Zoning while you're "asleep"

Or daydreaming, really.

Does this happen to you?

I noticed that sometimes my mind starts to drift off and my reflexes take a backseat to my subconscious. I start thinking about ridiculous things but I somehow manage to play as normal as I would if I were to just focus on nothing but zoning.

I literally "zone out" and my subconscious starts to play for me. Like, I'm looking at the screen, but my mind isn't actually processing what I'm doing, it's just focusing on my thoughts. Basically, my mind and my fingers are doing two completely different things.

5 - 7 zones later I wake up wondering "How did I get to this part of the track?"

Yes, this is a well documented psychological phenomenon. Its called boredom ;)
Seriously though, I get this too when playing zone mode, which I don't do very often.

lmao!
Yeah, I guess that's one explanation.

:lol Golgofier.

I think this is quite a common state and while it won`t bring me my fastest performances it sometimes helps me overcome my struggles on a track I`m fighting with, then I find I`m flying perfect laps without trying at all. Similarly to this, sometimes I find myself driving into town and not remembering a large part of the journey. This needs to involve perfect laps of the roundabouts too or turns complicated I guess.

Humanoid Autopilot :rock ROFL!

This often happens to me after my second or third attempt on a track and especially on tracks with more than 75 zones possible (pure4, anulpha...). After a while I "wake up" and tell myself I have to concentrate and generally that's when I hit the wall and ruine my series of PL... :brickwall

Yeah, in Zone sometimes I and i've heard others go into a kind of a trance which, believe it or not, is actually better to play in than when you're really concentrating as you don't feel the pressure and make literally NO mistakes as you are piloting the track subconsciously.

Nice feeling :).

Whenever I zone on Mallavol I always forget where I am on the track atleast once. Mainly near the end, I end up turning the wrong way :(

To me, it's getting into the ZEN state of mind when it comes to zoning. I've
experienced the same kind of thing downhill mountain biking in real life. Extreme
sports people refer to this as "getting into the flow" and not having to think,
just going with it. Really fun when it happens, I tell you.

I noticed this happening often, especially in Zone mode. I start thinking about all kinds of things, while my subconscious takes the wheel.

I pilot a lot better in that state, as well. The thing that mostly wakes me up is the voice saying "perfect lap". :P

It certainly happened to me while playing Fusion's Zone mode, so much to the point that if I so much as twitched I lost it. At high zones it really was a subconscious thing, you had no time to react so you were relying on knowing what you had to do and hoping your hands would do the rest :)

I don't know, it usually doesn't last for me. I find myself going along, then it's interrupted by "my nose itches", "wish my chair would stop creaking", "why do my neighbors let the dog bark like this for hours", "i want to watch summer of sam" "my leg itches", "that mother (#*$ing fly buzzing in and out of my periphery is going to die", "STOP #*$(ing calling me people", "ProblemSolver has hit Zone 150, I bet he does his laundry while at this level", "damn, that (#*$er technically has gotten a double-zeus - why even bother?" "my hand itches"

No "in the zone" for me, sadly.

lol that's fun :D

sometimes it happens to me to have some moments where I'm just absent, not really sleeping, but just far away in my thoughts, it happens to me quite often even when I'm not on WO, but yes, I can't tell how I manage to play this way, but it usually happens at zen speed, I guess that's why I hate super zen so much, because it kinda wakes me up and I'm only ready for subsonic.

LOL! This happens to me every time I play a game with a standard "routine". Zone is the same track every lap, so it becomes automatic after a few laps. I have the same thing with games like Tetris or Super Stardust HD. Especially through the easier stages. As stages get harder, I find that more concentration is needed and I "wake up".

LOL, this is exactly why 'zone' is called 'zone'!
The first time I noticed this phenomenon was when playing 2097, and noticed I got better lap times.
Its like the eyes make a direct connection to the hands controlling the controller, without the conscious mind inbetween. The mind then has time to wander in different directions, while the eyes communicate with the finger-muscles directly.
And that is exactly the state I hope to get into everytime I switch on WipEout. It is what WipEout is about.

If you drive a motorbike (especially a quick one) this state of mind takes over and is an essential part of the feeling of a good ride. In fact , if you want to be a good motorbike rider , you as a person needs to get 'integrated' into the machine, so actually this 'Zen state' where all inputs from the street go through the machine into your subconsious and back would be the perfect closed circuit for perfect driving BUT this flow feeling can take over resulting in the loss of being focused and accidents can happen. That's why riding a motorbike is probably close to the experience of piloting an AG craft ... with the first its the delicate physical balance of road machine and driver , with the latter it's the breakneck speed wich doesn't allow for too much 'consious' decisions but have the potential taking your mind to other levels :D