Maybe you’ve experienced it. You’re doing something or talking, and suddenly: boom. Brain short-circuit. Almost like your mind suddenly shuts off. Suddenly no word comes out, no mental image, total blank. Normally we blame it on distraction, nerves, or being tired, but it turns out that science has come up with a much more coherent and interesting explanation.
A new study published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences shows that blanking out isn’t just a slip-up: it’s a real neurological state that can teach us a lot about how our consciousness works (or disconnects). They’ve called it “Where is my mind?” and it’s signed by Thomas Andrillon and Athena Demertzi. We’ll tell you what this article says and why it’s more normal than you think that your brain blocks out like that.
Much more than a distraction
As a first point, they’ve confirmed that mind blanking (MB) is not the same as being distracted or losing attention. Blanking out is a legitimate mental state with its own physiological patterns.
In fact, it’s estimated that we spend between 5% and 20% of our time in this kind of mental blank. And even though there are no active thoughts at that moment, the brain is still working. They’ve been able to verify this with tools like electroencephalography (EEG).
But what is mind blanking?
Thinking about nothing. That moment when your brain decides it doesn’t want to work (which of course it still works), but it feels like a brain blackout, like when you cancel a Sim’s action and they freeze without knowing what to do. It’s a moment when you’re conscious but unable to process thoughts or movements.
Neither alert nor asleep
One of the key findings of the study has to do with the general level of activation of the nervous system, known as arousal. This phenomenon happens when we’re not super awake nor deeply asleep, but in that in-between state.
During those moments, slow brain waves (similar to those during sleep) are recorded in certain areas of the brain, while heart rate drops and pupils contract. It’s like some parts of the brain are saying: “I’m disconnecting for a while, I’m overloaded, let’s talk later”.
Is it like meditation?
Some might think this is like meditating. But no. In meditation, especially in mindfulness, there is intention. You decide to focus or stop thinking. When you blank out, that doesn’t happen. There’s no decision, no prior warning. It just happens.
That’s why the researchers insist that, even if they look similar from the outside, they’re different states: they don’t have the same origin, nor the same level of control.
And people with neurological disorders?
These kinds of mental blackouts don’t only happen to healthy people. They’ve also been observed in people with ADHD, anxiety, or neurological disorders like childhood epilepsy. Even in rare syndromes like Kleine-Levin, characterized by episodes of excessive sleep and temporary disconnection.
Naming the invisible
To understand these blanks, the authors of the study have proposed a classification of the different types of blank mind: spontaneous, deliberate, undetected, and those associated with white dreams (those in which you know you dreamed but don’t remember what). They analyse factors like alertness level, memory presence, internal language, if time is perceived…
What does this say about us?
Maybe the most powerful thing in the study is this: it’s possible to be conscious without thinking about anything at all. Many scientific theories assumed that consciousness required content. But this phenomenon proves it doesn’t. That you can be there, without processing ideas. Basically, it’s that our brain needs a break and keeps going. Has it ever happened to you? Let us know!