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The brain has a ‘low-power mode’ that blunts our senses
- hkt 4y agoResponding only to the title, my immediate thought was "that must be the mode I'm always in"
- lupire 4y agoThe headline is obvious (have you tried sleeping?), but the article is about a specific mechanism for vision, not the general idea.
- 0des 4y agoWhat is the thing right before I fall asleep where any voices or noises are at booming volume? Is that my brain's last chance to alert me of a predator?
- joecool1029 4y agoHypanagogic hallucinations. I don't know why or for what purpose they happen but that's the term.
- 0des 4y agoThey're things actually happening, they're just very loud. Someone speaking is like wearing headphones turned all the way up, is the best approximation for it. Is that still part of the definition of a hallucination?
- guerrilla 4y agoHmmm, I know what you mean. I've experienced both... hard to say if they're the same thing or not though... They're certainly triggered at the same point for me but not always concurrent, as I've had both in isolation as well.
- sergiotapia 4y agoAre these the same as what I call "micro-dreams"? When I'm trying to fall asleep I will get these tiny but full end to end dreams on situations and voices and places - but clearly I am not asleep. I'm in that "trying to fall asleep" phase. What is this called?
- braden-lk 4y agoI get these, but for me it’s not real-time noise. It’s noises and voices I heard throughout the day. It feels like they’re being replayed from a tape recorder right as I fall asleep.
- s__s 4y agoI have a newborn and every night while falling asleep all I hear is his cooing and laughing on replay. It’s sort of like when you play a lot of Tetris and you can’t stop seeing the falling bricks as you fall asleep.
- throwaway3neu94 4y agoOn two occasions, once after skiing for a week and once after playing flight sims an entire Saturday, I had an intense (and very nice) feeling of gliding down a (glide)slope as I fell asleep.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoLucky you, I get visions of running on the school yard and tripping over, lol.
- someweirdperson 4y ago> It’s sort of like when you play a lot of Tetris and you can’t stop seeing the falling bricks as you fall asleep. Never noticed this from any single-threaded activity. But once I played two games in parallel for a few hours (two instances of wow) that had a direct impact on trying to fall asleep. The task-switching tried to check my other self, but there was no other instance to switch to.
- dinkleberg 4y agoInteresting, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that (or even heard of it). Is that something you experience every night (assuming there is sound)?
- bowsamic 4y agoI don’t have anything to add other than that I have this too. It seems like it happens at exactly the point where I can either go to sleep or wake back up. Like suddenly all the volume rushes up and everything is at full intensity, and if I choose to sleep I guess it goes away. Super weird tbh
- rzzzt 4y agoSounds similar to "auditory sleep start" aka. "exploding head syndrome". The sensation of falling which makes you twitch from your whole body is "sleep start" or "hypnic jerk" (who comes up with these names). There is also a visual version where one experiences flashes.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoI think it may have to do with relative noise levels, when snoozing on the couch I get more sensitive to other people's noise sometimes, but that's also because it would be relatively quiet before. It might be a survival mechanism, now you mention it.
- albrewer 4y agoProbably not what you meant, but sometimes, before I fall asleep, I "see" bright flashes of light, as if there's a strobe light going off outside my window. Rarely, I also hear a loud "boom." Apparently it's a known sleep disorder and has the terrifying name "exploding head syndrome" https://www.sleepassociation.org/sleep-disorders/more-sleep-disorders/exploding-head-syndrome/comment-page-2/ https://www.sleepassociation.org/sleep-disorders/more-sleep-...
- Hnrobert42 4y agoThe fact that leptin, not food, restored high-power mode makes me wonder if we could use leptin to increase dieting efficacy. I’ve read that there are limits to how much weight you can lose per week, no matter how much you restrict your caloric intake. Beyond a certain point, your body senses the deficiency and decreases your metabolism. If a person could restrict calories AND receive leptin injections, they could lose weight faster. (note, I am thinking about this in terms of helping the morbidly obese in dire circumstances.)
- givemeethekeys 4y agoOr they could water fast (under medical supervision). After a couple of days they won't feel the need to eat. They will lose a ton of weight.
- jhardy54 4y ago> I’ve read that there are limits to how much weight you can lose per week, no matter how much you restrict your caloric intake. Beyond a certain point, your body senses the deficiency and decreases your metabolism.
- nebulousthree 4y agoThe point is that there's a distinct physiological difference between no calories and some calories
- bergenty 4y agoThat’s only true to a certain extent. After a certain point, no calories just equals rapid fat burning
- guerrilla 4y agoNo, not just fat, but all kinds of tissue including muscle.
- hprotagonist 4y agoOne time I bonked so hard on a long ride that i lost color vision. Fastest orange juice i ever drank.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
- rmoriz 4y agoI temporarily lost part of hearing, too. Happend to me after casually biking in a fasted state after attempting a short but steep climb. When I was at the top, I made a break just to start getting into this bonk state rather slowly over the next approximately 5 minutes. I was still standing all the time not becoming unconscious. I thought of having a stroke or something. Scariest moment of my life so far.
- machiaweliczny 4y agoI have delay in audio when super tired. It’s so weird feeling you see people talking, moving they mouths but hear in mind after 3 seconds.
- biinui 4y agosorry for being obtuse, does orange juice help vision?
- _archon_ 4y agoJuice is a fast delivery method for sugars, and the prepackaged fruit juices you might find in a gas station convenience store almost certainly have added sugar as well as the innate fructose in the fruit juice component. Also, if you're running low enough on nutrition that your eyes aren't working right, you're also likely to be dehydrated, which can also affect vision.
- fotta 4y agoI get reactive hypoglycemia sometimes and when my blood sugar levels start dropping my vision starts blurring and I can’t focus on anything. Eating something to bring my blood sugar back resolves it. This study was about longer term deficits but I wonder if it’s the same mechanism I experience in short bursts.
- kilroy123 4y agoThat's insulin resistance.
- Trasmatta 4y agoYou've got it backwards, insulin resistance causes hyperglycemia.
- bencollier49 4y agoNot sure about that but it could certainly be pre-diabetes.
- Trasmatta 4y agoI'm diabetic and experience the same thing with low blood sugar.
- paulgerhardt 4y agoRecently didn't eat for 40 days and didn't notice this. Suspect there's some issues by putting the mice on calorie restriction vs fasting. Ie "the researchers fed the mice right before the experiments" - if you're in a fasted state and do introduce food you're going to create an insulin spike - if you were also previously calorie deprived you could go hypoglycemic right after. Going back as far as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment it appears in certain survival instances calorie restriction is worse than no calories. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experimen...
- Retric 4y agoBe careful, it’s believed ~40 days without food can kill you if you don’t take supplements. People have gone for much longer while taking supplements including salt.
- robonerd 4y agoExcluding salt would surely be insane, you piss and sweat out a lot of salt and that needs to be replenished. I don't see any way around that.
- Retric 4y agoOf course, but someone is going to take a multivitamin and assume that’s enough.
- cf141q5325 4y agoThis isnt a matter of believe. There are lots of prisoners who went on hunger strikes and perished from it. With them starting with a background of a normal western diet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike 45-73 days till death with most lasting 60 days. Holger Meins lasted 58 days despite forced feeding. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Meins https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Meins List is obviously a lot longer but they offer a great dataset
- 4y ago
- wwilim 4y agoInteresting, I have type 1 diabetes and I experience this during low sugar episodes.
- aalaee 4y ago
- zwilliamson 4y agoPsilocybin high powered mode
- dontcare007 4y agoMore like running in neutral,.
- gleenn 4y agoReminds me of the book "Thinking Fast and Slow", where the author describes the human brain as having two modes, the always on "fast" brain which makes lots of mistakes but doesn't consume much energy, and the more thoughtful but far more energy consuming "slow" brain. I'm not sure I agree with everything in the book, but it's some amazing food for thought and one of the highest rated books by the Hacker News community.
- LordKeren 4y agoA solid book for crystallizing a lot of key ideas. But yeah, they need to make a new edition and cut out a lot of the “scientific” bits the crumbled after the replication crisis gained purchase It’s a hard book to suggest when topics about careful thought are backed up my junk science
- copperx 4y ago> one of the highest rated books by the Hacker News community. I hate to be cynical, but that is usually not a good sign. There are sites collecting the most appreciated books of HN and the ones that are not about technology are too simplistic.
- dang 4y agoHN doesn't rate books, so I'm not sure what those lists are measuring, unless it's 'most mentioned', in which case the list compilers might need more quality time with internet disgruntlement.
- gleenn 4y agoI believe the list was simply the most mentioned books but I don't have the link in front of me
- hanoz 4y agoAmongst the long list of comprehensively rubbished popular/woo science books out there, that one is certainly out there.
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- luxuryballs 4y agoThose cartoons where the stranded island goer looks at his buddy and sees a candied ham are not far from the truth.
- vladmk 4y agoGreat, this article gives fat people another excuse to read a lot jk lol the study is only on mice, so who knows it’s accuracy, but makes sense
- cratermoon 4y agoThis study might have interesting and important implications for kids in the US that suffer chronic food insecurity and do poorly in school.
- miika 4y agoIn cartoons when someone is really hungry they might see friend as a roasted chicken :P
- dredmorbius 4y agoMy first thought is how this dynamic interacts with early childhood education and learning. What happens inside the brain of a child who's subject to chronic under-nourishment, and what are the long-term impacts of this?