Fascinating things happen when I get drowsy at a concert, during a boring meeting, etc. Image processing in the brain breaks down, depth cues stop working, objects adjacent to one another are no longer properly separated, and the "two-and-a-half dimensional sketch" made by the visual cortex becomes full of errors. Vertical lines develop subtle, vibrating jogs; hues shift and grays take on faint orange casts.

But there's a countermeasure that I've discovered: find somebody else who's falling asleep and observe them. Somehow, when I'm watching another person struggling to remain conscious, I become more wakeful. Why?

(cf. DreamData (2002-03-22), ...) - ^z - 2009-06-23