One experiences mind wandering, flashbacks of a dim past -- seemingly random memories when keyboarding. The same thing happens while playing a musical instrument. Nothing scientific about it, but it happens so often to me, and others I have spoken to, that I think it must be commonplace in using repetitive motor skill activities. A major study of this phenomenon is presently in the works (sure it is). It might have to do with memory and dreaming, for it seems like a hypnotic state when it occurs. You seldom remember your dreams. Ordinarily, the only time you can recall a dream is when some physical turbulence distracts you from sleep: an elbow in your side; need to urinate; your foot is cold sticking out from the covers. Perhaps your wet-nosed cat is waking you for her feeding.

At any rate, the dreams you remember are ones that accompany some physical discomfort. Maybe the same thing is true with the keyboard flashbacks. Perhaps nature is trying to tell you to stop keying for some reason by intruding with a flashback. Some flashbacks are impossible to remember, but they are there just the same. They are of such a fleeting nature that it's impossible to remember them and even if you could, there would be no way to verbalize them. These are your psycho-epistemological events or episodes and they are, in theory, the building blocks of motor skills. In my own experience, flashbacks from the old keyboard go back farther than with the new. It may be that the old keyboard is letter-centered and the psycho-epistemological events bring you back to your childhood -- when you originally learned to talk and learned the alphabet. And that the new keyboard is centered upon groups of letters taking you back to a later time in your alphabetic development.

Ph.D. candidates are always in dire need of help, I seldom can refuse as they approach another deadline in their schedule. Let me present for you a dialogue between me and a very polite young man whom I will call Raghu (because that's his name):

Raghu: Bob, may I use your computer for a couple of minutes? I've got to make a few changes and then print something out, and my laptop is home, and the computer clusters are full to capacity. May I please use it?

Me: You may but you can't. For you see, I use the Dvorak keyboard. The letters are in different places.

Raghu: This is not a major problem. I'm a hunt-and-peck, two-finger typist, so I'll simply peck away and it will make no difference to me where the keys are.

Me: Even though you are a hunt-and-peck, two-finger typist, the letters, being in different places, might throw you off. Your psycho-epistemological (PE) events are starting to take root in the motor skill section of your brain. Your pecking strokes relate to the positions on the old keyboard and PE events will manifest themselves insidiously, even with your rather crude two-finger system.

Raghu: That is the most unheard of thing I've ever heard of and I consider such cybercrap an insult. I will be out of here in five minutes or so.

Me: (Cybercrap, eh . . . Why, I oughtta . . )

1 hour later

Raghu: Well, I'm just about finished and you know, you were right. Those psycho-epistemological events finding a place in my motor skill region; the ones relating to positions on the old keyboard, render dysfunctional my hunt and peck system. You certainly taught me a thing or two I didn't know before. And hey, about that cybercrap remark . . .

Me: No apology necessary. Now here's what to do next. Find a garage sale and pick up a typing book, a metronome, and a computer keyboard . . not the entire computer, just the keyboard . . and then . . yada, yada, yada . . . (Do we have a convert?)

In the early 1970s concepts began to emerge concerning the psycho-epistemology of listening to music.* It was explained how the very fleeting, non-verbal messages in the music stimulate you to want to hear the piece again. Conversely, some musical pieces do not require repeated hearings. You hear them only once. They may be worth listening to and you enjoy them, but there is no need to ever hear them again. This happens to me quite a bit with atonal music (Schoenberg, some Copeland) and jazz (Ornette Coleman, some Coltrane). Could it be that the psycho-epistemological events that occur in atonal music or progressive jazz are not as developed as they are in more predictable pieces of music? It seems we want to hear our familiar chord changes. I have noticed this phenomenon in my own listening, in playing instruments, and in non-musical activities such as typing.

*Ayn Rand (1972), "Stimulus and Response," Ayn Rand Letter, Jan-Feb, p132.