I was so tired that I fell asleep...

GoWolfpack said:

Falling asleep in church is tradition going back hundreds of years.

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Legend has it that we have coffee because of monks who fell asleep during church. The prior noticed that goats that ate beans from a certain bush would get all rowdy afterwards. He wondered if it would work for his monks, so he steeped the beans to make a tea to keep them awake during his sermons. The rest is history.

Two come to mind immediately...

College class, I cant recall which one. I believe it was an earlier class. Had stayed up late doing stupid college kid stuff. Sat near a wall, listening intently...leaned my head over on the wall to relax...woke up to students around me chuckling and giggling. Apparently I had fallen asleep, and I am a snorer. Professor just let me doze. I asked the guy beside me how long I had been out for and he said "a while...".

More recently I was in a meeting at work. I work with some very computer savvy guys who get into discussing code and stuff. I can kinda keep up, sometimes, but out of them all I am the least IT type in the group. Oh, and there are only 4 of us. So they are talking really intently about some SQL coding issue and how it interfaces with some new report platform we are working on and poof...I nod off...right in front of my boss. Fortunately, he is a good dude and got a chuckle out of it.

I’d forgotten about church, plenty of good naps in the pew. The only noteworthy time was midnight mass, Christmas eve, and we’re all holding these tall thin candles. Instead of waking me up my dad took some pictures. No fire.

One time in a college class, it was physics and the teacher would drone in a soft voice, apparently I fell asleep and had one of those dreams where you wake up feeling like you're falling. I woke up startled and from the falling feeling slammed my arms down on the stone table that were desks in that lecture hall. I was wearing a watch and it clanked loudly against the table waking up half of the rest of the class.

Fell asleep in bed with my ex wife before we got married. Got back from a party and we jumped in bed. I had a beer that I sat on night stand. Last thing I remember. Woke up the next morning naked and bed was soaking wet. Thought initially I had peed on myself but then I found the empty can in bed with me. She swore I passed out and she left. I think to this day I went to sleep and she poured the beer on me when she left. Either way, it cost me a new mattress

More than once...

There is a bridge over the Saluda River on Hwy 39 and SC 34, near Greenwood State Park. I was driving my folks' '84 Scottsdale pickup back from Clemson one weekend after finals and was bushed. Back then that was a trestle bridge. I went to sleep driving over the bridge, and the truck drifted ever so gently into the guard rail. The high-pitched grinding noise woke me up and I drifted back to center lane. When I got home, I saw the rail had ground away two quarter-sized half-moon chunks out of the chrome-trim-lined fender edges. Gave me goose bumps; if that had happened 3 or 4 seconds sooner or later, I'd have been in the river. And that's a pretty good drop there.

Once when I was working on my MS, I was taking a couple of advanced EM and math classes, running an electronics lab, and doing my thesis research. And there was a girlfriend too. I was waiting in the EE building hallway on someone, and I leaned against the wall. My friend finally came along and woke me up...it's a wonder I stayed upright.

In an integral equations class I had, there were only 5 of us. Class met 5-6:15 on Tuesdays/Thursdays. The prof (also my MS advisor) used an overhead projector, so curtains were always pulled and the lights dim. OF COURSE I dozed off one day. He used a dowel rod as a pointer. He came over and SLAMMED that rod on my desk right by my head so hard he broke it. My head shot up, and he said, "I'm not mad you went to sleep, but this is IMPORTANT, and I want you to understand it!" (He was right. I still use that material to this day.) I had him for two more classes, and I NEVER went to sleep in that one again, or either of the other two. I think that's when I started drinking coffee.

This is a very real problem that many people refuse to acknowledge or understand.

When you run your body down, you inherently lose attentiveness and your body primes itself for rest. It WILL sneak up on you if you attempt to ignore it.

Eventually it'll get to the point where, even knowing you're tired and you're actively working to stave it off, you'll lose the battle.

Once upon a time, I was making an 860 mile drive from Charleston, SC to my parent's home in Lafayette, Indiana.

At about the halfway point, just North of Nashville but before getting to Kentucky, was the last thing I remembered before I woke up, literally pulling into my parent's driveway. 400 miles with absolutely NO memory of it happening.

Scary, right?

Apparently not Scary enough. Working a second job getting myself out of debt from my first wife, I was driving back to base in Charleston. Feeling alert and great at around 3 am, I clearly remember coming up behind a pickup at a red light right outside base. Then I woke up to find the front end of my car looking like an accordion stuck to the pickup's bumper and my glasses neatly folded and sitting on my dash where they had flown off my head from impact when I slammed against my shoulder strap.

Being young, we often don't recognize, or actively ignore, the signs of exhaustion. Getting older doesn't equip us to handle it any easier.

Learn to recognise the signs and then give your body and mind the break/rest it needs.

Driving home from see girlfriend at ECU, I fell asleep from Smithfield to Benson on I-95. Didn't wreck

Fell asleep twice on my riding mower. Hit the fence 1st time and the deck the 2nd

Early in grad school, I was working midnights, then taking full time masters courses in a program that demanded you not have a job or else you were likely to fail out. I fully understand how exhaustion work... I fell asleep in class ONCE, but almost did many times.
Although one time at work (i was on my way out of that job), we were getting trained on new lab equipment. Unfortunately they decided to train us on the day shift. They were kind enough to give us one night off to prepare for the training... but by afternoon, when i should have been asleep for my daily 4hr max, I fell asleep at work. sitting in my chair, in the corner of a loud lab, sitting not even 3 feet from the person training us. repeatedly. at one point i fell asleep so hard that they couldn't wake me up and literally had to smack me on the face. They said i should get coffee, and i said i had already drank most of a pot.

After 4 days of continuous beer drinking on a cruise ship back in 2003, I fell asleep while waiting for my number to be called to disembark the ship. This was down at Port Canaveral. My group was outside waiting on me with the bus driver who was to take us back to Orlando International.

I woke up to an eerie feeling of loneliness. Not a soul around and no sounds of anything. I got up and wasn't sure which way to go to exit the ship and walked all over the place trying to find a crew member or anyone for that matter to ask for directions. No one was anywhere to be found.

After what seemed like an eternity of walking around, I finally found my way to the exit and happened upon the station that checks your bags and personal belongings before getting off of the ship. Not one person, crew member, customs agent, or anyone else was there. I started feeling like the Rapture had occurred and I was left behind. Lol.

I walked right on through the baggage check station and out into a lobby and could see the bus out there in the passenger loading area with my fellow associates all standing around talking to one another. No other vehicles were to be seen anywhere. I can't recall how much time had passed but they told me that they were about to go notify someone that there was a missing passenger. Lol.

Jerzsubbie said:

HS?? Forget sitting up, sleeping in class were some of the best naps. I used to regularly sleep or read magazines in one of my basic science classes. One kid openly complained that the teacher never said anything, he replied “if you can sleep every day and get A’s & B’s, I’ll let you sleep too” it was hilarious (to me and 1/3 of the class).

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I had the same thing in High School American history classes. I knew the stuff already and would sleep in class, the first few weeks the teacher thought she could embarrass me by making me answer questions on what she had taught. Once she realized I knew all the answers without listening she just let it go. The end of the year she cornered me and told me how disappointed she was at my EOG score, I had missed one question and she wanted me to be the first perfect score.

I fell asleep to Star Wars Episode 1 (the first of the 'new' movies around 99/00)
Apparently I missed some good fighting scenes, but that movie was boring AF

I've had so many that I couldn't list them all, but most were like everyone has already related. There was ONE that really stands out, though.

After my heart attack I was sent to cardiac rehab once they thought I was well enough to tolerate it. First time there they have everyone laying on soft mats on the floor to do some simple floor exercises like raising your leg and holding it. So I'm laying on my mat waiting for the Physical Therapist (or whoever it was leading the group) to start. The next thing I know is there are about five people over me looking down - all the med techs, a cardiologist and a nurse. They don't like it if you croak on them at cardiac rehab. I told them I was just napping before they got started. After that they kept a special eye on me.

DCGallim said:

I had the same thing in High School American history classes. I knew the stuff already and would sleep in class, the first few weeks the teacher thought she could embarrass me by making me answer questions on what she had taught. Once she realized I knew all the answers without listening she just let it go. The end of the year she cornered me and told me how disappointed she was at my EOG score, I had missed one question and she wanted me to be the first perfect score.

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This is off topic but I thought I'd share. When I was 14 years old in Junior HS (middle school) I was sitting in my WV Studies (WV History) class a few days after my 8th grade year started. My assistant football coach was our teacher. There was a black guy sitting to my right and a big bearded guy sitting in front of him. The black guy beside me, who became a friend of mine later on, looked to be a bit older than me and my other classmates. His name was Dale White. I looked over at him one day and asked, "Dale, how old are you?" He replied, "19." I asked him how old the guy sitting in front of him was so he poked him on the shoulder and addressed him by name (I can't recall his what his name was) and asked him his age. The guy turned around, he had a big long beard and was probably close to your size Daniel and said, "19". Lol. Back then, at least in my county, they didn't just let you pass and move on to the next grade. Lol. Dale was one of the nicest guys I knew back then and funny to the max.

In Marine boot camp, all probably, we had the necessary pleasure to be assigned as a firewatch. The research goes back to when real fires we're used for heat and to prevent the death of all involved if it spread.

Anyway you get to wear a stupid chrome colored helmet "chrome dome" and walk up and down the squad bay for your 2 or 3 hour watch period. Well, I had the watch one night, and I must say I never had trouble sleeping in boot camp!

Well white laundry was allowed once a week and all the nylon mesh laundry bags are put into a mattress cover (fart sack). The platoon # is written on the fart sack in blue sidewalk chalk for ID.

Well. I sat down on the cart sack during the night and didn't think I fell asleep. At that time we wore solid green sateen utilities. When I awoke the Senior Drill Instructor at 0430 he never said a word...

...until we marched to chow.

Some of the fellow privates told me the blue chalk was on my ass so I was praying, unsuccessfully.

I did mountain climbers for breakfast that day, and had firewatch the whole week.

Basic training at Benning is where I discovered you could sleep at the position of attention.

In 1995 I worked second shift at the hospital data center, parked cars at Hertz at RDU mornings and Fri to Sun selling stuff at Best Buy.
I would get home and hit the sack, would wake up between 1-3AM to take care of our first born. I was a Zombie. I had no idea how I made it home each night from the 11 mile drive, remember starting the car and next thing I am in the driveway with the car parked and turned off. I changed my routine to stay up until she woke up for her change and then went to sleep like a rock. "Change Daddy".

On I40, approaching the Hildebran - Henry River exit, heading east toward Hickory, NC. My wife was asleep in the passenger seat. I dozed off for a couple of seconds. I woke up when the car hit a bump where the paving crew had stopped at the end of the day, so we didn't hit the bridge abutment we were headed toward.

slept plenty in church, even when robed up as an acolyte. way too much in school. few times ata red light on my way home from work. once while driving the crew in a truck back to the shop, passenger pokes me and says " are you dead? " ....was a possibility as that truck had a bad exhaust leak.....the good old days. now i just doze off when trying to play with the grandkids...