Bright lights wake you up right? I'm not sure how complex a stimulus you can interpret while asleep, but it wouldn't surprise me. After all your brain doesn't t

Bright lights wake you up right? I'm not sure how complex a stimulus you can interpret while asleep, but it wouldn't surprise me. After all your brain doesn't turn off, it's just in a different mode of operation. EDIT: To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised either if there was a dedicated circuit that sensed change in luminous energy that bypassed V1. I'd google but I'm on limited wireless right now. Here's an article that's informative, but doesn't quite answer the question: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/13/how-light-wakes-up-the-brain/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/13/how-light... It talks about the blue light pathway that David Berson discovered in intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells. This was surprising because, while this was before my time, I think most people thought that it was the rods and cones that were photosensitive, containing proteins called opsins that transduce light into neural signal. Rods and cones can be considered input cells, ganglion cells sit above the retinal circuitry can can be through of as output cells that perform computations from their inputs and pipe that information down the optic nerve, which eventually leads to primary visual cortex located at the back of your skull. Though there are plenty of opportunities for side branching minor paths.