There’s this strange moment — sometimes right at the edge of falling asleep, sometimes on the road or deep in work — when the usual “me” just slips away. Like, I’m still here, but not really.

One night it happened almost physically: my thoughts were still flowing, then suddenly a flash — a random image. A staircase going up into the ceiling. A bright detail with no context. Who made that up? I couldn’t find the author inside me.

A similar feeling hits when I’m driving after a long trip. I remember: I was in the car, holding the wheel, following the rules… But where was the “me” all that time? Feels like it stayed home with the memory of breakfast. The body just drove the car on its own. Kind of annoying — they did great without me.

Sometimes this fading away doesn’t just happen at the edge of sleep, but right in the middle of work. You’re writing code — then suddenly you snap out of it: two pages of text done, a working chunk of program ready. Who did that? There was no inner voice telling me “do it this way.” It was like the hand just knew the way.

There’s the flip side too — moments of light depersonalization from tiredness or stress. Suddenly you feel like you’re watching a movie: looking at your own moves from afar, controlling a character from a distance. It’s a bit creepy — who’s really acting then?

All this pulls on one thread — the usual “I,” that inner storyteller and watcher, isn’t always the main character on stage. There are states of mind where it’s simply gone, but life goes on like nothing happened. The brain just switches gears; most of these shifts go unnoticed until something goes wrong (like when depersonalization sticks around too long).

Here’s the weird part: the brightest insights (“eureka!” moments), the best decisions, even just plain survival often happen when I — the thinking self — am nowhere to be found. Flow states bring results without effort; hypnagogia slips in fresh ideas; road trance helps cover miles safely and smoothly.

And the harder I try to hold on inside this fading away — the faster a new watcher kicks in: a second layer of control over the disappearance of the previous “I.” It’s an endless nesting doll of awareness: every attempt to grab authorship just creates a new mask of the watcher.

Does any of this mean something important? The usual “I” turns out to be just one setup of consciousness among many possible ones. Almost all life happens outside the ego-commentator’s view; the brain runs on its own patterns and builds new links faster than any willpower.

It’s a little scary (who’s driving?), but it gives a strange hope: if the best ideas come at the edges of these states — maybe that’s where the key to change lies?

For now, I just feel the shaky lines between myself and my modes.
And a curiosity about the moment
when I’m suddenly gone again —
but the work still gets done on its own.