enjoyment, transformation of time, merging of action and awareness, concentration on the task at hand, lack of self-consciousness, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, sense of control, and balance of challenge and skill.
See here for connections between Flow (psychology) and Dissociation (psychology). See also Identity fluidity
Mihaly csikszentmihalyi is one of the fathers of the theory of flow. Connections to theory of Learning are mentioned here
Findings indicate that the experience of transformed time represents a characteristic of both flow and dissociation (e.g., Diskin & Hodgins, 1999, 2001; Gupta & Derevensky, 1998a; Jackson & Marsh, 1996). This fuels the assumption that the two states may have some aspects in common. The feeling that “things happen automatically” (action-awareness merging) when being in flow and the feeling “like being in trance” when experiencing dissociation may also tap into similar experiential phenomena. Moreover, concentration, on the one hand, represents a flow dimension and, on the other hand, it is part of the posited mechanism underlying dissociation. “Lack of self-consciousness” refers to low concerns regarding impression management and social evaluations in regard to flow. In contrast, perceptions of positive social evaluations of the behavior and thus high levels of self-consciousness are part of the dissociation mechanism. With respect to the preconditions of flow (i.e., clear goals, feedback, sense of control, and challenge-skill balance) and its core dimension (i.e., feeling of enjoyment), we had no specific hypotheses regarding possible links to dissociation.
The raw phenomena of both flow and dissociation were a change in the self-construct, but deeming the phenomena as flow or dissociation was the result of an interpretation of that experience as either pleasant or frightening. Perhaps flow and dissociation were not intrinsic to the phenomena of the experience, but to the interpretation of that experience.
Furthermore, flow and pathological dissociation are opposites on a shared dimension, flow as inherently integrative of mental processes, and pathological dissociation as fragmentation of mental processes (Thomson & Jaque, 2012). Both also mark extremes on the dimension of self-awareness, flow as its loss (Csikszentmihalyi & Figurski, 1982) and pathological dissociation as hyper self- awareness in the experience of a multiplicity of self (Naso, 2007). Being thoroughly fragmented, the dissociator may be considered hyper self-aware. She is highly focused on herself even though her object of focus is not experienced as self, even to the point where these multiple selves are in conflict (Naso, 2007). Because integration and fragmentation both have an effect on self-awareness, perhaps both flow and pathological dissociation are manifested changes in self-concept.
. In flow, self-awareness is dropped through integration with an object of focus (Csikszentmihaiyi & Figurski, 1982). In dissociation, specifically depersonalization, the self becomes fragmented, objectifying its own parts (Naso, 2007). In fact, depersonalization may have the highest negative correlation with flow of all of the markers of dissociation (Thomson & Jaque, 2012).
Naso does examine dissociation through the lens of identity formation (2007). He argues that dissociation occurs because the subjective self can be experienced as a unity or a multiple. In extreme dissociation, mental functions become compartmentalized to the point that they lose awareness of each other completely, as when repeated abuse victims consistently have no memory of abusive episodes (Naso, 2007).
as dissociation increases, the subjective self becomes smaller, while the objective parts of oneself multiply
Task-specific cyberdelically-self-induced flow states:
When I listen to music that comes from a movie/video/documentary/etc., I tend to wander in the worlds of that movie/video/documentary/etc. as in an induced flow state placed in a certain mind state.
I think people don't fully realize the incredible power of this. If important and useful ideas, like those usually unfortunately reserved to formal education, were taught in moving and artful videos/experiences that engaged the learner's emotion as well as its reason, learning would be revolutionized. Not only do ideas expressed in this way go into long-term memory much much more effectively (research agrees with this), but also I have found that the above flow inducing is a kind of mind-hacking that can be positively seized if the necessary memories exist beforehand. Just like when I listen to the Interstellar OST, for example, all the memories, thoughts, ideas, images that came from the movie are excited and ready to be reflected upon and worked with; if I had learned say, about some aspect of quantum mechanics with some unique music and imagery, I would need only to turn this unique sensory environment to induce a most effective work-specific flow state. At least this is how I work, but I think many people do to. I think everyone's productiveness and happiness would be greatly increased by doing education this way.