Let me bring up something which perhaps you all have experienced, a form of going "30 seconds with no thoughts or images in your mind". I find it not a particularly desirable mental state.

As I get older, I find myself occasionally lapsing into short periods of mental disengagement. That is, I suddenly just stop and my mind wanders off into a condition or state where I am thinking...nothing. Fortunately, this doesn't happen when I'm operating machinery or conducting business, but when I am relaxed and at ease. For example, I'll be eagerly awaiting the hourly 5 minute news briefing on the radio, and when it finally comes, I "zone out" and miss it. I don't think I'm dozing off, or lost in some daydream, I just black out. Other times I will hear the news bulletins and realize that I don't remember any of them just moments later.

This has been happening more and more frequently as I get older, and I wonder if it is just a natural result of the aging process. Still, I find these periods of disconnection alarming, and I keep track of them.
So far they don't happen when I'm, say, driving a car, but if they do I know its a potential big problem. But they do seem to be happening more and more frequently.

If this is the so-called mind-emptying result of mindfulness, then I don't like it. I don't see it as something I want to do, and certainly not unexpectedly. It is, at best, a form of involuntary distraction.

A related symptom is a loss of motor control. For example, If I am carrying several items using both hands (an umbrella, the mail, my car keys, a coffee cup) I will often forget I'm carrying one of them and it will drop to the ground. Again, is this just a case of natural old-age clumsiness, or does it mean something is wrong?

I lose my train of thought in conversation, I temporarily forget commonplace facts (the name of a favorite actor, where I left my glasses, whether or not I locked a door or turned off a light. Sometimes, when I go back to check I forget why I am going back and I have to go check again (OCD?). I often catch myself failing to "truly listen instead of listening for a chance to interject your thoughts, opinions and experiences".

I understand these are probably just natural steps in the aging process, and as long as they don't seriously affect my performance they are no big deal. But I don't think it is overly paranoid to monitor and catalog these events in case they reveal a more serious problem.