Do you feel your brain wake up in the morning?

[WhoAreYouTalkingTo]

This sounds weird but I have a couple of different types of waking up and I wondered if this is the same for others as its only recently started for me! In the mornings I can kind of feel each part of my brain waking up. It's like I am conscious of different parts of it switching on. Like I'm going around switching lights on in different parts of a house but the house is my brain.

When I wake up for a wee in the night, it's different. I make a conscious decision not to switch those parts of my brain on, so I can go back to sleep. Sometimes different parts of my brain start firing up and I have to consciously shit them down.

This is not how I've always woken up, I used to just go from asleep to awake and so this is new to me. Do others have the same experience?

This is awesome!
I have, for years, thought of my brain (well, memory) as a 1960s university library. I visualise retrieving info from places and know how things are linked and categorised.

And though I’ve never consciously thought of waking up different parts, I do know what you mean about not turning on the ‘upper levels’ when going for a wee in the night.

Though DCat brought a (live) mouse in the other night, and I was up and across the room before the rest of my brain was ready - so definitely shades of what you’re describing here.

I like it. I’ll pay attention for a bit and see if I can hear the old fluorescent tubes rattling on!

Its an intriguing picture of how you belive your brain operates. Not an expert, but I think the brain is compartmentalised, but I am not personally conscious of having different compartments which I can turn on and off.

Waking up is a gradual process for me lasting for about an hour. During that hour I exist in a kind of fog, in which time moves slowly, or to put it another way, simple tasks take an unreasonably long time to execute.

Interesting! I definitely relate to consciously “keeping the lights off” in my brain for a middle of the night wee; and I definitely feel the pleasure centre of my brain light up v specifically when I eat or drink a favourite thing…

Right now my brain is still waiting for the janitor to show up and start turning stuff on for the day 😂

Apparently it is how brains work - and that's how some people sleep walk. Some bits of the brain wake up and not others. there's a curious cases episode about it on BBC sounds.

Ooh I'll have to listen to this. It's just so odd as I'm sure it's not always been something I've consciously done or been able to do. When I was younger, I'd just switch on altogether at the same time.

@MolluscMondayi hope that the janitor arrives soon!! 🤣

I quite often have an opposite thing a bit unpleasant. I am conscious and brain awake but my body isn’t - can’t move or open my eyes. I have to wait and it feels like manually switch on all my body parts to start moving and open my eyes. It’s not frightening but it isn’t pleasant.

Its interesting that OP has this degree of control over what her brain is doing. As I have said above, I do not have this. I wonder if this gives you more control over anxious or negative thoughts at night and during the day? Also could it be that people like OP are better able to manage their own anxiety? Just thinking about the potential mental health benefits if this can be taught..

Yes! I have this and that’s a great way of describing it. When I wake up (properly, not for a wee in the night) I first figure out what day it is and what I’ve got to do.

this morning though DC woke me up suddenly demanding breakfast and I was in a complete dither for a while because all my lights hadn’t been switched on properly 🤣

This is sleep paralysis. I found that reading about it actually made mine go away because I knew what was happening.

Just to be contrary, no. As soon as I'm conscious - and this includes the two or three bathroom trips in the night - I'm conscious, you could immediately ask me anything about anything. I do have a couple of sleep disorders, but I don't think they have anything to do with it, they're just an aside. I've always been like this, I never understood adults saying things like 'it's early' or 'I need to wake up'.

Yes, and if im woken up in order to instantly deal with something urgent or stressful im thrown off all day because my "booting up" process has been banjaxed.

Takes me at least an hour of calm routine to wake up properly, and preferably without people talking to me AT ALL.

Yes, I have also read about it and thought that's what it must be. I've had it since I was a child. Knowing about it hasn't stopped it happening, but maybe it's meant I don't find it frightening! As I understand it, some people experience pretty awful things alongside it – like the sensation of someone sitting on their chest or something malevolent in the room.

No, I don't - but now you have described it I'm kind of envious I don't. It sounds fascinating. I don't often wake in the night for a wee - but if I do I am fully awake when I go. I am either awake or asleep - although do sometimes have to think what day it is.

What a fascinating subject. For me, it varies. If I have had a vivid dream, parts of my brain need to tell other parts it was a dream, none of it happened, etc.

It feels more like opening an umbrella to me, and how much of that I am aware of depends on the depth of sleep I was in.

Nope, when I wake up I'm fully awake. I have to make an effort to go back to sleep if I wake up in the night.

My DP, however, exists in a half-world until a good hour after he's woken up.

I get this, but I feel it specifically as my eyes focusing, even if my eyes are still closed. If a thought I have makes my eyes focus forwards, then that's it, I can forget about getting back to sleep.

This is me, not sure if it was caused by being on call at night for my job where I could get important calls at any time and be expected to answer and be immediately on the ball, or I was just good at that because that was the way my brain works.

Not really. I feel sleepy, like wading through honey, and then I’m awake like the honey is gone. But all at once.

Yes, I do that. I have a non-stop brain when I'm fully awake. I turn off my brain in order to go to sleep. If I need a wee or a drink in the night, I can wake up just a little bit of my brain, enough to get to the bathroom/kitchen and back to bed, and can easily fall straight back asleep.
To wake up fully I turn on my whole brain.
If, during the night time wee/drink, a light is on, or someone talks to me, it wakes me fully up and I can't get back to sleep easily.
I can't do meditation or mindfulness as, as soon as I switch off my brain, I fall asleep. The idea of that some people can empty their head and stay awake makes no sense to me. I can't do that.

Not exactly the same but I’ve somehow managed to be realise during dreams if something catastrophic is about to happen, I “tell myself” it’s only a dream…then as I’m falling out of an aeroplane, I enjoy the sinking feeling like sky diving and turn it into me being able to control how and where I land or I’ll develop being able to fly. Or if I’m driving off a bridge at full speed having lost control, I’ll realise at some point it’s a dream and turn it into a rollercoaster.
I have really bad anxiety travelling that I try not to think about on a daily basis, so this obviously manifests itself through my dreams!

Oh I'm so jealous! If I wake up for a wee, I'm utterly screwed and up for an hour.

Teach me!!! Those of you that have this sorcerer power!! Help me! I want in!!

Edited: typo

I'm like this.

The second I'm awake, im wide awake.

I never wake up on holiday not knowing where I am, I'm fully alert.

I just couldn't understand people snoozing off again and again once the alarm had gone off and I can't enjoy a lie in either.

Right up until the point I got covid. I didn't have it badly, like a heavy cold, a very very sore throat and slight cough. However for 7 months afterwards I couldn't wake up properly. I wanted to cry when the alarm went off. Twas awful. My brain was sluggish and foggy.

I now understand how my husband wakes up, not that I wasn't sympathetic to him finding waking up a bit of an ordeal before but I just had no real way of identifying with it.