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The brain’s perception of time is abstract. Here's what happens when it gets seriously distorted

I slumped in a wheelchair in my doctor’s office. The clock above the door ticked erratically, as if someone outside the room was winding the gears forward and then turning them back every few seconds. The words Dr. W spoke seemed to fall from her mouth, then slowly float across the room one by one. To my ears, her speech was devoid of any cadence. Unable to hear the pauses that indicated the ends of her sentences, I kept interrupting her.

A month before this doctor’s appointment, lupus, the chronic autoimmune disease I had lived with for the past four years, had spiraled out of control. In rare cases like mine, lupus can cause severe brain inflammation called lupus cerebritis. I’d first realized I was seriously ill when I stood up after teaching a violin lesson and forgot how to walk. My legs didn’t hurt — they simply refused to lift from the floor.