Comment by johnisgood
2 days ago
I know right. It is not only counterintuitive, but psychologically incoherent as to how sleep initiation actually works.
A loading screen is psychologically linked to anticipatory arousal and goal-oriented expectancy, which activates the sympathetic nervous system. That is the opposite of what sleep requires, which depends on parasympathetic dominance and cognitive disengagement. Using a "loader" for falling asleep primes vigilance and temporal monitoring instead of relaxation, making it conceptually misaligned with sleep onset mechanisms.
Just my 2 cents.
That's interesting. How would you explain that for someone works then? At least on me, the loader does not trigger vigilance and temporal monitoring (I think). Instead, it "allows" my brain to focus on something else, which gets boring very soon, but that at the same is engaging enough to keep doing it. This kind of interactive yet very slow dynamic helps me stop trains of thoughts and relax.
It does not replace healthy bedtime routines of course, and it never meant to be a serious sleeping aid, but more of an experiment - and partially a joke. Maybe the premise should have been to help stop a spinning mind rather than to fall asleep...