The way we conceive of time seems to run along the following: a past that's gone forever, an unknowable future and a present that's speeding along the path of time, always changing from moment to moment.

I've observed for a long time that people perceive time in different ways depending on what they're doing. As a kid, I'd paint a picture or engage in some such creative pursuit, and marvel at how much time had elapsed while so occupied. In fact, when composing music, my creation didn't even seem to follow the normal rules of time, and I'd hear the song in my head all in one go, as if music originates from some timeless state and we only have to impose a beginning, a middle and an end on the piece in order to recreate it in the physical universe for others to enjoy.

Sometimes, it feels as if you have all the time in the world. People report that time slowed down or stood still: "When I made that perfect goal shot, everything ran in slow motion". People who have known what it is like to be on top form, or "in the zone", report such things. Other times, a kind of overwhelm happens: "It all happened so quickly, I was rooted to the spot". Thus the present moment, or the perception of it, appears to vary in width and the speed at which time is perceived is sped up or slowed down accordingly. A person whose present moment is very narrow would see things as flashing past at speed. A person whose present is relatively wide would have plenty of time to think as time goes by for them relatively slowly.

Stress levels affect the perception of the passage of time. The stressed executive never has sufficient time to get everything done. His time is disappearing at a rapid rate of knots.

Different states of consciousness affect the way time is perceived. A person who is normally awake, a person who is relaxing, a person who is dreaming and a person in deep sleep will have varying perceptions of time. Why does time appear to speed up for as as we grow older? One explanation is that an adult will spend much time in beta consciousness whereas young children, for whom every day seems like an eternity, spend the majority of their time in theta.

So can a person deliberately widen their sense of present time by means other than the arts? I suspect that people who do certain spiritual practices, such as meditation, can indeed do this.

Children usually have less to do than adults (especially intensive thought tasks), so their days drag whereas adults' days can fly by. When, as an adult, one has limited occupation (as when in hospital, for example) the days begin to drag again. As an adult, if I observe the second hand on my watch (thus doing nothing but time watching) then the time seems just as 'slow' as when I was a child.