Indicators

Loss of time

Have you ever forgot how you drove somewhere?

Needing people to repeat themselves (because you actually have no clue what they said)

Reliving past moments on a loop

Brain fog

Obsessive thoughts

Role playing the current event and fantasizing about a different outcome

Stuck in a stare often

Fidgeting 

Using emotional soothing techniques to “Drown out” the emotions 

Misplaced emotion. An overreaction to something that should not elicit a reaction.

Feeling the wrong emotion for the wrong event

Misplaced emotion, feeling emotion when there is no event.?

Now the list is much bigger than this, but these are some of the heavy hitters that you can use as signals to realize that you may indeed be on autopilot. The only way to get off it is to realize that you’re on it. As I said before in the introduction there is a time and a place for autopilot so if you see one of these triggers and you realize that it’s okay for you to be on autopilot then continue on as you would normally but now, you’re doing so as a conscious choice not because you feel you don’t have the power to change it.