When we first become inattentive and drowsy, our brain begins to produce large rhythmic Alpha waves. This is an "idling" pattern, the brain "just hanging out" and not engaged in the active processing of information. As we begin to drift, the Alpha gives way to lower amplitude slow waves called Theta, then progress to very slow Delta waves as we lose awareness of our world. When we are "dead to the world," some of these waves can be as slow as 1/2 cycles per second!
Using a familiar scenario, if you are watching TV late at night in your favorite recliner and you begin to experience a gentle, "floaty" feeling, your brain wave patterning is likely to be dominated by rhythmic Alpha waves. If someone walks into the room, you are immediately aware of it. If you are not disturbed and go a bit deeper, it may take a second or two for you to become consciously aware that you heard something. This is the effect of the lower amplitude but slower Theta activity. If you wake up at 2:00 in the morning, realizing you missed what happened to the victim in Law and Order®, you were probably producing a lot of very slow Delta waves.
Delta Waves
In many of those with the symptoms of ADD/ADHD, the waking EEG is occupied with Delta waves all over the brain. Meandering along at about 1/2 to 4 cycles per second, these lazy brain waves come and go, often appearing to overwhelm the other brain waves.
An understanding of what these Delta waves mean in those with an attention problem can be found in the sleep patterns of normal people. When we lose conscious awareness of our physical world, it is because our brain has started producing more slow brain waves. Interestingly, the larger and more continuous our slow waves, the more unconsciousness we become. In those with ADD or ADHD symptoms, the EEG often shows an active wake pattern superimposed on high amplitude Delta slow waves! This can be thought of as a child or adult literally walking around "half asleep." To make a bad situation even worse, when confronted with a complex task, the Delta waves in this unfortunate minority increase dramatically, becoming even more dominant as the normal wake patterns fade into the background. In other words, when challenged with a complex problem that requires conscious processing, the child or adult becomes even more disconnected from the physical world.
Ironically, it is this drive into unconsciousness that allows many ADD/ADHD children to play video games brilliantly. Because he or she is playing from the "automatic" deep brain, there is limited "interference" from the thinking brain to slow down the process. A familiar example of this type of "high performance" is riding a bike or driving a car. Once you have learned and well practiced, you no longer have to think about what you are doing. You absent mindedly drive along and do several (usually unsafe) things at once: Talk to a friend on the phone, plan dinner, even mentally rehearse a speech. But, and this is a big but, if your brain is functioning efficiently and a car pulls out in front of you,
