Dissociation: Who is your co-pilot?

Note well: The following experience was arrived at through poor judgment and could have been quite fatal.  Realize that your own adventures will befall you without putting yourself at unnecessary risk.  Please, do not purposely try any of these experiences for yourself.

If you do something often enough, it is said to become a "routine."  Certainly I've developed quite a few so far, but only one so far was nearly fatal.  

If you drive a car, you likely have experienced dissociation.  Dissociation is a complete or partial disruption of psychological functioning such that one's body takes action but one's thoughts, feelings, and memories for that action are not readily recallable.   When one drives along a given route with repetition, eventually there is only a memory like pulling out of a parking lot and then getting into your neighborhood.  It is as if you have an autopilot for your car and like you took a nap.  That may be so, but, go figure, you have to remain awake for it to work.

It was the year after I graduated from university and I was working as a research assistant and resident computer guru for a smoking cessation research group in Rochester, NY.  It was also probably one of the loneliest years of my life.  Most of my undergraduate friends had left Rochester and my friends in Buffalo were caught up in the beginning of their own lives.  At the time, my girlfriend, K, was in her second year of undergraduate study in Johnstown, PA.  To see her I would have to drive over 300 miles.  It was about five hours through some of the most rural sections of New York and Pennsylvania.  I drove roundtrip at least once per month if not twice per month.  I would usually leave right after work and eat as I drove.  After a while, I thought I had every bend in the road, every abandoned farm, every  broke-leg dog memorized along the way.  Eventually, I started dissociating, which wasn't a problem until I convinced myself that the autopilot function would work even if I took a nap.

Just past DuBois, PA, where Route 219 met Route 322, the road slowed from 55 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour in order to make a near 90 degree turn ending at a t-intersection.  Cement barriers bracketed the turn to emphasize the need to slow, make the turn, and come to a stop.  The fact that traffic on the 322 moved briskly at about 75 miles per hour always made the intersection thought provoking.  But, with too many repetitions, it wasn't compelling enough.  Just past DuBois, PA, I fell asleep at the wheel.

My first memory upon awakening was of my car just about to enter the concrete encased turn at 55 mph.  I recall  the twin circles of light, from the beams of my headlights , growing rapidly upon the approaching barrier and thinking, "I am not going to make it."   Without a sound, I slammed hard on my brakes and pulled the wheel hard right.

Frighteningly, my car leapt into the air and began to spin like a top toward the curve.  I thought, "this is how I die," as with each revolution I approached the concrete wall.  Then, astonishingly, before I could hit the barrier, my spinning car began to follow the path of the curve!  Rather than rejoice, I recall realizing that the curve ended at a t-intersection and, more likely than not, I would sail out into the intersection and then get grand slammed out of this life by a tractor trailer going 75 mph on the 322.  I had time enough to wonder if it would hurt when my car suddenly stopped.  Stopped spinning, stopped completely, right at the t-intersection.

A cloud of dust rose up around my recently landed vehicle like when a helicopter settles unto its pad.  The traffic light flashed before me as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.  I realized I had been holding my breath when I began gasping and then looking quickly from left to right as if the world would once again start spinning madly.  I grasped hard on the wheel and caught my breath as reality and unreality renegotiated their relationship.

How did I survive?  Is God my co-pilot?  Am I some sort of mutant with a very limited power?  Did I experience some exotic but plausible application of physics?  The only thing I am sure of is that no matter how routine anything in your life seems to become, don't expect that you can sleep through it without things becoming much more interesting than you would like.