What is autopilot in a human? Like why is it that I space out when driving for example and you have no idea how you got to where you are at or when your walking around and then suddenly its like you regained Consciousness after being absent minded?
In: Biology
Your brain works on about 20 watts of power. That goes for everything that the brain does, including all the keeping you alive stuff. Because of this, it has to be rather miserly with its processing power.
When you repeat something often enough, the subroutine becomes “automatic” in that it’s stuffed into the “procedural” portion of your brain (muscle memory). Your brain is basically using a shortcut, almost like your repetitions were printed on an index card, like a script.
When you start the ritual, your brain moves the processing from the 100% conscious main area to the lower powered area, where it just follows the instructions on the index card.
The autopilot effect you’re referring to is specifically just an extreme form of habit. So, basically, here’s how brains work – brain cells have two parts, the parts that send signals (axons) and the parts that receive signals (dendrites). Neurons can receive many signals at once but can only send one signal at a time. When 2 brain cells talk to each other a lot the dendrites (receiving parts) physically move around and grow closer to the axons (sending parts) which makes the space between them (the synapse) shorter. When that space gets shorter the signals happen faster (we’re talking milliseconds here but even small bits of time matter in brains). Every time “familiar” signals happen the space gets shorter and shorter and shorter until eventually those signals fire so quickly and so easily that it becomes an automatic sort of thing (habit) that is able to happen in a subconscious way. Other sorts of habits work this way as well. Idk if that’s useful and feel free to ask questions.
you might enjoy reading Robert J Sawyer’s “Quantum Night”
it deals with exactly this question, and is a great story too
Did this as a teen driving a tractor. I made one turn and then find myself at the same turn, no memory of the entire round and three more turns. Its scary.
You probably don’t really space out, your brain just doesn’t bother
to remember it, so once the journey is complete you have little or no recollection of paying attention during the drive.
This happens a lot when it’s a familiar route. The first time your brain is on full alert trying to remember the route as much as possible – it’s all new. Once you’ve made the drive enough times there’s little value to you to remember any mundane specifics so none of it makes it into your memory unless something out of the ordinary happens.
The majority of what you do everyday is muscle memory and conditioned responses.. you’d be surprised to learn that almost everything you do is just because your muscles remember how to do it and just do it automatically.. driving, walking, breathing, riding bikes, martial arts, playing games, typing.. this even transforms into other things like doing math and solving certain repetitive problems.. just think how often you answer things with out thinking..actually think how often you do just about everything in your life without thinking. Muscle memory and conditioned responses.. your life is an autonomic response.. you live on autopilot.
If you want to read an intriguing book on the subject, and how and why our brains do this, checkout “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. Fascinating book.
The more you do something, the more your brain makes space to do that exact thing. Which is (part of) why you do not need to think about how to move your legs when walking, remember the sound of reach letter while reading, and so on. You can also see this with other actions, like dribbling ball or typing at a computer. It’s essentially the same thing as muscle memory.
As for the forgetting part, my guess is that because the action does not require much attention any more, you get to either think about other things or just not spend much effort and cruise (so to speak.)
Conscious effort + repetition = habits
When you first started driving I’d bet that you were more attentive to your surroundings compared to now
Probably too specific of an answer but you might enjoy reading about [highway hypnosis](https://www.thoughtco.com/understanding-highway-hypnosis-4151811).
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