So this looks to be a reasonable explanation for what I experience when everything's going right on a ride:



Would the rest of you agree? Whether you do or not, why?

From the article: The Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, who during qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix explained: "I was already on pole, [...] and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel."

I experienced this for one fantastic lap at Summit Point Raceway in my car. I was in the third of four sessions and I had a lap where I accomplished nearly all ten turns almost perfectly (for me anyway). It was like the car was on rails and I was flying. Everything slowed down and my inputs were exacting (for me anyway). What a fantastic feeling. I've felt that a few times on the dragon as well but never the whole way through...just too long to reach that kind of nirvana at 11 miles (for me anyway).

Definitely happens on the drums as well.

I have that book by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi,. Great stuff, but I could not finish it. He is a bit long winded, and I got the feeling that he was trying to explain what can only be understood subconsciously. "Flow" seems to be a good word choice for the the state of mind we get when we are one with the ride.