why do we do that thing where we wake up early roll over for 30 seconds recheck the time and its been hours

Question

i never really understood how this worked because even when you have a dreamless sleep you still know you were sleeping

what i am talking about specifically is when you will wake up at say 2am get annoyed you only slept 3-4 hours roll over to go back to sleep but “cant” then recheck your phone 1-5 minutes later and its suddenly 6-7am the entire process only feeling like it was minutes with no memory of sleeping at all

In: 13

Answer 1

during dreamless sleep, you don’t really “know” anything. the “you” in your brain has left the building temporarily. If that “you” didn’t have a chance to remember falling asleep, it can be pretty disorienting when “you” regain consciousness. Kind of like how a windows computer lets you know if it was shutdown improperly the next time you start it up.