it and sometimes my mind played tricks on me and it was like I couldn't tell anymore whether I was playing very slowly or ultra fast lightning speed.  But in my mind I would remind me that it was slow.  Has this ever happened to you?  What is that?  It has happened a bit for me now.

ta ta... Gargamel

[ted]

How curious. No, I cannot say that has happened to me. Sometimes I record things at what I consider to be a slow pace then, on listening to the recording later, I find it was quite fast. I do experience time distortion in many aspects of life, but not while the event is occurring, because I have nothing to compare it with.

The only other musical time distortion I experience is during improvisation, when I play for what seems to be a few minutes and then, upon looking at the clock afterwards, find I have been playing for an hour. Sometimes I cannot remember what I played either, which fact is damned annoying, but I am slowly correcting this by playing for shorter periods with rests in between. 

[m19834]

Has this ever happened to you?

Yes !  Though, it hasn't actually happened for a while now.   

What is that?

I just had a sudden inspiration about what this may be, as it's been in the back of my mind for years now.  Here is what I think about it. 

Firstly, I think an individual *might* be able to only experience this if they have played fast tempos and it has seemed slow, because I think it's a form of the mind working backwards or remembering what that feels like or so.  When I have played fastly yet it feels slow, it is because during that time my mind has some kind of crystal clear "picture" or map of everything involved with what I am doing.  I feel at ease, calm and in control.  In some way, it's as though our minds can take a kind of "photograph" of that general kind of experience, and I think, what happens to me when I am playing slowly but it feels fast, is that during that time I tap into the same kind of mental state as when things operate in reverse.  It is the same kind of crystal clarity, and my mind can seemingly "picture" it all happening in the reverse setting :  Playing fast but it feeling slow.  And, it's somehow as though my mind "remembers" that particular place of focus or so and then can't quite distinguish what is happening on the "outside" of it.

So, in practice, I think when I am practicing slowly, I suppose my aim is to continue developing this crystal clarity, which is a mental state, which can translate into fast or slow playing on the outter regions of that consciousness.  In some sense, for passages that I know are going to eventually be fast, perhaps it's good to "picture" or even try to mentally embody the experience in reverse.  Imagine I am playing fast when going through the passage slowly, but within that imagination, I am playing fast but it feels slow.  Okay, I know, that's kind of strange.  But, I wonder if it's just some kind of deja vu ?

I could be totally wrong of course, but I think I am on to something personally anyway !  And, before I get busted for thinking too much, I ought to return to the piano.

*tippy toes*