Microsleep Is A Thing, And You May Have Just Woken Up From It

Christof Koch, president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, recently explained in Scientific American, that it’s possible to be awake and asleep at the same time!

“You’re drowsy, your eyes get droopy, the eyelids close, your head repeatedly nods up and down and then snaps up: your consciousness lapses. These intervals can occur during any monotonous task, whether driving long distances across the country, listening to a speaker droning on or attending yet another never-ending departmental meeting.” So what Koch is saying is that we can fall into a microsleep in the car. And in meetings. But, um, the car one is really quite concerning…

Koch argues that sleep isn’t binary. It doesn’t have to be something that we actively do. If our body is tired, then it’s sleeping. It’s like your body just  goes:

“You can be awake, or you can be asleep, or you can be somewhere in between,” says Koch. “During the first night in a new place, for example, part of the brain’s left hemisphere remains active during deep sleep, possibly a protective state that keeps us on alert for new threats.”

And the opposite is true, too. A microsleep study was conducted on lab rats that were awake for much longer than normal. Koch explains, “The brain experiences discrete off periods, when nerve cells cease generating any electrical activity for 300 to 400 milliseconds at a time.” This means that when the rats were very much awake – but very much sleep deprived – their brains patterns showed that brain neurons were sleeping even as other neurons were awake.

Next time you feel bad about pulling an all nighter, just remember that your body will be making up for some of that lost sleep throughout the day, whether you like it or not.