"Dissolving" into patterns

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I don't know how to describe it better, but for example you sit somewhere and there is a wallpaper with patterns on it and you get so focused on this pattern, that you practically "dissolve" in it, there is nothing else exsisting at the moment, you do not hear or see the outside anymore (eg. people talking to you or anything) and when you "get out of it", there has an amount of time passed.
How do you experience patterns you see?

This was happening to me with the pixels on my computer screen right before I snapped out of it to read this thread title at the top of the forum.

I spend a lot of time staring at patterns, wall dents, wood grains, carpet fibers, water droplets, black and white pattern of sunlight on window screens, bristles on hairbrush, skin textures on hands and arms, etc etc etc.

I really enjoy doing this. There are no thoughts in my mind when I am doing this.

Yes I do this a lot too. I have been interested in patterns since I was a kid. I love looking at ceiling and floors and paying attention to sidewalks(which pieces of concrete are biggest /smallest)
As a kid in elementary school I was obsessed with staring at the one rig in the hallway. It reminded me of bristles on a hairbrush. I would often get told to snap out of it lol.

I also love watching the patterns that the Windows Music Player has. Its so easy to get lost in

Last edited by MusicIsLife2Me on 07 Feb 2012, 8:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i call it being "stuck in my eyes". I think its a very large part of my self to world interaction, and could explain why I studied visual art. for me, its all about looking at patterns and building them and looking at them and finding them and copying them and looking at them. ahhhhhh.

I love patterns. They're hypnotic to me. I also like things that spin in a regular manner. I was in the gym and I got totally fixated on the spinning bit of the cross-trainer that someone was using. Luckily I was sitting down waiting at the time.

I can watch a pattern as a type of stimming (I think), but I don't dissolve in it involuntarily, no.

I was wondering about this just the other day. In college we have this kind of grey, peppered flooring a bit like this:



When I'm waiting outside the classroom I find myself staring at the floor in a certain way that makes it flash blue and yellow. I can't really describe it, but I have to get in the "zone" in order for it to work and it only works on that exact flooring (looking at the picture on my screen doesn't work, for example). I guess it's a kind of visual stimming but I never thought aboutit that way before.

Yes, I do this. I used to deliberately "visually stim" this way quite frequently. Now I don't do it on purpose so much, but it still happens.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqQX3_BdHD4&feature=related[/youtube]

TheSunAlsoRises

Thank you for sharing your experiences.
I can relate a lot to what you are writing.
It is involuntarily and indeed in a way relaxing, but as it does happen many times throughout the day, I have the feeling, that it makes me more disfunctional at the same time too. As it can happen in conversations or whatever I am doing. That is one reason why I don't feel myself able to eg. learn to drive a car. I guess, my mind could always find a pattern to get dissolved into.

I've had a different experience with visual patterns. I find them extremely distracting, especially when they are in my visual field when I'm in a "performance" activity (pretty much anytime I'm in a participatory social setting).
After reading this thread, I remembered once going to the doctor and feeling totally spaced out, unable to concentrate at all, until I finally blurted out ... "Can we switch seats?" to to the doctor. He was sitting in front of a venetian window blind, and the pattern breaking around his head was so utterly distracting that I was going into a trance-like state.

I don't mind patterns when I'm alone, but they must be simple, or organic (like leaf patterns). I can't wear clothes with any patterns. Solids only.

I'm still struggling with heavy social conditioning which causes me to believe on a sub-conscious level that any activity, be it detrimental or not, in which I "check out", is bad. Looking at patterns is one of those activities, because when I do it, I'm unable to respond appropriately to social cues. I learned so early that if I could figure out what was expected of me socially, and then force myself to control all my activities and reactions that fell outside those expectations, I'd be safe.
It sucks btw, that box. But I'm aware that I can change it. So that is good news.

Patterns, oh indeed yes. Falling into them, somewhat, but not trance-like as others have described. I have full control and can still concentrate on other things going on around me.

I like to look at patterns on walls and on the floor, especially if it involves tiles. But I also like to look at unordered structures which look more natural, but then it's more because of the many details you can look at.
When it comes to patterns, I like to look at them and let them dissolve....I focus on switching my eye-sight to one tile or focus on the atmosphere which creates visual effects comparable to those of lenticular printing. I almost don't do this anymore but when I was a child I liked to do this fairly often.
I sometimes also look at asphalt floors or similar colored and structured floors and they start to look like if they are moving in waves. But I guess this last one must be some kind of imbalance in my gravitational perception or something like that.

I have this feeling too. I can get lost into them and have no idea what's going on around me. It's a good way to pass time if you're in a very long line in a waiting room. I also take photographs of very ordinary things with patterns in them, like the stitching on a lamp shade I had, a diamond pattern on a glass door and of floor tiles and curtains. I should really start doing that again.

I also love the structure of some buildings I pass on my walks. One had so many straight lines and squares that I took a photo of it.

Sometimes I forget that I'm not the only one who looks at ceilings and into corners. It's comforting to know that because I know people think that's the weirdest part of me.

I don't dissolve into patterns quite like you do but I am comforted by them. I get a great deal of satisfaction when I figure out a more difficult pattern.

Nice. I greatly enjoyed that. Always nice to see why there's a mathematical explanation for how bad Neils's tie is.

Speaking of A Beautiful Mind and the topic of this thread in general, I tend to get lost in my thoughts about special interests rather than in patterns. Like, for instance, if I see or hear something that reminds me of a particular scene in A Beautiful Mind, I will "re-live" the scene in my head, followed by much more. Then, I'll "wake up" and realize that I've been tuned in to the "movie in my head" and will re-focus on what's going on around me. Most of my free thinking time is spent re-living special interest movie and TV show scenes. Great way to fight boredom.