#I THINK IM LOSING MY MIND DRIVERS#

However, some mental operations-such as complex information processing, problem solving, and intentional actions-do seem to require conscious awareness (Dehaene and Naccache, 2001). When stimuli fail to reach conscious awareness and the mind goes blank, the persistence of non-conscious processes may allow people to continue carrying out surprisingly elaborate behaviors, even in the absence of this hallmark of human experience. Although the majority of these stimuli never reach conscious awareness, they are still perceived-and they may still influence emotions, opinions, decisions, and behavior (e.g., Bargh and Chartrand, 1999) and even lead individuals to form, pursue, and accomplish goals (e.g., Bargh et al., 2001). Countless stimuli are constantly streaming in and around every individual, in the form of both environmental cues and internal trains of thought.

#I THINK IM LOSING MY MIND DRIVERS#

Although this definition may conjure up images of mind-blanking drivers suddenly swerving into oncoming traffic and joggers dropping to the pavement mid-stride, research suggests that conscious awareness is unnecessary for much of human functioning rather, the vast majority of cognitive processing and behavioral control seems to occur outside of conscious awareness.

During periods of blankness, the individual is not focally aware of any stimuli, either internal or external. Mind-blanking-when our minds are seemingly “nowhere”-is defined by a lack of conscious awareness. There may be times when our minds are blank. At other times, our minds may go to a third place-neither here nor there, but nowhere. Our minds may also be “there,” or any place other than the present situation-they may travel to an upcoming vacation, a favorite memory, or even a to-do list as the morning commute turns into a traffic jam or the staff meeting becomes a tedious exercise in endurance. Our minds may be directed toward the task at hand-they may be “here” as we concentrate on our daily commute or focus on the contents of a meeting or conversation. The magic of our minds is often lost in the mundane details of our daily routines, but the remarkable flexibility of our mental lives remains. Like a prop in an illusionist's sleight of hand, they seem to flit from place to place-now here, now there, now …nowhere.

Seven experiments suggest that when the mind seems to disappear, there are times when we have simply failed to monitor its whereabouts-and there are times when it is actually gone. In the present research, we outline the properties of mind-blanking, differentiating this mental state from other mental states in terms of phenomenological experience, behavioral outcomes, and underlying cognitive processes. This mental state-mind-blanking-may represent an extreme decoupling of perception and attention, one in which attention fails to bring any stimuli into conscious awareness. At other times, however, people's minds may seem to go nowhere at all-they simply disappear. Many times, people's minds seem to go “somewhere else”-attention becomes disconnected from perception, and people's minds wander to times and places removed from the current environment (e.g., Schooler et al., 2004). Far from an exotic experience, this phenomenon seems to be a ubiquitous facet of human life (e.g., Killingsworth and Gilbert, 2010). People often feel like their minds and their bodies are in different places.

I think im losing my mind