Consciousness blip

[radfrac_archive_full]

Something I wrote to a friend of mind today and wanted to ask you, too:

Has it ever happened to you that you were, for example, reading -- doing background research for a report or a paper, say -- and you skimmed over some piece of information and thought, not entirely consciously, something like "Well, that's related, but not important enough to bother about," then later (maybe too late) realized that this was exactly the sort of thing you did need to pay attention to? Was this realization then followed, if you recognized that this mental sleight had happened at all, by the suspicion that your mind diverted your attention away from this information precisely because it was important?

I'm thinking this might be a mental habit of people who have had to practice a lot of denial for one reason or another. It happens to me and when it does it unsettles me.

Comments

[seaopaque.livejournal.com]

Yes to the first question. Don't always realize at the time that what I'm reading is something that I'll need. And a very slight yes to the second question. But it's more like, "I'm lazy. I didn't want to take the time to make note of that possibly important information, so I didn't." So it's more like my mind diverted my attention so I'd have less work to do. Less malicious than your proposition. Although I am good at denial...