"Attention / Awareness off" switch? Potential implications to lucidity

I've noticed a peculiar phenomenon while playing videogames yesterday. As I was playing a tank based shooter game online, my awareness would fade as I executed the in-game maneuvers and engaged the opponents.

Here's how I can explain it:
When I'm aware, there's a certain train of thought which is connected to awareness. I know where I am, know what I'm doing and am aware of my surroundings (more or less).

In that game, I could maintain that awareness until I started to engage an opponent, especially in very close quarters. Awareness became replaced by a set of efficient pre-defined maneuvers and tactics. The inner voice stopped or thoughts shifted to the engagement at hand. The fact that I'm playing a game no longer mattered, the engagement drew all of my attention.

The interesting thing is that even after the engagement was over, I kept in that state, looking for the next target. The awareness did not restart itself until some time later, mainly when the things cooled down.


This was a shocking discovery, maybe related to lucid dreaming. First, if awareness can be maintained in such an intense state, it may be a good place to practice techniques like "All day awareness", etc. Second, it may explain why some of my dreams have good control without lucidity - these are pre-learned techniques used in engagements.

No matter how I tried, the awareness /attention of the surroundings disappeared at the moment of intense engagement.

Could this be what the military training is attempting to accomplish? To instill the set of tactics to be executed even when rationally thinking about them is hard/impossible?

To deal with the issue, I created a set of techniques that I tried to re-capture attention:
Affirmation: I will become aware after each shot. Did not work due to very short exposure
Attempting to predict the future: "I will lose awareness in this engagement"
Becoming aware during the calm periods and consciously analyzing the next move.

It is still difficult.

I would love to hear what those of you who play games think about this? Can you relate? Can you maintain awareness of the external world while doing good in games?

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Originally Posted by Ev

In that game, I could maintain that awareness until I started to engage an opponent, especially in very close quarters. Awareness became replaced by a set of efficient pre-defined maneuvers and tactics. The inner voice stopped or thoughts shifted to the engagement at hand. The fact that I'm playing a game no longer mattered, the engagement drew all of my attention.

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When I'm playing a game, let's say Mortal Kombat for example, I don't need to think about the pre-defined maneuvers. If I'm doing a combo, I don't think, "up, forward-Y, B, B, A." I just do it out of muscle memory, it requires very little attention. When I have to adapt to the situation and think about strategy, that's why I become focused and engaged. Even then, I don't think I'm ever fully engaged in the game to a point where I'm completely unaware of my surroundings. I'm always feeling the controller in my hand, which is external to the game world. It pretty much grounds me in reality. Sports are very capable of fully engaging me though, because it is reality based. When I'm in an intense ping pong rally, the only thing I'm thinking about is strategy and execution. It doesn't require me to use my imagination to believe in imaginary circumstance (like in a VG) whilst engaging in physical maneuvers.

Movies are also very good at drawing me in, because they don't require any active engagement physically. I don't have to use a controller, I just sit there motionless. When I'm watching a good movie, I think it does draw all of my attention at parts.

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The interesting thing is that even after the engagement was over, I kept in that state, looking for the next target. The awareness did not restart itself until some time later, mainly when the things cooled down.

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I experience this during movies. During certain intense parts, my attention is fully engaged in the moment. Then they'll be a slow part, or a scene transition, and I'll come back to reality.

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This was a shocking discovery, maybe related to lucid dreaming. First, if awareness can be maintained in such an intense state, it may be a good place to practice techniques like "All day awareness", etc. Second, it may explain why some of my dreams have good control without lucidity - these are pre-learned techniques used in engagements.

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Yeah, I agree. ADA is probably the most effective technique for attaining LDs, but it's the most difficult.

Raphael, I think you nailed it. This is not the muscle memory, that aspect is pretty automatic. Still, I do not feel keyboard or the mouse until I shift my attention to them. It's the focus and engagement which draws the attention away from everything. The disbelief is suspended in both games and movies. Possibly even in dreams, since they also kinda follow a plot.

I've tried it today again, and it's almost impossible to keep the observer kind of attention when I'm intensely focused on the activity. I think reality checks and dream signs may attempt to counter this state of enthrallment and restore awareness. Affirmations seem to work in between, but not during the intense moments.

The fact of acting with such high level of engagement is pretty disturbing. Even if I try to keep awareness, that intention is washed away once the intensity of the engagement picks up.

Who else can relate, let's figure out what's happening here!

It's too early to tell, so I'll post this more as a note to myself.

Today I tried to clip a penny next to my monitor as a reminder to become aware. And half way through a game, I realized that this penny is a symbol, a token which stands for something else. this made me realize that a lot of talismans, religious imagery and sculpture also stand for something, and also acts as a reminder to maintain awareness in our daily lives. I've never though of that like that before.

Late in the day, when I took a couple valerians and a melatonin pill to calm down (i'm adjusting my sleep pattern), I suddenly realized that I'm seeing "the big picture" - the visual field that I was was aware of was about 6x the size of the usual one, and the attention was diffused yet present . I saw the whole picture before me, and also became aware of space, the multitude of objects and their arrangement. This is a quite new feeling, maybe it's the sedatives :P Yet now I'm somewhat capable of seeing this way, because I know how it feels.

I played a couple games with this awareness, and with headphones off, and the results were better, although I still could not stay aware through the whole thing.