It was my intention to leave Saturday morning and drive to visit my parents some 12 hours away. I foolishly decided not to wait, but to leave at once.
Things were fine and when I reached the entrance to the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Breezewood it was dark as I pulled up to the booth, handed the attendant my ticket and the toll fare.
But, wait a minute! I was very confused. How did the toll booth attendant take my money before I got on the turnpike?! I was flummoxed. Then I saw a sign that said Welcome to Ohio. That’s when I realized I had driven about 175 miles on the Turmpike sound asleep! I pulled off at the first servive plaza at about midnight to get some sleep and woke up about 11:00 am.
Actually, I had suffered highway hypnosis, a phenomenon that causes you to zone out while driving a vehicle, often traveling a significant distance without recollecting it. Experiencing highway hypnosis can zone out drivers for hundreds of miles or short distances.
In short, highway hypnosis is a condition when a driver experiences hypnotism while driving and they remembering nothing about what occurred during that time.
The monotony of driving slows down your brain and leaves you less alert and functioning on autopilot. Typically, drivers do not realize falling into highway hypnosis or road hypnosis, but there might be some warning signs like sleepiness, loss of concentration or mental fogginess, wandering thoughts, a dazed feeling, slow reaction time and heavy eyelids or frequent blinking. Drifting into the next lane or driving onto the rumble strips might also be an indication.
If you suddenly realize you’ve just passed your exit or you can’t remember anything about the last several miles, you’ve probably experienced highway hypnosis.
Fatigue isn’t the only cause though. Monotonous plays a big part in highway hypnosis. A 2003 study found that the drivers tended to show more fatigue, measured by large steering movements, while driving on the more monotonous road.
Also, a driver’s fatigue peaked after approximately 20 minutes of driving. The conclusion was that highway hypnosis may happen very quickly on monotonous stretches of road.
According to another study in 2004, the system that controls eye movements also plays a part in highway hypnosis.
When you are driving a well known stretch of highway if the landscape is unchanging for a long period of time, your brain begins to depend less on what the eye sees and begins to depend more on your mental prediction of what it expects yo see! That is, your brain switches to a less-alert mode and begins to pay less attention to visual stimuli.
The likelihood of experiencing highway hypnosis does go up when you’re tired. Fatigue causes your brain to processes what you see more slowly and relying on mental predictability and autopilot. In the case of fatigue, the longer the time spent driving the greater the chances of experiencing highway hypnosis.
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