Mind Wandering

[DMC]

Mind Wandering is when you (aim to) carry out a task, but starts to think about something that is unrelated to it.

For instance, playing a shooter and during the game considering what you will have for dinner later.
Mind wandering can occur even without awareness. A school book example (litterally speaking) is when you're reading a boring school book while thinking about something else, and only after a few paragraphs suddenly realize you didn't take in any info at all and you need to go back to where your mind started wandering.
Talking about shmups again, this can of course make you play worse since your focus is taken away from the game. But Mind wandering has also been speculated to lead to creative thinking, so the questions:

does your mind wander when you play?
In what situations? easy levels, difficult ones? When you're in a positive/negative mood, nervous etc?
what's the consequences? do you die, find new strategies etc?
What do you think about it?
Strategies to deal with it?

I would guess better players are superior at preventing mind wandering from occuring. or maybe they suffer the same problems; sirkraiken, icarus, plasmo etc?

But even if your think about your task, it could either be done mindfully (I think of the "in the zone-experience" people often talk about which is really sought-after but unfortunately relatively rare imo) or reappraising the task (like "now I have two bombs left for the boss and need to no-miss him to get a new hi-score - so focus, stupid!"...of course followed by "lol, I knew it, why didn't I bomb??"). These latter thoughts can interfere greatly with your performance, as I personally experienced far too many times. I experience these so-called Task-related interferences very much in the end of a run, and don't know how to get rid of 'em.

Discuss!

[mirkvid]

interesting. I find that my mind usually starts wandering when I....man, I'm hungry.

[EinhanderZwei]

- does your mind wander when you play?
Yeah, but never really often during shmups or FPSes. It usually wanders when I'm playing RPGs or cutscene-heavy games like MGS

- In what situations? easy levels, difficult ones? When you're in a positive/negative mood, nervous etc?
Usually it wanders when things are going right, and it occurs more often for danmakus

- what's the consequences? do you die, find new strategies etc?
Usually I either bite the dust or stop giving a shit that I've bit the dust

- What do you think about it?
I have enough frustrations apart from the videogames, so I don't want to get over-nervous. Mind wandering actually helps me in this, but it has a side effect: the more my mind wanders, the less the challenge gets, so I'm trying to keep balance between concentration and wandering

- Strategies to deal with it?
I don't have any, so it would be cool if someone shares them

[DMC]

mirkvid: Yea, I think hungry is very common example. or anything that's currently very relevant for you personally; like if you haid a big unsolved argument with somebody earlier - it will probably intrude in your thoughts while you play.

[mirkvid]

If my mind start wandering I usually take a breather. Otherwise I just start getting frustrated at my performance. Skill based games like shooters are not relaxing to me when I play seriously. Sometimes I gotta step away to re-focus. (And eat)

[Udderdude]

Don't panic.

[Dragoforce]

I play at my best when I let my mind wander away. When I remain completly focused I tend to lock my thoughts to certain parts. Let's say I have difficulties with an upcoming boss. I focus and think about how the beat the boss before I actually reach him leading to a situation where I die on some simple enemies right before the boss because my focus was on the boss. The most common situation though is when I look at my score and think about that rather than paying full attention to the game itself.

I perform at my best when I am thinking about unintresting things (or nothing at all) when playing. I guess that's what you mean by "in the zone"

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I think there are 2 types of mind wandering 1 good and 1 bad.

Whats bad for u while doing any hard task is eather doing it in a half arsed way / thinking about food or anyother things unimportant to the task in hand. Whats even worse is worrying about what youre doing that never helps.

What can be good is thinking about what youre actually doing like for example a bullet pattern is comming up and u usually die dodging it. Thinking about another route to take is obvously a good thing to think about. Doing this might be good if your playing a game which you havn't memorised that much and need to think of routes to take.

Then there's times when its best to (as someone once said to me) "stop thinking about what you're doing and just do it". Thats for when you know what you should be doing so its best to stay 100% concentrated on what you're doing, been "in the zone" as u say.

[charlie chong]

i suffer from this badly very very badly !!
will answer yor questions in a bit!

[charlie chong]

does your mind wander when you play?

often ,in fact pretty much every go once i've got used to the early levels of a shooter

In what situations? easy levels, difficult ones? When you're in a positive/negative mood, nervous etc?

i pretty much play easy levels 1-3 on autopilopt every time as the muscle movements are so ingrained in your memory that you don't think about the game that much.. later levels i try to focus but sometimes i forget and my mind keeps wandering.the main cause for mind wandering for me is any negative situations from my life that i can't stop thinking about,arguments etc blah blah

what's the consequences? do you die, find new strategies etc?

i die

What do you think about it?

it pisses me off

Strategies to deal with it?

try and focus but some nights you just realize your mind isn't up to concentrating so then i just let my mind wander away and try and find new techniques and paths instead of just trying to get through the game as tightly as possible

[DMC]

I have enough frustrations apart from the videogames, so I don't want to get over-nervous. Mind wandering actually helps me in this

good thinking, haven't looked at it at that way. that's probably also where creativity kicks in, if at all.

Dragonforce: do you really perform at best when you think about unrelated things? like dinner, memories, plans etc?

[Icarus]

I would guess better players are superior at preventing mind wandering from occuring. or maybe they suffer the same problems; sirkraiken, icarus, plasmo etc?

does your mind wander when you play?
In what situations? easy levels, difficult ones? When you're in a positive/negative mood, nervous etc?
what's the consequences? do you die, find new strategies etc?
What do you think about it?
Strategies to deal with it?

As someone who is trained to think creatively, my mind loves to wander, all the time. The most common situation is when I am in unfamiliar territory, and have to rely on reflexes rather than strategy to survive.

I find that the best way to deal with mental wanderlust is to wrestle it into creating a running mental commentary, to use it in conceiving and testing experimental strategies, and to tie it to improving visual awareness abilities. I've always found that by doing this, I come up with new ideas, techniques, and a better understanding of the game systems through my own interactions with the game in question.

I think that mental wandering isn't all that bad if it is used in a positive way. Consider these two situations: if you're going about the game in a half-arsed way, and thinking about something else while you're doing it, you're going to see failure constantly. On the other hand, if you're totally focused on the game only, one little unexpected mistake can jolt you right out of your focus, and that's when more mistakes start to happen. A little mental distraction in this regard is a good thing to have, if used to your benefit.

Strategies to deal with it? Nothing I haven't already mentioned. Use your mental commentary to help yourself develop new strategies, and to improve your observation skills, and you'll see far more improvement than from purely casual play.

[Aquas]

Mental commentary, yes! Keep yourself positively stimulated in this regard to the game, and you'll do fine. That's usually how I get my best runs. To remember all the little tricks and techniques in succession, especially. With that, training yourself to pay attention effeciently. During popcorn enemies, let your mind rest, for example. I guess it's also a state of mind.

[DMC]

I think that mental wandering isn't all that bad if it is used in a positive way. Consider these two situations: if you're going about the game in a half-arsed way, and thinking about something else while you're doing it, you're going to see failure constantly. On the other hand, if you're totally focused on the game only, one little unexpected mistake can jolt you right out of your focus, and that's when more mistakes start to happen. A little mental distraction in this regard is a good thing to have, if used to your benefit.

I've been looking at mind wandering in an all or none-fashion, not really considering a little MW being beneficial, thanks for the heads up. when you say mental commentary, do you mean saying out loud what you think at the very time you're playing it, or comment what you just did earlier, reviewing your performance so to speak, or what?

[dpful]

I take out frustrations on games sometimes, like, "my job sucked today, those popcorn enemies are my job, blam blam blam".

[Dragoforce]

Dragonforce: do you really perform at best when you think about unrelated things? like dinner, memories, plans etc?

Unrelated things that I don't care about much. I still focus 95% on the game, but the 5% that I spend thinking about what the sky looks like just helps to take away the nervousness.

Edit: You guys already mentioned I see, so it must be the right thing

[DMC]

it's those 5% that were missing in your twinbee yahoo score! J/k, you may be right and good if it works for you.

[agustusx]

I think my mind wanders more when on easier stages or games than more difficult ones. Often I think about unrelated things that suck in life, or simply about a later challenge in the game.

In more difficult situations I tend to repeat words into my head so I don't start the wrong type of mental commentary and space out. For example I might keep thinking "dodge, dodge, .." or in Futari I might look at the counter, see that its blue and think "laser, laser, laser".

If I overthink things about the game while playing the performance gets worse. I try to keep the thoughts to what should I be doing now, and do I have bombs in stock

[charlie chong]

thinking about something else while you're doing it, you're going to see failure constantly. .

exactly my problem. i had been even thinking about making this same very thread because it has really been bothering me with mushi futari 1.5 original because i keep copping fast bullets straight in the face on level 3+4 when my mind wanders for a split second. i try to focus but 2 minutes later my mind wandering again out of habit. mebbes your running commentary technique would stop this happening so much. i have definitely found myself doing this before unconsiously but i might try making more of a concerted effort to do this to try break my wandering habit.

sometimes tho i manage to survive all the way through the game(probbly flukey luck) before i even realize my minds been wandering. it's kind of like when you've been driving and you realize you can't really remember driving the last 10-20 miles or so

[TrevHead (TVR)]

as what icarus and i have been saying it is best to try and train your mind into thinking the right things, It's worrying thats a big no no in my book as its totally counter productive.

Then again it can be sometimes better to just not over-analise things

[Icarus]

I've been looking at mind wandering in an all or none-fashion, not really considering a little MW being beneficial, thanks for the heads up. when you say mental commentary, do you mean saying out loud what you think at the very time you're playing it, or comment what you just did earlier, reviewing your performance so to speak, or what?

Not really speaking out loud, so to speak, but rather making mental notes on what you're seeing as you play - stuff such as "that bullet pattern looks like it's aimed", "this big enemy usually comes up from behind at this point" and "I wonder if there's a safe spot there". I find that it helps to train my visual awareness if I think about what I'm seeing when I play, because then I can start to identify ideas for strategies, techniques, and noting what parts usually give me the most problems, for later work.

The thing I've noticed about a lot of players, is that they don't consider that a shooting game is very rigid in structure and design. If you can train yourself to identify the structure - through observation, mental commentary and experimentation - you can then start to devise methods to beat the structure.