Do you ever sometimes just think off track as you are reading a book or something?
I was reading LOTR: TTT last night, and at certain intervals I just go off track reading and thinking about other stuff… like that movies I just watched… or the skateboarding I did today.
But then when I review what I was ‘reading’ while I was thinking, I remembered it. But not Very well.
So basically, I read, my thoughts sidetrack, and then I come to and I had continued to read after my thoughts sidetracked.
Who else does it? Is it normal? Is this going to be found out and used to the destruction of mankind?
It happened to me a lot last night while I was reading Fallen Dragon by Peter Hamilton. Every time he went into the minute technical aspects of a spaceship or history of technology I’d gloss over and start thinking about something else. Then I’d have to re-read that section a couple more times before I’d get it through.
Heck, I do it while talking to people. Today I was having a “technical scientific discussion” at work that consisted mostly of me being talked to when I suddenly realized that I had just moments before stopped paying attention. I even knew that it was only one sentence ago, because I could mentally replay the general sounds that the guy had made after the last sentence I actually heard. But I couldn’t remember what he actually said. It was very odd. I kind of wondered where I went for those few seconds because when I “came to” I felt as though I had drifted quite far.
It was sort of like when you black out for just a second, but it seems like it must have been a long time…
I do that all the time. Especially during boring parts of an otherwise good book. I’ll stop, and think “I have no idea what I just read!”. I usually try to go back and re-read them.
My mind would wander when reading very dull scientific papers. I was aware that my eyes were still scanning the words, but when I regained full conciousness I would find chapters or even pages that I had read but not in any way parsed the meaning of.
Yup, happens all the time - and I haven’t found any way to avoid it - my mind just wanders off and I find I’ve read half a page and taken nothing in although I was reading. Just have to back track to the last bit that actually sunk in.
Yeah gyt it probably spells doom if the Martians find out, human kind’s fatal weakness.
It never really happened when I was a kid, but it happens a LOT now. I cannot read in say, the school cafeteria, or with a television on, or even on in another room, simply because my mind drifts a lot especially when the reading material is dull. (It usually is, I hate University Law :P) But anyway, it sure is annoying because I am a slow reader as it is.