I would have thought so a few years back but as I grow older, I find that I can fall asleep in a sitting position in a flash. One moment I am getting out of bed, the next I am sitting there day dreaming about something until I find myself saving a fall to the floor. This has happened several times and so I don’t want to be behind the wheel when I feel the same way.
My best explanation for why we can pass through a lot of highway without leaving the roadway is that we are just so familiar in our cars. I once went a few miles down a straight roadway with stop lights. At every light I stopped for the red light and then imagined that I saw the light flashing so I went back to driving. (Very little traffic). Later I drove that same stretch and found that the lights were operating normally, not set to flash. So now I wonder if I stopped at each one and then ran a red light? I was awake but still in that dream state where I dream I am driving with a lot of flashing red lights?
One thing Triger had was a new vehicle. Maybe unfamiliar?
I am pretty sure that I actually fell asleep but only in part. Obviously my eyes were recording and the body was keeping on but I was not connected and when I woke up I felt refreshed- like I just woke up. I have let long stretches pass without noticing them, also, and have therefore not remembered those passages.