Those are thoughts I consider distracting but yes they are usually indicative of alpha.

Other signs of alpha? OH that's an easy one
.... your eyes are shut. Actually all brainwave are present at all time to some degree. What you are looking for is alpha dominance.
Alpha starts to take over as the predominant brainwave pattern the moment you close your eyes and the longer you keep your eyes shut the less dominant beta is. Thats why you when you relax in a shower or bath you often find answers to problems filtering up, somewhere along the line you start closing your eyes and you are usually not focusing on anything.
With practice you can trigger alpha rapidly and by turning your eyes up physically when you intend to enter the accelerative learning state you trigger the alpha pattern to come in faster.
Also defocusing your eyes triggers alpha to become stronger. This is why physically turning up the eyes as little as 20 degrees above the horizontal starts to trigger alpha dominant brainwave pattern. You habitually focus straight ahead or down... when you turn your eyes up you look more at the sky and there is usually little to hard focus on in nature when you turn your eyes up. That's why this is a useful trigger, it's already there.
Most people have alpha peaks of about 3 seconds per minute. This is usually when you have sudden insights or answers pop into your mind including intuition. When you practice entering the accelerative learning state daily you enjoy more of these peaks (5 to 10 seconds) per minute.
Beta dominates when you are using hard focus with your eyes. So as soon as you shift back to directly looking at things beta starts taking over as the main brainwave pattern. This is one reason why being able to maintain photofocus is helpful for remaining in the accelerative learning state.
All you need to do is, use the technique as described on page 42 of the PhotoReading book or let Paul guide you regularly for a while and somewhere along the line you find that you just need to think about getting into the accelerative learning state and you're there. That's all it takes.
Really it only takes a few seconds so if you find yourself spending less time preparing that's fine. Just relax, say your affirmations, get into photofocus and enjoy the process. Your marvellous brain knows that to do from there.
Alex
[This message has been edited by AlexK (edited October 16, 2002).]