found this rabbit hole while researching stuff from the 1700s.
TLDR this guy named Mesmer did some weird stuff with magnets trying to treat rich peoples illnesses. accidently found a way to induce a state called of mind "Somnobalisum" (a state similar to sleepwalking)
the word mesmerism comes from this guy. Anyway he was shut down a group of scientists (including Benjamin franklin) and the French revolution happened.
Fast forward to the 1800s and mad doctors found a way to induce somnobalisum without magnets. They called it hypnosis.
First step is to induce a tranced state. (shutting off the conscious mind bringing forth the subconscious, akin to a deep meditative state)
Then the second step is to induce somnobalisum by hypnotising the subconscious mind like you did with the conscious mind.
Think inception but instead of dreams its level of consciousness.
the person is now in a state of somnobalisum. they will have no memory of the event and can be influenced to do an number of different things.
over the years they did a number of experiments on people and got some interesting results
Somethings you'd expect - they could make them fall into a deep sleep, in a therapeutic setting they could influence a persons habits or help them access regressed memories.
some stuff you might not expect would be that this can be used instead of anesthesiology. meaning a real hypnotist can put you in such a deep state that you can be operated on...raw. im talking limb removal with no pain. its called Hypnotic analgesia. people have been getting this done for over 150 years.
https://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=86437 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/sussex/7355569.stm https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/hypnotist-puts-himself-trance-surgeon-2232873
that's not all, weirdly enough a person in a state of somnoblasim will often perform a familiar physical tasks or actions with much more ease and accuracy compared to a normal state of mind.
and they score significantly higher on "psychic tests". Actually all psychic research seems to be just a branch of hypnotism. Project stargate anyone?
thoughts?
There's a related phenomenon I've experienced twice.
It typically happens to people while driving a familiar route, and that's how it happened for me. Both times I just sort of "blacked out", had absolutely no memory of the trip. Could not name a single thing I saw or that happened, but all the while I was operating a motor vehicle on a busy freeway.
So years later when I heard about NPCs, I thought, "Yeah, you can probably do almost everything a person does on a daily basis even when there's no one upstairs."
Autonomic nervous system (not the same as subconscious). It's the same system that allows us to walk or bicycle with ease
Oh no, this is something absolutely different. You'd know it in a second if you'd experienced it.
EDIT: I should mention the specific name for this phenomenon, except it does not have one (at least one of which I have ever heard). That's how suppressed this all is, further demonstration of a Big Secret.
I meant to reply earlier, but man I've had this happen to me twice. Both times were later at night driving, and the craziest part to me is that when you "come to", it all seems so nonchalant.
One of them was a solid 30-40 minutes of driving. It's much worse in retrospect than when it actually happens.
It's funny you mentioned you took it nonchalantly, because that's exactly what I did too. Never made much of it and never mentioned it to anyone for years. Then by chance I happened to read a sci-fi novel called Blindsight. Skim that section because there's some pretty freaky stuff about consciousness.
One of the points that comes out in the book is that consciousness is way overrated. The crew in the novel figures out the aliens they go out to meet in deep space are not consciousness. With a lot of background material, the author illustrates the point that you don't have to be conscious to do any of the normal things, from drive a car to build and fly an interstellar spacecraft. We all just incorrectly assume you do.
That's when I thought back and went, "Aw shit, this guy is totally right. Reality just got a lot weirder."