Hyperfocus is an intense form of mental concentration or visualization that focuses consciousness on a narrow subject, or beyond objective reality and onto subjective mental planes, daydreams, concepts, fiction, the imagination, and other objects of the mind. MIND ( Moving In New Directions) (est 1975 is an alternative education high school in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Attention is the Cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things Consciousness has been defined loosely as a constellation of attributes of Mind such as Subjectivity, Self-awareness, Sentience, and the Reality, in everyday usage means "the state of things as they actually exist" The mental plane, or world of thought, in Hermeticism, Theosophical, Rosicrucian, Aurobindonian, and New Age thought refers A daydream is a visionary fantasy experienced while awake especially one of happy pleasant thoughts hopes or ambitions The term "concept" is traced back to 1554–60 ( l conceptum - something conceived but what is today termed "the classical theory of concepts" is the theory of Aristotle Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real More specifically fiction is an imaginative form of Narrative, one of the four basic Rhetorical modes. Imagination is the ability to form Mental images/sounds/feelings or the ability to Spontaneously Generate images/sounds/feelings within one's own Mind An object of the mind is an object which exists in the Imagination, but can only be represented or modeled in the Real world.
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Interpretations
From a neurodiversity perspective, hyperfocus is a mental ability that is a natural expression of personality. Neurodiversity is an idea that asserts that atypical (neurodivergent neurological development is a normal human difference that is to be tolerated and respected as any other However, hyperfocus can also be regarded as a psychiatric diagnosis, as a distraction from reality and a symptom of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), adult attention-deficit disorder (AADD), or autism spectrum disorders. Psychiatry is a medical specialty which exists to study, prevent, and treat Mental disorders in Humans Psychiatric Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD is a neurobehavioral developmental disorder affecting about 3-5% of the world's population This article is intended to focus on the condition in adults See also main article Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. The autism spectrum, also called autism spectrum disorders (ASD or autism spectrum conditions (ASC with the word autistic sometimes replacing autism
Some people say that hyperfocus is an important element of meditation. Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness In common parlance, hyperfocus is sometimes referred to as "zoning out. " In sports, it is sometimes referred to as "being in the zone". Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus full involvement and success in the process of the
Debate
The term hyperfocus is not in common use among academics, and seldom appears in peer-reviewed articles. However, related terms such as concentration, absorption, and 'focused attention' are widely used. Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus full involvement and success in the process of the
A positive aspect of hyperfocus might be the ability to use detachment from ordinary mentality to create new approaches to familiar situations. It may also improve learning speed and comprehension.
On the other hand, it sometimes presents a challenge to common teaching and parenting techniques. Schools and parents generally expect obedience from children and reward them for it, but hyperfocused children do not always cooperate under these circumstances. This can be overcome with investments of time and effort by the teacher or parent, but it is not always possible to spend a lot of time focusing on one child in a typical classroom situation.
Psychiatric views
Psychiatry describes only the distraction aspect of hyperfocus, referring to ADHD as 'inattentiveness and impulsiveness'. Hyperfocus is not recognised by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR), and no article using the term appears in PubMed. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' ( DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' ( DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association
Besides hyperfocus, various special abilities have been suggested to occur in ADHD, including vigilance, response-readiness, enthusiasm, and flexibility. But current ADHD research does not recognize these characteristics. Greater creativity has also been suggested, but formal measures of this are no higher in children with ADHD than in control groups.
Nevertheless, psychiatric research suggests that there are several reasons for the persistence of the notion that people with ADHD have the ability to hyperfocus, such as the well-recognised comorbidity of ADHD with autism spectrum disorders, of which excessive focus is a part. Special abilities do occur in some ADHD people, so it is easy to generalize from this minority to the whole ADHD group. ADHD is sometimes regarded as a disorder that is remarkably common (affecting 4-8% of school age children), but primarily genetically determined.
Professional psychiatry does not completely discount the existence of hyperfocus, as many adults with ADHD attribute accomplishments in their lives to this mental ability. As ADHD in adults is a relatively new area of learning in comparison with the condition in children, many clinicians feel that hyperfocus is an aspect of adult ADHD which is not well understood and merits more thorough research.
From a medical viewpoint, hyperfocus is thought to result from abnormally low levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is particularly active in the brain's frontal lobes. This dopamine deficiency makes it hard to "shift gears" to take up boring-but-necessary tasks. [1]
See also
References
- Hartmann, Thom. The hunter vs farmer theory is a Hypothesis proposed by Thom Hartmann about the origins of Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD and Adult Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus full involvement and success in the process of the (1998) Healing ADD: Simple Exercises That Will Change Your Daily Life. Underwood-Miller (1st ed. ) ISBN 1-887424-37-7.
- Hartmann, Thom. (1993) ADD: A Different Perception.
- Goldstein and Barkley (1998) ADHD Report 6, 5.
- Jensen & Mrazek, (1997). Evolution and Revolution in Child Psychiatry: ADHD as a Disorder of Adaptation, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 36 (12), pp. 1672-1679.
- Shelley-Tremblay, J. F. , and Rosen. L. A. (1996) Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: An evolutionary perspective. Journal of Genetic Psychology. Dec96, Vol. 157 Issue 4, p443, 11p. AN 9704173357
- Funk et al. (1993). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, creativity, and the effects of methylphenidate, Pediatrics, 91 (4), pp. 816-819.
- Fillipin, Royce. (2005) 'ADHD Symptom: Hyperfocus', ADDitude magazine, pp. 33.
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