Happens way too often to me.
edit: I had no idea this was such a common issue!
I’m doing it reading these comments right now
I just read through the whole page, what comments are you talking about?
I’m reading and reading, but i still don’t understand what you are saying
This is a great discussion! I wonder what you guys said
I don’t even know what this post is about. OP sounds like a dumbass
I ain’t reading allat
wait a second here, what did you say?
I’ve reread so many pages and chapters because of this, sometimes even restarted books entirely
I used to read a lot more, and I do remember this happening, but it happens a lot for me now with podcasts. I’m a big podcast junkie and I will often find myself going down a rabbit hole of thought and realizing I have no idea what they’re talking about anymore.
So glad it’s not only me zoning out on podcasts. I haven’t been able to read a book in years. I’m hoping i can get back into reading again now that I nuked my reddit account
Check if your library participates in Overdrive or Libby (digital library collection). I can’t believe I had been missing out on free ebooks, audiobooks, and comics/graphic novels for years. I just needed an active library card to sign up.
I do this pretty often, though usually it’s a sentence or line here and there. of course sometimes books are just written that way and the meaning comes later.
It’s a bit of an ADHD thing and you get better at reading with purpose as you go. I used to barely take anything in and I can see books in my list that I’ve read but remember almost nothing about, try to read with conviction, take it in, imagine it as it happens, your comprehension will improve as you go.
Yeah, definitely an ADD/Attention-Processing issue. I used to read a lot as a kid, and after a head injury that aggravated my ADD and years of reading and talking in short-form messages (SMS, twitter, etc), it took me FOREVER to re-learn the skill of reading long-form text.
Luckily, with practice comes mastery, I was able to regain my abilities to read, and I’m currently working on a few textbooks and two casual books. It’s still a struggle in distracting environments (loud children, hospitals, etc), but it’s getting better the more I read.
I struggle in distracting environments due to ASD pretty much forcing brain to take in everything it hears and tries to process it as it would when someone was talking to me directly. I always read with noise cancelling headphones and ambient music.
When I was getting back into reading as an adult (used to read a lot as a kid but stopped for 20 years) I would read along with audiobooks, that worked wonders for getting into a book that I was struggling with.
Oh that’s a really great method! I used to know a guy with ASD who did kind-of the inverse, he was super familiar with reading (specifically the bible), but he had a hard time with conversations. So he learned how to use the bible as a medium to conduct conversation.
Really, really cool discussions were born from that, and by the time I met him, he was almost independently conducting conversation, only going back to certain bible references when he got stuck or he needed to borrow a story or metaphor.
The brain is at its coolest when it’s just a bit different.
Your bible memorising friend makes me think of the Star Trek episode “Darmok”
Indeed, indeed! Diversity is one of the strongest traits of human life (and life in-general).
I don’t recall that episode, I’ll have to go watch it!
It’s a TNG episode, the commonly memed “Darmok and Jilad, at Tenagra” quote comes from that one. the crew try to talk to aliens that speak almost entirely in historical metaphors so their universal translator gets the words right but cant translate the meaning.
Honestly a great episode on communication and understanding and I actually see it referenced a lot in neurodivergent communities, people (nerds) have written dissertations on that one.
Thanks for the recommendation, I just finished watching it–and yeah that speaks volumes (quite literally, haha!). I love how they started off the episode with a very fluent mixture of non-English and a few English phrases.
I should really go back and revisit TNG! I remember watching it as a kid, but now that I have a few decades under my belt, I’ve gone back and watched a few episodes: and it really is packed with amazing philosophy and social commentary.
Usually happens because I start thinking about something else without quite realizing it. I do the same thing with podcasts sometimes, too.
This is a common issue with people who have ADHD. Source - Diagnosed at age 7.
I’m pretty sure I have undiagnosed inattentive type ADHD so this is the story of my life. One word could send my brain on a journey of other related things even while I’m still reading the words. I have to reread so much.
I have diagnosed adhd and this is very much my life. Audiobooks are the best! It still happens, but way way less
I wish I could do audiobooks. I don’t know if it’s my autism making it more difficult to process auditory information or what, but audiobooks are even more difficult for me. I love podcasts though, since that is just casual conversation and I never get too lost even if I zone out and miss something.
I’ve never been able to do audiobooks unless I’m reading along. Can’t pay attention to spoken words. I used to hate when teachers would make students take turns reading passages aloud. I literally couldn’t pay attention because they would read s o s l o w l y that my brain would have too much time to think between words.
I think you just unlocked a memory. It is so difficult for me to understand when people are talking too slow. I can’t remember what words were at the beginning by the time we get to the end. I always have to watch everything with subtitles.
I have diagnosed inattentive type and was just sitting here wondering if this was a feature of it.
Diagnosed combined type checking in - I also do this. I came to the comments to upvote whoever was here to tell OP that if this is a constant struggle, they might have ADHD.
I don’t know how normal it is, but I have ADHD and I have it all the time. My mind will just wander about until I’m at the end of the page and then I’ll realize that I have not read anything.
I’ve absolutely read a book, thought it was a bit predictable, got to the end and realised I’ve read it before 🤦
Lol that’s hilarious and sad at the same time
In my defence there was about 15 years between readings. But still pretty bad lol
I’ve bought duplicate CDs in the past as well…
Watched movies with an odd sense deja Vu with the same conclusion.
Basically, I’m rounding out the bell curve for the rest of you lot to look good. It’s not much, but it’s honest work…
All the time dude, ADHD sucks lol
ADHD dude here. Can confirm without medication life is a living hell.
Sounds like adhd kicked in and you were off in your head. Ever trying listening to white noises while reading?
I think I have undiagnosed adult ADHD and I will start to drift off in thought pretty often, especially if I have something else on my mind, to where I end up having to reread a passageway more than once. The idea to listen to white noise while I read is something I should try, thanks for the suggestion!
No problem. I’ve had it for a long time and it took me a while to find a method that works. I will get silly with it too, I’ll go on you tube play a thunderstorm, blow dryer and shower all at the same time. Also I read in 25 minute increments and take a 5-10min break if I want to continue. Almost forgot but in the very beginning I needed to use a digital reader because my adhd was like “I will never finish a book that size” somehow my brain was tricked. I can read physicals pretty easy now after some years.
I find that any type of music, regardless of how clean and continuous it may be, disrupts my reading experience by influencing the way I read, or making me think about what I’m listening to. The only times(well, mostly) I can read properly and without any type of difficulty is when I’m not very sober.
It’s impossible for me and I think it’s just comes down to my adhd. I will play Ghost in the Shell and Bladerunner atmospheric mixes when I read scifi for example. In silence my brain is too loud and doesn’t stop. If I’m reading and whatever white noises are playing it minimizes the gaps when the brain wanders. It was already busy processing the sound.
Happens to me too. First post on Lemmy! When I was younger I’d read whole books in a couple sittings. Stephen King, Michael Chrichton, LotR - I read a lot. Now with tech job and kids, I don’t find as much time as I used to, and my attention span isn’t what it used to be after years of Reddit and interrupt-driven IT work. Reading one book, a chapter a night, out loud to the kids is about all I manage most days.
Haha I can understand that. And welcome to Lemmy, and double welcome to our community! :)
Not sure how common this is, but I know as a kid this was caused by my ADHD, and it would cause me to take twice as long to read a book
I reread a page for the 7th time and wonder what the hell I just read because I can’t remember any of it
We are human. Humans just zone out sometimes. We just need to keep going until we understand
