Why can’t our body clock always determine how long we’ve been sleeping for? Why does a 15-minute nap sometimes feel like 3 hours when we wake up, and vice versa?
In: Biology
Your “body clock” is not a real clock. Life isn’t a video game with numeric stats that work perfectly the same way every single time.
When you are asleep, you have **literally lost consciousness.** You are not accepting much sensory input from the outside world. Large segments of your “CPU” have been switched off, so to speak.
When you regain consciousness, your brain starts deducing things about the world based on the *new* sensory inputs — such as the sunlight changing around you, which might clue you in to what time it is. But this won’t be perfect, you will screw up, you will be confused, etc.
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