Flow
Flow is a concept developed by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi to describe a state of deep concentration in which a person is fully immersed in the activity they are performing.
For this state to occur, the task cannot be so easy that it leads to boredom, nor so difficult that it causes stress. It needs to be at a point of balance: challenging enough to demand sustained attention, but still within the person's capabilities.
In this moment, it’s as if the individual enters a flow — a fluid, immersive movement — where everything is directed toward the action. The person becomes, so to speak, the activity itself.
Have you ever experienced something like this? Can you remember what situation and activity brought it about? And what was it like to be in that state?
Before I continue with my phenomenological description of this experience, try to explore how it manifests in you.
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The experience of flow is relatively rare for me. Still, I can recall a few situations in which this state emerged—such as while playing a racing game.
When I already know the layout of the track well and manage to drive at the very limit of speed, I notice that this facilitates the emergence of flow. The execution has to be so fast that there’s no room to think or get distracted.
It is precisely this demand for continuous and immediate action that seems to sustain the state: the mind doesn’t have time to drift away from the task—it simply is the task.
It’s difficult to grasp the more subtle nuances of flow while it’s happening. The very act of directing attention to it tends to break the experience.
If I tried to observe flow while I was in it, I’d likely lose focus on the task itself. It’s as if conscious access to the experience, at the exact moment it unfolds, ends up interrupting it.
This is different, for instance, from an emotion, whose manifestation I can observe as it occurs—to the point of trying to regulate it, either by intensifying or softening it, through strategies that involve its various components: cognitive, behavioral, expressive, physiological, and so on.
I can even inhibit its expression without necessarily suppressing the emotion — or the experience of the emotion — itself.
Even so, it’s possible to describe the flow experience based on the memory of what it was like to go through it. The micro-phenomenological method (see here) works precisely with this kind of evocation : tracking the traces of experience in memory.
Sometimes the state can even be intentionally triggered, but in the case of flow, that tends to be more difficult.
What I’ve noticed is that as I try to describe these experiences—this one and many others—new nuances begin to emerge. Aspects of the experience that had previously gone unnoticed begin to reveal themselves in the very act of recalling them.
But it’s important to remember: memory is always a reconstruction (as I’ve mentioned in another post). So this account should not be understood as a faithful portrait of the original experience, but rather as how I remember and understand it now, in the present.
If I want to deepen the analysis, I’ll need to explore this state further in the future. The challenge, however, is twofold: not only is flow rare for me, but any shift in attention—from the action itself to bodily sensations or preconscious micro-gestures—can cause the experience to dissolve.
Description
Everything becomes fluid, natural, easy to perform, and my attention is drawn to it spontaneously, almost magnetically.
The necessary movements seem to happen automatically, as if they’ve been so well-rehearsed that they no longer require conscious effort.
The body knows what to do — the movements are coordinated, precise, and efficient.
In fact, a single thought can break this flow — like a “stone in the path” that, once stumbled upon, shatters the entire sequence of movements — and this has happened to me before: losing the flow because my awareness shifted outside the action, or because a thought pulled my attention away.
Muscle tension feels precisely calibrated for the task — not too much, not too little. Within that balanced tension, there's a sensation of relaxation, of well-being, of silent fullness.
A kind of peace, a certainty in each gesture — as if I had total command over the activity. And yet, the actions unfold almost on their own, on autopilot, just flowing.
It feels as though I'm witnessing them, but not as an external observer — I’m completely immersed, fused with the gesture.
In the end, I only truly realize I was in that state once it’s over. Looking back, the question arises with a touch of awe: What was that? How was I able to do it?
To further illustrate this state, I share below a striking account from Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna, who described this experience in 1988:
"When I am competing against the watch and against other competitors, the feeling of expectation, of getting it done and doing the best and being the best, gives me a kind of power that, some moments when I am driving, actually detaches me completely from anything else as I am doing it...corner after corner, lap after lap.
I can give you a true example I experienced and can relate it to you...
Monte Carlo, '88, the last qualifying session. I was already on pole and I was going faster and faster.
One lap after the other, quicker, and quicker, and quicker. I was at one stage just on pole, then by half a second, and then one second...and I kept going.
Suddenly, I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car.
And I suddenly realized that I was no longer driving the car consciously.
I was kind of driving it by instinct, only I was in a different dimension.
It was like I was in a tunnel, not only the tunnel under the hotel, but the whole circuit for me was a tunnel.
I was just going, going - more, and more, and more, and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more. Then, suddenly, something just kicked me.
I kind of woke up and I realized that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are.
Immediately my reaction was to back off, slow down. I drove back slowly to the pits and I didn't want to go out any more that day.
It frightened me because I realized I was well beyond my conscious understanding.
It happens rarely, but I keep these experiences very much alive in me because it is something that is important for self-preservation."
Below is a GIF taken from an episode of the 2003 animated anthology Animatrix, titled World Record.
It shows a runner so intensely focused on his action that he enters a state of flow — and, in that state, begins to perceive the Matrix itself.
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| Animatrix (2003) |
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