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There doesn't seem to be a sharp line between sleep and wakefulness. I once fell asleep while driving and was awakened by something I saw. It's an odd sensati
by dkarl 14y ago
There doesn't seem to be a sharp line between sleep and wakefulness. I once fell asleep while driving and was awakened by something I saw. It's an odd sensation to be woken up by something you see instead of by something you hear or feel. I had fallen asleep with my eyes open but was staying upright in the driver's seat, maintaining my speed and staying on the road. It was an extremely frightening experience, because I was very keenly aware of not being conscious a few seconds earlier, and having no sense of how much time had passed. I couldn't even remember what I saw, because duh, I was unconscious when I saw it. It freaked me out so much that even fifteen years later I think about it every time I get the slightest bit sleepy behind the wheel.
A few times in extreme states of sleep-deprivation, I've been lying down or slouched on the couch and realized, after being startled into getting up suddenly, that my memory of what I had been thinking about was fading away just like a dream. My eyes were open the whole time, and unlike when I was driving, I was conscious of seeing and having a consciously driven train of thought. Yet in some way I was asleep, so my mind let my memories slip away as if they were dreams.
- its_so_on 14y agowe need to have a thread about this.
- nessus42 14y agoDucks and dolphins routinely sleep one hemisphere at a time. It doesn't seem improbable that humans might also from time to time.
- abeppu 14y agoSo, this is maybe a silly question, but methodologically, how did researchers establish that? Did they actually somehow attach and keep EEG contacts on an animal that moves around and lives submerged in salt water? 'Cuz that sounds awesome.
- nessus42 14y agohttp://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1333/can-one-side-of-a-ducks-brain-sleep-while-the-other-half-is-awake http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1333/can-one-side-o...
- lloeki 14y ago> I had fallen asleep with my eyes open but was staying upright in the driver's seat, maintaining my speed and staying on the road. It was an extremely frightening experience, because I was very keenly aware of not being conscious a few seconds earlier, and having no sense of how much time had passed. I don't know your specific story, but this is not to be confused with the hypnotic state that one usually enters when doing something routinely (e.g daily commute) and the brain simply drops the irrelevant information before it reaches you consciousness. Then something unusual happens that crosses the relevancy engine (a pattern, a sound, anything) and the brain plugs itself back into conscious mode just in case the situation might ever so slightly require highly cognitive decision-making functions. In those cases consciousness can drift away and think about what you'll be having for dinner or some project you're working on. When consciousness snaps back into the driver role you'll have no idea of how much time has elapsed or even which road you took.