Thread: Daze

I agree, sort of. A daze such as the one you experience is just another type of trance. You blank out. Perhaps things are happening around you that you are aware of and can acknowledge, but you're not paying them any mind at all, and unintentionally so. This is just a trance. A similar thing happens when you drive to a place you have been to many times before. You are obviously conscious, aware on some level of precisely where you are, but you can arrive to your destination, and not fully realize what all just happened.

That's called a trance or a pattern. It happens probably several times a day for most people, even if it lasts only a fraction of a second. Another example is a handshake. When someone presents their hand to you to shake your hand, for the average person, there is no conscious thought involved in raising your hand to meet theirs. That's another example of a trance.

Cashiers- beginning to scan items and place them in the bag sets them into a trance. Granted, these are all different types of trances than what you are describing, but they have the same basic characteristics- the fully conscious mind with which you think goes into the background, and the subconscious takes its place, thus you keep your ability to consciously think, and know what's going on, but your subconscious is more present than the conscious mind with which you think.

I hope that made sense. I don't think I explained it particularly well.

I want to understand the psychological reasons for this phenomenon, although I feel that many in this thread are talking about slightly different feelings.

I was washing my hands just ten minutes ago, and after I dried them off I stopped in front of the mirror to make faces at myself (I do this often). Just as I get an itchy feeling on my nose and I raise my hand to scratch it, my mind goes completely blank and my eyes lose focus. Although I'm not staring at any one thing in particular, I'm staring in a certain direction, and it feels as if my attention is HELD there. I also feel like this action becomes a priority over everything else I would have otherwise been doing (in this case scratching an itch on my nose, and we know how demanding those can be). There appears to be a lack of any significant thought during this time, just a light awareness of your surroundings. But this isn't something I feel is controllable. It comes unexpectedly and can last anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds, at least for myself.

The experience, in the end, is altogether very pleasant. I'd like to say that it's comparable to yawning to some extent, even though there are characteristics that are unique to each.