What happens when your brain goes on auto pilot?

Question

I drive a lot, and sometimes I just “scare” back into reality and I realize I wasn’t even paying attention the last few seconds, and it feels weird. Why and how does this happen?

In: 2885

Answer 1

There is a state of mind called “alpha state” we go into this for around 10 minutes of every hour, generally it happens when we don’t really need to think too hard such as walking the same routes or stacking the same shelf etc.

Also when we do the tasks or walk routes that we do on a regular basis we can only see about knee height up to eye height, this is why so many trips happen on routine journeys but maybe something has changed.

So for example, if you park your car in the same spot and walk the same route to your desk every day, the likely hood is that if one day someone left a pallet or pot hole in the ground you’d maybe walk along “day dreaming/or alpha state” and trip over it, and vice versa if it’s always been there you’d maybe not necessarily “see” it but mentally you know it’s there and you’d avoid it even while not paying attention.

Answer 2

There is a state of mind called “alpha state” we go into this for around 10 minutes of every hour, generally it happens when we don’t really need to think too hard such as walking the same routes or stacking the same shelf etc.

Also when we do the tasks or walk routes that we do on a regular basis we can only see about knee height up to eye height, this is why so many trips happen on routine journeys but maybe something has changed.

So for example, if you park your car in the same spot and walk the same route to your desk every day, the likely hood is that if one day someone left a pallet or pot hole in the ground you’d maybe walk along “day dreaming/or alpha state” and trip over it, and vice versa if it’s always been there you’d maybe not necessarily “see” it but mentally you know it’s there and you’d avoid it even while not paying attention.