Cold AC on blast, Spanish band music super loud, downing energy drinks, chewing gum/jerkey/anything, slapping myself across the face, and pinching my legs… all to stay awake while driving and not die.
God! I was stupid.
Who else has pulled over and done jumping jacks on the side of the road to wake up?
I used to do a lot of driving for my job. A lot of times I’d pull over and walk around a bit just to get things flowing again. Worst came to worst, there was more than a few times I’d just take a nap… I’d sooner be late somewhere than dead or worse, taking someone else out.
I had some close calls, but I remember my worst drive I stopped at rest areas whenever it got too bad to take a 10-15 min nap in the driver seat.
But that last hour stretch j was so close to home I probably should’ve just gotten a hotel at that point. I did like 20 hours of driving in a 48 hour period with no real sleep in that time.
You might want to get checked out for sleep apnea.
sleep deprivation and ADHD present a lot of the same symptoms.
With my CPAP I don’t fall asleep in the car on the way to work after being “asleep” for 8 hours. Still can’t focus so if I end up in the ditch, it won’t be because I nodded off.
I did actually get recently tested, I have a mild and inconsistent case of sleep apnea. It seems sleep position makes all the difference for me, so I’m trying to just sleep on my stomach, not sure if I could deal with a cpap.
I’m in the same camp. I can’t sleep on my back, and I can’t wear a CPAP. Triggers my claustrophobia and anxiety too bad. I just make sure to sleep on my stomach.
Hey my dude I know this is late but I was combing over memes from this page and found your comment. There are dental oral appliances that push your jaw forward so that your throat does close down while you are sleeping, thereby eliminating sleep apnea much in the same way a cpap would. It’s less claustrophobic than a cpap!
Mine just goes over my nose. Took some time to train myself to keep my mouth shut, but it works. I’ve been in a couple places without power and I regretted not having a battery for it in the morning.
deleted by creator
I’ve also woken up to my wife “hey! Wake up”.
She says that the risk of dying is always enough to keep her awake at all times when behind the wheel. But for me, that’s just not so. I’ve long blinked while driving in the middle of the day after getting a good night sleep. Driving just puts me to sleep sometimes. Thankfully it’s not a problem on meds.
Risk of dying is what helps me sleep at night
I’m not a great sleeper, even when I’m in my bed, it’s dark and quiet, and I’m tired, so I’ve never worried about falling asleep at the wheel, but it happened one time. I was around 30 and between marriages. I had gone to a couple back-to-back parties and had been awake 30+ hours. Driving home on the freeway going 70, I got woken up by my tires going over the lane marker dots. I couldn’t have been asleep for more than a moment but it scared the complete crap out of me. I drove home with the window down (it was cold out), the stereo up, and smelling like adrenaline. I’ve never pushed it like that again.
Don’t trust it.Cold or noise won’t help, nor will the adrenaline, nor daylight. You will fall asleep. Been there, done driving my car into a rock wall at just 30km/h. I’m glad I had dropped off the passenger already because the passenger side couldn’t fit a passenger anymore.
I’ve avoided even coming close in the thirty years since.
Glad you’re okay and didn’t kill friends or family.
adrenaline has a smell?
Just indirectly, really.
This happened to me once, when i thought it was a good idea to get up at 6am, do chores around the house then work a full 8 hours from 10p-6a doing construction then drive 2 hours home. (Thing is, i could pull it off in my youth). Well, no more. I’m very very lucky neither i nor anyone else had to pay for my stupidity.
I literally slapped myself in the face like in the movies. Then I pulled over for a 30 min nap when I got to a rest stop.
I’m really glad that driving is one of the things I can hyper focus on.
i’m really glad i will never have to drive in my life
Oof me this morning. I pulled into work and was not sure how I got here and promptly fell asleep in my car for an hour. I still feel like shit but at least I am slightly more alert.
The combo of prolonged high stress and lack of sleep is killing me
I was recently diagnosed epileptic and I’m starting to experience this phenomenon where I’m unable to tell the difference between dreams and reality.
I’m not even supposed to be driving yet, but I was under the impression that I had been for a while (in my dreams) only to find out my odometer hadn’t changed when I tried to drive IRL. Really jarring.
You should probably stay out of the driver’s seat.
Geez, how do you manage that? When I disassociate hard I get heavy anxiety about not being able to differentiate dreams and reality and it feels like i’m gonna lose my sense of self. I can’t imagine it being common occurrence.
(Update: changed wording & inserted the missing “always”, I just wanted to warn people of other situations, not rule out it can happen like this - there just might be no warning at all when falling asleep while driving )
Falling asleep while driving doesn’t always work like that. Your brain can also just shut off.
Many years ago I was going the Autobahn from Munich to Nuremberg - going with 150 km/h, 95 mph or so.
I was driving in the middle lane of 3, it was Friday early evening (around 6) and still daylight.
As said I was on the middle lane, low traffic (fortunately!) and suddenly I was on the left lane.
I was just out for a few seconds, enough time for the car to wander over to the left lane.
That probably was my closest situation to dying in traffic.
(I switched my schedule to not drive 2 hours after work THAT DAY)
Idk, I’ve definitely been falling asleep and thought “aren’t I driving, why are my eyes closed?” And then quickly open them.
Thanks for mentioning that - I updated my wording, as I didn’t want to say “it can’t happen like this”, I just did want to say “There might be no warning at all”.
I moved to the city so I don’t have to drive every day. The only way for me to not daydream while driving was to drive fast enough for it to be dangerous.
One of my friend, often a my passenger, admitted he felt safer when I was driving fast and when I was a low speed he would “copilot” for me.
For me it’s not falling asleep, but classically getting lost in thoughts. When I’m on medication I think about random things too, but automatically check the street every half a second consciously. If not, it often happens that I suddenly realize the car in front of me has been getting a lot closer since the last time I paid attention to it, which is before I got completely lost with my full mind in a subject. It’s also a lot harder to turn and shift smoothly without meds, as I then do it automatically without even being able to concentrate on it.
Pull over and stop. It’s not worth it.
However, if you decide not to: simply jerk off while driving. It works. 🤷♂️
