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Sleeping under the stars, a breeze carrying a few drops of water came by. The sense of water drops on my arms woke me up.

I'm curious

  • Why does the sense of a drop of water on one's body penetrate even ultra deep slumber?
  • Is there a record of any person/s immune to this ?
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What kind of "why" reason are you looking for? Why as in why did it evolve / what's the advantage? Or by what mechanism? Or...? – Armatus Jun 10 '12 at 20:28
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I voted down. It's too specific a question to be interesting or answerable. – Noah Snyder Jun 10 '12 at 20:47
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This question could be asked about absolutely anything that has ever woken up a person once. – LanceLafontaine Jun 10 '12 at 22:09
I think if you generalize this to a set of stimuli (e.g., "Why do extremely cold stimuli register to our nervous system during REM sleep (or slow-wave sleep) and other sensations do not?") it would be a passable question -- I do not believe that would be a duplicate, but check for that, too. – jonsca Jun 10 '12 at 23:40
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@Everyone: I normally wake up if someone touches me... – nico Jun 11 '12 at 5:32
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closed as not constructive by nico, jonsca, Daniel Standage, LanceLafontaine, Luke Aug 20 '12 at 10:50

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1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

I do not have a source for you, though it seems to be the case that getting soaked in a heavy downpour, or washed away in a flood is not generally considered good for your health, and so their maybe an evolutionary advantage to being woken up by these potentially life threatening water-based hazards so that once can seek shelter.

Purely speculation.

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No worries; just looking for possible reasons – Everyone Jun 11 '12 at 4:53

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