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[NF] So unobservant of my physical surroundings it's frightening

SilkRoad

Lay the coin on my tongue
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No wonder my parents are always telling me to be careful when I cross the road (and I'm not 8 years old.) They obviously know/sense that I don't know what's going on around me.

This afternoon at my office I went downstairs to the postroom to get some chips (they call them crisps here!) from the vending machine. The postroom has been rearranged and I asked one of the guys "is the vending machine still here?" He looked amused and said "no, it's just outside the door." I had just walked past THREE vending machines.

I have also been known to not notice when a tree has been chopped down outside my house. That sort of thing.

It sort of amuses and scares me at the same time. Of course, it is especially likely to happen if I am preoccupied with many complicated and tiring thoughts and though that's kind of always the case for me (or most of the time), it has been particularly so this week.
 

CuriousFeeling

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I know how this is, it happens to me a lot! Mom could tell me to go down to the freezer and get a package of frozen peas, and I'd go down, and during the process I'd get so lost in my own thoughts that I'd end up getting down to the freezer, and ask myself "what was it that she wanted again?" or I'd pick out the wrong thing, walk upstairs and remember I got the wrong thing and go back down.

It's really dangerous for me when music is involved. I could be carrying on conversation with someone, and if music is playing, I find it so hard to concentrate on them because my brain is focused on the thoughts/emotions that the music is giving me.
 

SilkRoad

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It's really dangerous for me when music is involved. I could be carrying on conversation with someone, and if music is playing, I find it so hard to concentrate on them because my brain is focused on the thoughts/emotions that the music is giving me.

Sometimes I think that's how I'm going to die. I'll be walking along the street listening to some of my favourite music, either happy as Larry or rather preoccupied, and then BAM. A bus. I won't even see it.
 

Eckhart

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Hahahah, it happens to me all the time! It IS frightening, but somehow I end up laughing about it everytime. Like searching something where several things stand and I can just not find it, but in fact it is just in front of me.

Or I go down in house because I wanted to get something for me, then I get distracted by anything and spend there more time than I wanted and later go up again. The only thing which I forgot to take with me was that what was the reason I went down after all, so I have to go down again.

I often think I will not be able to survive alone with that attitude.
 

BerberElla

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I think the amount of dented lamp posts or better yet the dent I bashed into my forehead attest to my airheadedness. :blush:

If I have my ipod on and I am walking outside, it truly is a wonder that I am not dead yet because all that is left of me is a shell, whilst my spirit is off travelling somewhere with the music. :laugh:
 

WinterWriter

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I can picture myself walking past vending machines and not seeing them. I guess my senses are just tuned into a different station. I did notice that my friend was down about something before she said a word. I notice things other people overlook. The unfortunate side effect is I overlook stuff most people notice.

As a writer, I'm currently training myself to be more visually observant. It's hard going.
 
P

Phantonym

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If I have my ipod on and I am walking outside, it truly is a wonder that I am not dead yet because all that is left of me is a shell, whilst my spirit is off travelling somewhere with the music. :laugh:

I stopped listening to music while walking outside about 10 years ago, after I was almost hit by a street car because of it.

I guess my senses are just tuned into a different station.

Yes, this is so true for myself as well. The thing is, in a way I am aware of things around me but the details escape me completely unless I am consciously focused on them. It's as if the sensory data I receive from the environment has a delayed response. I can walk on the street, I register people (or rather blobs) coming towards me and I can avoid bumping into them (it seems automatic) but it's always like in some sort of a haze, I'm so deep in thought. I can look straight at things, my mind registers it, but it emerges a while later.

For example, the other day I was choosing fruit at my local supermarket. I registered a person standing next to me, I remember thinking that it was a male but it hit me afterwards that he was actually my professor and I didn't greet him. I have these moments all the time. :doh:
 

Liason

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Mmm yes. I've near been hit by a bus over thirty times in the past two years or so. My friends often pull me out of the road just in the nick of time. Apparently I tend to walk in the middle of the road and not notice whilst spacing out. A lot.
 

BerberElla

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For example, the other day I was choosing fruit at my local supermarket. I registered a person standing next to me, I remember thinking that it was a male but it hit me afterwards that he was actually my professor and I didn't greet him. I have these moments all the time. :doh:

I do this so often, I think people think I am extremelly rude, because often by the time it's registered that I knew the person I just walked straight past without greeting, the person is long gone. :blush:
 

SilkRoad

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I do this so often, I think people think I am extremelly rude, because often by the time it's registered that I knew the person I just walked straight past without greeting, the person is long gone. :blush:

I get "you looked like you were in a world of your own" a lot :D If I blanked someone and they bring it up and I get the impression they may have been offended, I usually just say "I seriously am in a world of my own when I'm walking/listening to music, I've done this to so many people it's not even funny, please don't take it personally" :D
 

Lightyear

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I am in general fine in traffic (though I can't stand driving a car) and don't really run into things but I am sometimes so oblivious to details of my surroundings. For example it took me months to notice that the wall directly behind my oven is made up of tiles of all sorts of colours. Or that the lampshade above the eating table is pink. Or that directly above our letter box is a big red "No smoking" sign. Also I generally notice when something has changed on my street but I couldn't tell you what used to be there before.
 

scortia

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I don't know how young most of you guys are... but once I was well into college, and even moreso after college, I became more observant. Observant, at least, while at work. While I'm focused on working I notice everything, but all the rest of the time I have a mind-switch that flips off all short term memory. I put things down and forget that I have before I even put it on the table.
 

Cloudblue

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Am also unobservant too.
Sometimes when am looking for things, its right in front of face and I cant see it...

I think it is a combination of I and N, Introversion directs more concentration inward, while iNtuition gathers information about their environment beyond the five senses...
 

SilkRoad

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I don't know how young most of you guys are... but once I was well into college, and even moreso after college, I became more observant. Observant, at least, while at work. While I'm focused on working I notice everything, but all the rest of the time I have a mind-switch that flips off all short term memory. I put things down and forget that I have before I even put it on the table.

I'm 30 and I don't think I'm getting much better...sometimes I think I am getting worse...it depends how preoccupied I am and what's going on in my life, really.

I notice weird things. I will ALWAYS notice if some random person walks by wearing a U2 t-shirt (or even a band I don't like much, but maybe my brother likes them or something) but sometimes I think I would notice the U2 t-shirt, but not the fact that Bono is the one wearing it :blush: I invariably notice if someone is wearing a "Canada" or "British Columbia" shirt too...ah, I'm a slightly homesick ex-pat. I think my eye is drawn to the written word and symbols.
 

highlander

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No problems with traffic here, but in college my roommate put a 5 foot high plant in the room. He asked me if I noticed anything different. I kept looking around and couldn't tell. I think it's an N thing. Then you notice obscure things at times that others don't.
 

SilkRoad

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No problems with traffic here, but in college my roommate put a 5 foot high plant in the room. He asked me if I noticed anything different. I kept looking around and couldn't tell. I think it's an N thing. Then you notice obscure things at times that others don't.

Plants are definitely one of the things that I never ever notice!! Even if they're 5 foot high...they would probably need to be man-eating triffids and chase me around for me to notice... :blush:
 
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