Now I know that when people say read something they don’t mean read the words but not the meaning. They mean read it and comprehend it.
Thank god this relatable to so many of us, I was wondering if this was a symptom of a larger disorder whenever this happens to me.
The worst is when I’m reciting word for word technical information about chemistry or physics, because I often like to explain how things work to friends and family while I work on stuff, and then I’ll get interrupted or distracted and have no memory of wtf I was just saying for the last several minutes straight.
Lucid Reading?
I have to read out loud to myself to finish a book or an article.
It has made my reading comprehension go through the roof. And I didn’t understand that about myself for my first 45 years.
I call it “ADHD” because I damn sure was thinking about 3 other things while I was reading-notreading.
Cruise control.
I use the term Autopilot
That’s better. I think i mixed it up.
My brain goes into cruisepilot a lot.
I think it could be argued for a state of hypnosis, like how people drive for miles but just don’t remember how they did it entirely.
Difference is, you clearly drove and got there safely. You didn’t read the words on the page, you just moved your eyes across ink blots.
I was a professional driver for 20 years. I can attest that autopilot is a real thing.
It’s easy to monitor traffic on either side but end up daydreaming and miss a turn.
I’ve been out of the transport industry for five years now and I still occasionally find myself auto-piloting to places I used to deliver to. It’s so weird.
I drove black cars for a bit, I’ve definitely just taken the airport exit once when I was out of it. Glad I’m not alone.
Yeah. It’s not a big deal, but how you handle it really matters. (This is advice for anyone else reading; I’m sure you know.)
If you miss your turn because you’re daydreaming or whatever, just keep going. DO NOT swerve three lanes over to an exit or whatever other dumb shit. You fucked up. Deal with it without putting other people in danger.
I’ve done this with audio books.
I call it “five too many coffee cups today”. When I cut off from coffee, I become able to follow a text much better.
I can drink as many tea cups that I can without throwing up without getting the same jitter-effect so it doesn’t seem to be just caffeine.
Text-to-speech is your friend here.
I use a website called “speechify” but there are a lot of options.
Still helps to read along with of, but having that auditory input on tandem with visually reading will keep you on track like you’ve never experienced.
It’s called ADHD.
Sure. Or it’s just tiredness and completely normal to happen.
Ambien
“School”
That’s called “School”.
Disinterest
No I’ve done this when I was interested. This happens to me when I’m stressed about something and my brain goes off to think about it even though my eyes are going through the motions with the words on the page. Then I have to start again.
I did find this paper where somebody used the term “mindless reading”
Smallwood, J. (2011). Mind‐wandering while reading: attentional decoupling, mindless reading and the cascade model of inattention. Language and Linguistics Compass, 5(2), 63–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818x.2010.00263.x
I can sometimes do this without my attention even shifting. I’ll mentally read every word individually for a while, but forget to put them together to actually understand them.
I do that stupidly often when reading stories.
I think we’ve got some drivers around here who drive like that.
