I have had this problem and would concur with the others who say just don’t drive when sleepy – I had 2 minor accidents (grazing guardrails) and one semi-minor accident (rear-ended someone, but luckily at less than 10 mph).
That having been said, the only thing that ever worked (and I have tried everything else) is to drive with a full bladder, which only works up to the point where you piss yourself. So the driving faster suggestion might work in this situation also.
The surefire method I always use to stay awake is to wake up my girlfriend and start a fight with her for no apparent reason. You just have to gauge how serious an argugment you want to create based on how long your trip is going to be. For example, if you were to wake her up and say, “You know, I have been thinking, I really can’t imagine myself married, I think that you depend on your parents way too much, and ‘Law and Order’ is not as good now as it was when Chris Noth was on it”, this would be good for approximately 240 miles of captivating and invigorating argument. If that don’t work, a bag of sunflower seeds and a mountain dew is a good alternative.
Except that drowsiness also reduced your response time to that of a person after 5 beers so driving fast isnt too good an idea either.
Crap. My post never got through.
My advice: Please, please, please pull over and take a 10-15 minute nap. I’ve done 24-hour stints non-stop driving and, in retrospect, this is really stupid. At a certain point for me, nothing helps. I’ve nodded off twice in the car for a split second, and that burst of adrenaline upon waking up is what got me through. And I was blasting the radio, window wide-open, singing along, caffeinated, and possibly even smoking at the time.
It’s a stupid thing to do, and it not only endangers your life but the life of others. And I’ve once witnessed a car plowing into a tree after the driver dozed off. Amazingly enough, when I pulled over to get help, the driver just staggered out and wasn’t hurt. Lucky sunnofabitch.
So, please, be a good citizen and take that brief nap. 10-15 minutes isn’t gonna kill you and you’ll be shocked at how much more awake you can feel after a brief power nap. Don’t go much over 30 minutes of sleep, though. You’ll end up feeling even groggier.
If you’re actually tired, stop and take a nap. But I read the OP as being more that sort of “highway hypnosis”, where you don’t have to do much, you’ve been driving for hours, the scenery is boring…zzzz. For me it’s even worse after dark, even when I’m not tired, highway driving after dark makes me feel drowsy.
In which case, I’ve tried music (didn’t help much, but talk radio gets me fired up sometimes), cold/open window (not much help, because I don’t keep it warm normally), coffee/caffeine (helped a lot, but only while I was drinking it), and eating/snacks (helps a lot…oddly enough even when I’m tired and not just “hypnotized”, but again, only while I was actually eating, 15 minutes later I’m zoning out again.)
So I’d say, don’t eat beforehand, then bring a bunch of various munchies, and not super sugary or you’ll OD after about an hour :D. I’ll usually bring a pb & J in quarters, some sunflower seeds/walnuts, a coupla dill pickles(yum!), some cut up veggies-usually green pepper strips, an apple or banana or 2, some diet pop and a thermos of coffee, maybe a couple rice cripie treats or poptarts. That should last through about 4-6 hours. Any longer than that, and I’d guess you’d want to stop/pack for a regular meal anyway.
Hmmm…I don’t interpret it as “highway hypnosis” as the OP states he gets sleepy and his eyes get heavy. I’ve always thought highway hypnosis was that Zen-like state you get in where you drive for three or fours hours and at some moment you kind of zap back into reality and realize that you’ve lost all track of time and you can remember nary a bit of the last four hours you’ve been driving. This used to happen to me on drives from Green Bay to Chicago. That said, I remember reading a report somewhere which stated that this hypnosis is actually a good thing and indicates an extremely high degree of concentration. You know, like if you paint or play music or do something very right-brained, and all concept of time vanishes because you are concentrating so hard. I don’t know whether the report was BS or not, but perhaps someone here also knows of this study…
Well, this site on hynopsis does chalk up “highway hypnosis” and other such phenomena to intense concentration.
This site says its a bad thing.
From looking through dozens of websites on google, it seems the safety people say “highway hypnosis” is bad, while the hypnosis people say highway hypnosis means intense concentration.
This next few tips come from the Iron Butt Association’s web site under the “tips” sections.
Granted a good amount of these tips are for motorcycles but they can be applied to normal driving as well. Though if you are tired get the hell off the road, there is no place that you need to be SO bad that driving tired is worth it. You make your life, or worse mine.
Even though I didn’t start this thread I want to thank everyone who’s posted. I am going from FL to IL (16 hour / 1100 mile) later this week and will be taking in all sound advice when I do so. We will be starting at 6pm Friday. So I will try to stay up late the night before and get in as much sleep as I can Friday am. My schedule allows for me being able to stop in the middle somewhere if I need to.
Thanks again,
~t
It’s actually ok to sleep at the wheel. Just close your eyes and take a quick nap, and if you feel yourself starting to drift out of your lane, simply open your eyes, correct your course, and continue napping…
If the fear of death and killing other passengers doesn’t keep you awake, you need to pull over. If you have this problem over a long period of time, you need to talk to a doctor.
FWIW, I’m in the pull over and call it a day when you start nodding off camp. It’s bad enough that you could cause some major league property damage, seriously injure or kill yourself, but worse, you could take someone else out of the game with you. That would be bad.
You’re going to have to sleep eventually, anyway, so you’re not saving that much by driving drowsy. Better to sleep now and arrive later than expected than to not arrive at all or to dangerously drive drowsy for hours, arrive when expected and crash in the nearest bed as soon as you arrive.
In the spirit of the OP, though, I offer this suggestion: my friend (really, my friend and not me) used to fire up the cigarette lighter when he started nodding off behind the wheel and when the lighter popped out he would jam the red-hot heating element into his forearm, which would make him feel less drowsy, for awhile. Of course, this method, too, was subject to diminishing marginal returns and as time passed and my friend grew more and more drowsy it had no effect whatsoever other than permanent third degree burns on his forearm.
If you are really tired, take a nap. If you are just having that boredom-induced drowsiness, singing loudly, eating crunchy foods, or stopping at a service area to walk around can help.
A less flesh-searing alternative to this is to just pound your fist into your thigh. But it only works a few times.
As a last-resort measure, assuming you’re not on a busy road in daylight, you could try masturbating. Yes, it involves taking one hand off the wheel, and cruise control is strongly recommended, but it does significantly increase bloodflow and heart rate. The key is to keep yourself on the edge without crossing the line, because once you blow your wad you’ll have to pull over and nap.
And, no, I’m not making this up. Just be warned that if you get into an accident your autopsy report will qualify you for a Darwin award and immortalize you as an embarassing urban legend.
