Have you ever been reading a book, only to discover that your eyes are still scanning the page while your mind was doing something else? There's a particular fl

Have you ever been reading a book, only to discover that your eyes are still scanning the page while your mind was doing something else? There's a particular flavor of "oops" as a certain capacity comes back online. Informally, you might call it "knowing what's happening in your field of experience." It can also be called metacognition. Meditation can reduce or eliminate these "oops" moments. It also shows you just how much more common that state is than you realize (or would likely even believe, due to a particular trick the mind plays). It really does feel like one had been sleepwalking through one's life up until that point. One certainly feels "more conscious" afterward.