Your conscious mind kind of just squats on top of the parts of your brain that do most of the decision making. If the non-conscious parts aren't sure what to do they'll prod you awake for a few seconds to make a decision, then go back to ignoring you. Consciousness is mostly a post hoc illusion.
I called the RCMP to report an injured deer alongside the highway. They switched me to the Wildlife Service who asked where exactly I was. I had to tell them I didn’t really know. I had been listening to book and couldn’t remember if I had passed a certain town or not. 🤣
Full self-driving cars can be amazing -- especially when soul-destroying traffic slowly rots one's brain cells and increases one's stress, the way it does here in Toronto.
Wait no I know this one! I saw a video about this! It's nothing to do with muscle memory these people are WRONG
It's just that you saw nothing notable on your drive, you *were* paying attention, however your brain didn't find anything notable enough to commit to short or long term memory!
Is this reasoning similar to why driving *back* from a new place seems to take less time than driving *to* a new place? Like there is less new information to note so your brain is more relaxed and not as alert?
This is why I love my car. It is like Herbie the love bug. It corrects for minor driving errors automagically. When I stop paying attention it makes a beep. Make sure you have the lane keeping and traffic avoid settings on full blast at all times. It really does help.
Reading down through the replies, it seems this is not as uncommon as I had thought. When it happened to me, I was afraid maybe I'd had a mini-stroke or something.
Kinda changes how I see other drivers from now on. A large percentage seem to be literally on autopilot.
During driving school they had us watch these training videos. One video showed drivers entering a hypnotic state after staring straight ahead for long periods so they encouraged us to actively shift our eyes around the road to break out of it.
the med student in me has to comment: if it’s a route you’ve done a lot before your brain lets you disconnect while it does the brunt to reset your thoughts, basically
The brain is an amazing thing. Also if you drive the same route over and over, it happens more and more and time becomes shorter. Cool feature of the brain until you realize your everyday is disappearing into the void. Lol
You’re alive because you’ve been doing it enough to where muscle memory just took over, basically good on you were being a good driver up until this point
Actually no! The truth is you actually were driving normally, and were at least paying attention enough to survive, your brain just didn't commit any of the drive to short nor long term memory!
I drive 50 minutes to & from work each way, 5 days a week. 90% of the time I feel like my brain is on autopilot. Not nearly as bad as the time when I was 23 and I had untreated sleep apnea, and “woke up” going 55 on the 2-lane road I was commuting home from college on, though. That was terrifying.
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It's just that you saw nothing notable on your drive, you *were* paying attention, however your brain didn't find anything notable enough to commit to short or long term memory!
I also don't recognize areas either, even if I have drove through it many times before. I think I just rely on maps too much lmfao
Crazy shit. And you wonder if you went through any stop lights or signs
"Came to" on the drive home from work and had no memory of the previous 15 minutes of the drive.
Scared me SHITLESS that I might have hit someone and not known.
Never before, never since. Never again is too soon!
Kinda changes how I see other drivers from now on. A large percentage seem to be literally on autopilot.
There are deer in my area, so I do this anyway.
This is most of my drives to work. It's why I need a map reminding me to turn
I think.
OTOH, driving meditations, where you pay close attention to all that's going on, are awesome.