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Despite growing recognition that attention fluctuates from moment-to-moment during sustained performance, prevailing analysis strategies involve averaging data across multiple trials or time points, treating these fluctuations as noise. Here, using alternative approaches, we clarify the relationship between ongoing brain activity and performance fluctuations during sustained attention. We introduce a novel task (the gradual onset continuous performance task), along with innovative analysis procedures that probe the relationships between reaction time (RT) variability, attention lapses, and intrinsic brain activity. Our results highlight 2 attentional states—a stable, less error-prone state (“in the zone”), characterized by higher default mode network (DMN) activity but during which subjects are at risk of erring if DMN activity rises beyond intermediate levels, and a more effortful mode of processing (“out of the zone …