I live in a small town about 35 minutes outside of a major city and I make the drive out there pretty frequently. However, I find that at night when I’m on the highway back home (most times when I’m tired) I kind of tune out everything after getting on the highway, then as I get closer to my home, I snap back like, “how did I get here?” My friend that makes the drive from the city to here says she experiences the same effect when heading back home, as does someone else she knows. How/why do our brains do that?
In: 15
TL;DR brains are lazy any make/ use short cuts whenever possible. Basically it’s a type of procedural or “muscle” memory where your brain says “ah, we’re on the interstate, we know more or less exactly what’ll happen for the next 24 minutes, let’s run this task in the background so we can focus on potential tweaks for our mac and cheese recipe”
It’s the same basic mechanism by which you haven’t actually thought about making bunny ears with your shoelaces despite effectively tyeing your shoes since pre K.
Brains goes into automatic so you’re thinking less consciously about where you are and how to drive.
So when you arrive your brain sort of wakes up.
It’s simply distraction. It happens especially when people are tired, or when light isn’t consistent like at night. I have adhd and this is why i don’t drive because for me that starts right out of the drive way. Like i’ll pull out, be in the middle of the street and be like “wait, when did i pull out?” And it’s just because i get distracted extremely easily.
This is a very important public service announcement regarding the “auto pilot” state.
Frequently finding yourself arriving at home with no memory of the actual trip is dangerous and definitely NOT okay. [This](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00356/full) study investigates the “auto pilot” state” and concludes that our situational awareness is extremely limited at this time. This means that, while you may frequently arrive home safely, if anything unusual happens during your trip, you will have very reduced ability to react to it. You may actually arrive home safe and sound, but completely unaware that your inattentiveness caused someone else to have an accident.
You should take steps to make yourself more aware during your drive home:
* Any time you find yourself arriving home with no memory of the drive, change your route home.
* Leave earlier or later than you normally would.
* Make a change in your seat position.
* Talk to yourself out loud about what the cars around you are doing.
* Make a stop at a place you’ve never been before.
* If you’re tired, take a brisk walk before you start driving home.
* Check your mirrors frequently and when checking your mirrors, actually physically move your head, not just your eyes.
* Put your cell phone in a bag in the back seat, out of reach. If you absolutely must check your phone, pull over.
* Avoid doing anything other than driving while driving. Don’t eat, don’t put on makeup, shave, even turning off the radio can help.
Don’t ignore this. Do something about it.
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