"Highway Hypnosis" is a well documented phenomenon. Your body is essentially autopiloting the drive. It most commonly happens when you're driving a route you're familiar with, like a commute.
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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And it doesn’t only happen to people with ADHD.
This may be true but people with ADHD are significantly more likely to have car accidents. This is a well studied and documented phenomenon. Just because it happens to others doesn't mean it isn't a serious ADHD risk.
You mean like everything posted in this community?
Yeah, I get the feeling that some people with an ADHD diagnosis (or self-diagnosis) try to explain everything as a symptom of ADHD. Creates a lot of noise in this community, unfortunately.
Oh that’s just my ocd personality I’m so random
Oi, you got a spork for that random?
This happens to me while on my ebike sometimes and always gets me into the most dangerous close calls
Always happens to me on highways and makes me a safer driver. I keep speed limits and distances better and drive more defensively.
Once you become comfortable enough with driving, it because an unmonitored process. The body will control the car according to what you have practiced, freeing you to think.
My problem is when I snap back and have to actively think about where I am and where I need to be.
Ah yes, migrating a foreground user process to a background system process.
Only to get a sudden pop-up into the foreground
"That light was green, right?"
Too real.
Sometimes I look in the rear mirror to make sure others drove through it as well.
I genuinely feel safer when I zone out. It's like a completely different, subconscious part of my brain takes over and does a better job. Otherwise, I'm fixating on all the wrong things: what does that vanity plate say?! WTF is that billboard even trying to advertise? etc.
I've had to react (successfully) to things in that state enough times that I'm confident in my brains ability to quickly snap back.
I really don't think it's our brains just checking out. For me, it feels more like my brain decided that the memory of driving wasn't important enough to record.
Very well could be that. I never feel like I check out until I snap-to and realize I don't remember the last 30 miles.
"Did I just teleport??"
Once I couldnt remember a drive of ~3 hours... Teleporting is real ~.~
There’s a big difference between highway hypnosis and offloading the processing to your unconscious. Consciously processing the information that is coming at you while driving is just too much. Noticing everything.
Approaching intersection. Light is green. Four way intersection. Nobody turning left. Car in front of me holding speed. Black car. Behind me car holding speed red car. Pedestrians crossing in line with traffic on other side of street. No pedestrians this side. Light is still green. Car in front is still black. Car in front slowing slightly. Lane change behind me car is now green and matching my speed. Car turning right at intersection is silver and stopped to give me right of way.
Whew.
But some people definitely don’t see as much as others.
Consciously processing the information that is coming at you while driving is just too much. Noticing everything.
Approaching intersection. Light is green. Four way intersection. Nobody turning left. Car in front of me holding speed. Black car. Behind me car holding speed red car. Pedestrians crossing in line with traffic on other side of street. No pedestrians this side. Light is still green. Car in front is still black. Car in front slowing slightly. Lane change behind me car is now green and matching my speed. Car turning right at intersection is silver and stopped to give me right of way.
Whew.
Ironically, this is the reason I love my motorbike. I can ride for hours in that state, and it feels amazing, like it's feeding the hyperfocus, hyperactive part of my brain.
The second I stop though, I'm exhausted.
Motorcycles are amazing. It's like making your drive an act of mindfulness.
Couldn't agree more. Also, same goes for driving a manual car(to a lesser extent). I feel like a stick shift should almost be mandatory for people with ADHD cause I always felt it made me a safer driver.
Yeah, same here. When I ride, it's like my brain is FINALLY busy enough with processing and doing automated tasks(leaning, shifting, braking, looking out for gravel etc) that it can stick to one thought at the time. My mind doesn't jump all over the place, I can finish my train of thought, if I want to.
I think it's because you're so awhere of your surroundings/the road surface/your body, and all the input from the world around you. Man I love riding motorcycles😃
Me when I find myself behind the wheel of a large automobile.
You may also find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”
I remember completely blanking out several miles of driving and coming back almost driving off the road. One minute I am barely outside of the city I worked in, the next I am "waking up" about 2 miles from home, having managed to completely lose my memory of taking all the turns necessary to get to where I was.
so many times I drove to work and had... no memory of driving there as I got out of my car.
thankfully I work from home now 🤣
And here I thought I was the only one.
I'm sometimes prone to this happening, but once I started driving a manual transmission, it hasn't occurred even once. I'm forced to pay more attention, and it's even fun sometimes! Downshifting to pass someone is such a joy 😁
Careful, this doesn't work when entering/leaving a city. I've done it dozens of times in my town because there's 3 fucking stop lights on the highway, yes highway, on the edge of town going 45-55 over a stretch of about 3/4 of a mile. There's more as you get further in town and the highway just becomes a regular road for a couple miles but by then you're in traffic and not as easily distracted.
It's always fun to wonder what I have narrowly avoided while I was day dreaming.
I’ve done this far too many times.
The second half sums up my existence.
"Jesus take the wheel"
I don't drive long distances much any more ... but in the last few years when I did go on a long drive ... I often fantasized of completely zoning myself out willingly.
Not to the point of losing control and crashing the car ... but of just going on autopilot and driving and driving and driving and driving until I ran out of gas, then fuel up and do it again for days and days and days and just forget about everything.
This is the point of automated safety features such as radar cruise control and lane keeping and braking assist.