soccergal,

You made a good comment when you said <Perhaps I need to train myself not to try to "see" everything when I'm in a new environment.>

I have a slight modification to it. Train yourself to try to "not" see. It is a more proactive approach. In other words, as soon as you realize you are focusing or noticing the things around you, find something to look at so that you can look away from the rest. Before you do this, try closing your eyes for a moment to break the pattern is seeing.

In the early going, you may need to close your eyes a lot to get the system working. I close my eyes without even a purposeful thought to do it. It is a reaction. You could say it is a defensive action.

Explain to those around you why you do this. They will hopefully begin to understand. Explain how your brain does not work well at blocking out irrelevant images or sounds. This is probably the mostly common and most frustrating PCS symptom.

It comes from an injury or tearing of the axons in the center of the brain where information is gated to the different areas of the brain. These gate system end up with the gates left wide open so everything gets through without restriction. Bedlam in the brain.

Even though you say your house is not cluttered, try relaxing with your eyes open and pay attention to what your eyes and brain do. Do they scan and dart around or can they just look calmly at something without jumping to something else? If they jump around the room, you have too much visual clutter for your brain's current condition.

Clutter does not mean your house is disorganized or messy. It just means there is too much for your mind to process in its current state.

Visual clutter problems really become evident when you are in a new environment. Nothing is 'as usual.' Everything is new and undefined. This means the brain needs to define everything in view or earshot. Once it is define, the brain can relax a bit. It will do a good job at relaxing if the gating is working well. If not, it will take some time until everything become understood or defined in memory. If your memory is not working well, as mine is not, this will not happen quickly if at all.

Something we all need to understand is a simple function of the brain. When the brain sees or hears something for the first time, it wants to define or understand it. This result with a file of information in memory about that stimulus. Now, every time the same stimulus is observed, if is compared to the existing definition on file. It will collect observations of the same or similar observations.

This is why when you buy a new car, you begin noticing more of the same model on the road. They were always on the road in the same proportion but now your brain has a definition on file to compare the observation to. So, it makes quick note of another one. Play Slug Bug (or Slug Dub for you youngsters) for a few minutes and then stop and watch how you cannot stop noticing VW bugs on the road.

When we understand how our minds work, it can help us understand some of these annoying symptoms.

My best to you all and to all a good night.