It’s a weird phenomenon, and while I’m willing to chalk it up to material causes (drug interactions or related blackouts, etc.), the few times I’ve experienced it have felt so drastically different than similar states I’ve experienced I still think about them once and a while. Have you had one, and while you may have chalked it up to a rational cause still aren’t 100% satisfied with that conclusion (or have chalked it up to something else entirely? Interested in those stories too, but while I won’t do it know others may dunk on you).
I have two stories:
-Many years ago, I invited a girl to my place to hang out. We smoked some weed, a normal amount for us, and ordered a pizza. We were chatting normally, then all of a sudden it was three hours later. The pizza guy came and went, and both of us couldn’t account for the lost time.
Rational conclusion: We smoked weed and fell asleep.
Things that make this uncomfortable: We were both pretty experienced pot smokers, and for my part while I had fallen asleep smoking pot before, it’s usually accompanied with a period of waking up. This was more a sudden “Hey, wait, something’s off” experience while still sitting up. And it happened to both of us.
-About a year ago, I visited a bar late and had (to my recollection) about 4 beers. Again, this is within normal thresholds, though I have drank to blackout before. I left the bar and caught a bus home.
As I was getting out of the uber in front of my house, I thought “Wait a second, didn’t I get on the bus?”. I had my map tracking on (I know, dumb, but in this case useful), and apparently I got off the bus, and about 15 minutes later grabbed an uber. I had no recollection of this.
Rational conclusion: Between the lateness of the hour, level of tiredness and alcohol, I hit a blackout threshold much lower than I’ve experienced before, got confused with late night bus routing and hopped off to grab an uber instead.
Things that make this uncomfortable: it was not an expected amount of beer that would lead to this, and based on how I felt the next morning (pretty normal but tired) I don’t think I drank more than I accounted for here. As an aside, where I got off was interesting - there’s an old motel that’s in a kind of weird spot in a very gentrified area of my town (motel was operating before this period). Always caught my attention, but I’ve never had any reason whatsoever to go there. According to the map, I was there for the 15 minutes. That said, looking at the map, my pickup location on the uber app, and noting exact positioning is often off by a bit on the map app, it was likely a coincidence and I was at a nearby intersection, with the map pinging this because it was a nearby landmark.
Again, ultimately I chalk these up to rational causes, but there’s something about them that give me pause anyway. Would love to hear stories from other folks who’ve had experiences like this and what explanations they’ve landed on.
So you’re not wrong, which is why I’ve typically chalked it up to those causes.
But with that said, experientially these moments differed from moments where the connection between the activity and experience was much clearer. Smoke weed, pass out, and have usual experience of waking up (eyes opening, moving from a prone position to being upright, first-waking-up grogginess as you return to consciousness, etc.) - doesn’t neatly match up with my experience here, and stands out from other experiences where the cause and effect was experientially clear. Same with the second story - I have blacked out before, but it’s usually accompanied with a clear state/level of intoxication beforehand, and more intoxicating material involved than was the case here.
I want to be very clear - I’m not positing these experiences are something paranormal whatsoever, which is a trend when looking up information about missing time. I’d argue in all cases, there is something material afoot - drug-brain interaction, neurological causes (seizures, etc.), known phenomenon like highway hypnosis, etc. They just feel weird, and I shared my stories mostly to see if others had some they wanted to share. Entertaining anything beyond the rational re: this should really just be fun “What if?” thinking IMO - fun to consider but not to take as a real root cause.