shminux comments on Rationality Quotes September 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Vaniver 04 September 2013 05:02AM

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Comment author: shminux 16 September 2013 04:54:16PM 13 points [-]

Rationality wakes up last:

In those first seconds, I'm always thinking some version of this: "Oh, no!!! This time is different. Now my arm is dead and it's never getting better. I'm a one-armed guy now. I'll have to start drawing left-handed. I wonder if anyone will notice my dead arm. Should I keep it in a sling so people know it doesn't work or should I ask my doctor to lop it off? If only I had rolled over even once during the night. But nooo, I have to sleep on my arm until it dies. That is so like me. What happens if I sleep on the other one tomorrow night? Can I learn to use a fork with my feet?"

Then at about the fifth second, some feeling returns to my arm and I experience hope. I also realize that if people could lose their arms after sleeping on them there wouldn't be many people left on earth with two good arms. Apparently the rational part of my mind wakes up last.

Scott Adams on waking up with a numb arm.

Comment author: ViEtArmis 17 September 2013 09:16:38PM 5 points [-]

I woke up one time with both arms completely numb. I tried to turn the light on and instead fell out of bed. I felt certain that I was going to die right then.

Comment author: MugaSofer 17 September 2013 08:10:43AM 3 points [-]

Never experienced this exact experience - I don't sleep on my arm - but waking up stupid? Definitely.

Comment author: Desrtopa 16 September 2013 11:36:55PM 1 point [-]

Odd, this has never happened to me. Not the experience of waking up with a numb arm, but the experience of being at all worried about it.

I was quite worried the first time I experienced a numb arm which was both completely dead to sensation and totally immobile for multiple minutes, but after that had happened before, successive occurrences were no longer particularly worrying.

Comment author: bbleeker 17 September 2013 07:59:46AM *  1 point [-]

I've experienced 'pins and needles' many times, but a totally 'dead' arm only once. I didn't have any control over it, and when I tried to move it I hit myself in the nose. Quite hard, too!

Comment author: Desrtopa 17 September 2013 02:12:33PM 4 points [-]

When I experienced a "totally dead arm," I didn't just not have control over it, I couldn't even wiggle my fingers. It was pretty frightening, since as far as I knew the arm might have experienced extensive cell death from blood deprivation; after all, I had no sign of it being operational at all. My circulation was poor enough that I couldn't even tell if it was still warm, beyond residual heat from my lying on it.

It's happened twice again since then though, and the successive occasions were not particularly distressing.

Comment author: ShardPhoenix 05 October 2013 04:33:18AM *  1 point [-]

IIRC the numbness is caused by nerve compression, not blood-flow cutoff.

edit: Apparently it can be either way: http://www.wisegeek.org/what-are-the-most-common-causes-of-numbness-while-sleeping.htm

edit2: And another source claims it's due to nerves, so I dunno. I do find the nerve explanation more plausible than the blood-flow one.

Comment author: bbleeker 18 September 2013 07:49:33AM -1 points [-]

I couldn't do anything with the arm either, it just felt as if it wasn't there. It was decades ago, but I think I used my shoulder muscles to try and move it. I was probably scared too, but that part of the memory is quite vague.

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