Has this happened to you?

Yes I have and its very upsetting. Mine have been with smaller things though, not so important as missing a red light. Most have been things on my desk or other surfaces around home. One day, I searched for my computer mouse for several minutes, becoming convinced a student came in a swiped it. Then all the sudden it appeared right in front of me. Very unsettling.

Absolutely. Or how about a whole commute to/from work, SO familiar, that you end up at your destination and can't really remember driving there. I had been SO focused on that I was feeling run down, had a bunch of house things going on, had to talk to several work people to follow up on major issues, etc. that I was, essentially, on auto pilot. I followed all the rules of the road, had been a safe driver during the trips, but couldn't tell you any specifics of what I passed.

Definitely had the experience and usually end up saying can’t see the woods for the trees

I have read about being on auto-pilot. There is a meditation called "mindfulness", it is something that is practiced in order to decrease anxiety. When you live in the moment and become aware of all that your senses take in, you become less able to worry about what has happened and what is going to happen. Basically you can't concentrate on more than one thing at a time. I have tried it and it works. Google it.

Just FYI, on the road, it's called 'highway hypnosis', an incident that's more common than many think. The driver just hops into the car, and next thing he knows, he's at his destination. As another poster commented "very unsettling".

5 hours ago, Nurse Beth said:

Has anyone ever experienced inattentional blindness? It's when you miss something right in front of your eyes. I'm thinking about writing an article on the many different ways we make mistakes.

I read where a group of radiologists were given a chest Xray to view and many failed to notice that there was a missing clavicle!

I remember driving through a red light on my way home after a night shift. I didn't see the red light, and I may have never known, except that a policeman pulled me over. He saw my stethoscope and just gave me a warning. You can imagine how much it shook me up.

Wonder if anyonelse has had a similar experience? I suspect there's a lot more to the science of making mistakes that we realize.

I've misplaced whole segments of the highway -- arrived home without remembering the drive. Usually after a night shift, but it's always unsettling.

I find that anyone can miss something basic, or anything right in front of your eyes. That's why when I'm having difficulty troubleshooting a monitor or a device at work, I get another set of eyes. Usually it's something really silly that I cannot believe I missed. Stopcock turned the wrong way, monitor in the wrong mode, module plugged into the wrong slot. The up side of that is that when my orientee can point out my mistake, she feels really smart!

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. But I do just that. When I can't find something, I go back and LOOK IN THE SAME PLACES and - often - I then find that which I was seeking.

That which was invisible has now assumed solid form.

Go figure.

5 hours ago, amoLucia said:

Just FYI, on the road, it's called 'highway hypnosis', an incident that's more common than many think. The driver just hops into the car, and next thing he knows, he's at his destination. As another poster commented "very unsettling".

Welp. Now I don't feel so crazy...

I have this all the time with things that are trivial and simple, but I've always been the type that complicates the snot out of tasks that aren't complicated. My mom always said I had no common sense and sadly she was right!

I get so angry with myself though when I'm in the supply room, can't find the 2×2's or what have you only for it to be right in front of my face.

13 hours ago, amoLucia said:

Just FYI, on the road, it's called 'highway hypnosis', an incident that's more common than many think. The driver just hops into the car, and next thing he knows, he's at his destination. As another poster commented "very unsettling".

...and the feeling like ice water running down your spine when it hits you that you can't remember a thing about the drive.