But speaking of half asleep, I have always wondered why a person can't just close one eye to go half asleep. Sometimes when I am really tired my eyes start to hurt. They feel grainy. If I'm driving, I cannot close both my eyes to rest them. That could result in me falling asleep which could result in an encounter with a telephone pole, which would be terrible, as in "lights out, Charles!"
Why can't I just close one eye as I drive to rest it? Then maybe after 10 minutes close the other eye for ten minutes? Shouldn't I then be able to open both eyes and feel some relief? I mean, if can stop in a rest area for a ten-minute nap and wake up ready to head down the road again without fear of a close encounter with a telephone pole — why couldn't my one-eye-closed-at-a-time system work?
So, my question — and I hope you can help — is why can't I just close one eye and feel rested — both me and my eyes?
Actually, I do close one eye. After driving several hours my eyeballs start to burn. It's like I have grit in them. I then pull into the next safe place to stop. I carry a facecloth with me and always have water. I dampen the facecloth, and hold it on my closed eye lids. If there's snow on the ground I use snow. It is such a great cooling effect that within 1 or 2 minutes my eyeballs have cooled down. Occasionally I'm in a spot I can't pull over like half-way through Salt Lake City on I-15. My wife will dampen the facecloth and I'll do one eye at a time. That's all it takes and my eyes feel fine. I've always been a little photophobic so perhaps that's part of the problem although it does happen at night too. As to "rest" - my body doesn't get rested this way but my eyes do. I've read that when driving 75% of your energy is used by your eyes.
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