A question people often ask is one I'm not quite sure I can answer but I'll try.
(music: piano)
(Computer Voice) How do you stay awake if your eyes are closed most of the time?
(Tommy) I guess what you're thinking then is, do I just
fall asleep all day, like, you know, at the drop of a hat, am I all of a sudden asleep?
No.
I think it's more about being tired than anything else, I mean,
you know, just because my eyes are closed -- like if you
close your eyes. I mean, if everybody watching this video
right now. Let's all just try it. One second. Close your eyes.
(finger snap)
Look, they're all asleep. (gasp) Unbelievable!
Of course you're not sleeping.
Is that too much? (laughs)
(music: piano)
(Computer Voice) How do you fall asleep?
(Tommy) When I fall asleep, I just lie down.
And... you know, I just
get comfortable.... like anybody else does I think.
And just all of the sudden, just, you know, it starts to go
woo woo - you know, like on the cartoons or whatever. I don't know,
but... you know, it all starts to just go away
pow - fall asleep.
Ah, you know, I guess it sort of fades out.
No, that's not really accurate either, though is it?
Doesn't really fade out. I don't know, I just fall asleep just stop.
It just, lie down, comfortable -- poof --
off I go. Snores-ville man.
(music: piano)
(Computer Voice) How do you know when you're awake if you're blind?
(Tommy) (laughs) Well, you know,
maybe there's a sound outside, or I just naturally wake up
and I can just tell that the sleep is over.
You know, I can, like my surroundings, I can reach over and check
the, you know, phone and see if there's any email or anything like that?
You know, I just start doing things just like you do.
What a horrible answer.
Let's say I'm tired during the day and I'm bored or whatever, or like maybe
in class back in school, right. I used to
like, lean down and just sort of rest a little bit. It was great
because people could never tell whether or not I was sleeping because my eyes were closed
all the time. So it was genius. I used to sleep through class a lot.
I had one teacher who would always catch me, he would be like,
"Thomas E! What's the answer to number 16?"
And I'd be like, oh my god, now what? (laughs)
(credits music)
And if you're wondering about dreaming, well we did a video about that
you should really check out. Where have you been? What happened?
Wake up and watch this video! (laughs)