How come whenever we lay down and close our eyes when intoxicated that it feels like we are spinning and not really when our eyes are open
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You have something called the “saccule” in your ear that is responsible for sensing movement. The way it senses movement is that it has the equivalent of a jelly sponge on top of a bunch of “hairs”. When you turn your head, the jelly sponge moves from the rotation, and the “hairs” underlying the sponge can feel this movement and signal it to your brain.
When you drink a lot of alcohol, one of the byproducts is severe dehydration, aka everything is dried up, and this is thought to impact the jelly sponge — making it lighter and more mobile.
Not only does this mean it can move around *even in the absence of real movement*, creating a false sensation, but when you *do move*, it’s more likely that the sensitivity in each ear’s saccule is now different from variable dehydration, causing each ear’s sensation to be out of synch, causing further spins and disorientation.
Think of the latter example as one ear telling your brain your head is moving really fast and the other ear telling your brain it’s moving slow.
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