flow (psychology)

[Longshanks]

Flow is the state of 'being in the zone,' or being so absorbed in what you are doing that your sense of self disappears. It's a really great state to achieve, but it's difficult to do intentionally. I experience flow when I am practicing watersports, pushing my skills and my strength in an environment that is stimulating and challenging but not to the point of being hopelessly difficult.
Wikipedia has a nice intro
Here is a scientific paper about flow
I think that it's possible for some people, particularly extroverts, to experience flow while engaging others in conversation. I know that I've achieved this only a few times, and it was a very rewarding experience when it happened. What is your experience? When/where do you experience or have you experienced flow?

 

[Eric]

I remember reading up on a lot of this stuff awhile back, I can't remember for the life of me why. I've experienced it a lot, and it really has to do with forward momentum and accumulation of experience, which also drives auto-piloting. At the pinnacle of skill, such as sports, things become effortless looking. It flows rather than looking like a mechanism.

There's a lot of stuff on attaining flow, some papers on achieving it on command through mental hypnosis.

God, that's going to bug me that I don't know why I started researching it.

 

[Eric]

http://www.zoneofexcellence.ca/Journal/ ... pnosis.pdf

 

[Little Jester]

Remember it came up in Daniel Goleman's book about emotional intelligence and I was like 'hmm so that's what happens when I'm on a roll with my music producing'.
Then also rememberd that that's why Michael Schumacher would get out of his Ferrari back in the day, way ahead of the pack, without breaking a sweat in subtropical temperatures, while all his competition would come out totally sweaty and clearly exhausted. During last olympics could also spot those olympic record achievers mostly come out quite good, compared to competition.

Tried searching for the state of flow in myself, so that I can 'flip it on' whenever I want it, but found it impossible to force it in myself (for now).
Yesterday I got it by just doing and going, not thinking about it. Finished a piece of music in a single day, that would normally take me weeks, maybe months or in some weird cases even years to complete something similar. And it felt empowering. It's amazing

Is this state something you can research, study and then consciously put yourself into? Or is it something that just happens?
That's what I'm wondering now.. Don't know if it is worth it reading up on this again...

Edit: Guess it's time to dig into what Eric posted