When I was a student teacher in Psychology, I led a large group of juniors and seniors in high school through a dream experiment. For 2 weeks I asked them to keep a notebook by their beds and record the events of their day before they got in bed at night, and any remembrances from their dreams before they got out of bed in the morning. It was mainly a fun way to help teach sleep cycles and their effects on our brains. We were looking for patterns and symbols that showed up in dreams and using the data that science had about sleep back then.
We’ve come a long way in that data over the last 35 years.
Recently researchers led by Claudia Picard-Deland conducted an unpublished study exploring how accurately people perceive their own sleep.
They woke twenty self-described “good sleepers” about a dozen times each night, across all major sleep stages. Each time, participants were asked whether they believed they’d been awake or asleep, how deeply they thought they were sleeping, what had been on their mind, and how immersed they felt in any dream.
According to the account by the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, a consistent pattern emerged: many participants felt awake even when brain activity clearly showed they were asleep.
Picard-Deland, who has dealt with insomnia herself, noted that watching participants misread their own sleep in real time underscored how common this disconnect is.
In fact, it was one of the more surprising findings.
Participants often reported wakefulness when they were actually in slow-wave sleep — the deepest stage. The study adds to growing evidence that people may be sleeping more — and more deeply — than they believe.
This phenomenon, sometimes called paradoxical insomnia, suggests that subjective experience can differ sharply from measurable brain activity.
Subjective experience can differ sharply from measurable brain activity.
If that’s true, then maybe, just maybe, we could be building whole beliefs on the thinnest, most unreliable sliver of our actual experience.
That is fascinating to me.
If we can’t even tell when we’re asleep, how many things in our lives do we think we’re perceiving accurately… but actually aren’t?
We are human — with some (sometimes unfortunate) tendencies. So it stands to reason that there are other things, besides sleep, that we often feel really clear about when in fact, we’re not.
In psychology, a misperception is defined as a false or inaccurate understanding of something, where one perceives an external reality incorrectly.
Maybe we misjudge conversations or misread social cues or misremember arguments or overestimate how badly something went. Maybe we assume someone is upset when they’re just tired, or we replay something we said through a version our mind has already edited, or we convince ourselves we’re being judged when no one’s really paying attention.
Unlike a simple misunderstanding, misperceptions are often held with confidence. We are sure we are right.
So how do we assess our own misperceptions?
Here are 5 things to try:
1. Give yourself a 24-hour audit.
Choose one ordinary day and jot down a few moments where you felt certain about something — a reaction you assumed someone had, a conclusion you drew, a story your brain supplied.
Look back later and note which assumptions you can actually confirm.
2. Build a tiny buffer before deciding what something “means.”
When something happens and your brain offers an immediate interpretation, pause for a sentence or two in your mind:
“This is one moment. I’ll gather more information before I decide.”
3. Check for missing footage.
Our brains remember the intense, unusual, embarrassing, or emotional moments and skip the neutral ones.
Ask yourself: “What part of this day or this conversation or this event didn’t I notice the first time around?”
Often the neutral parts hold more truth than the spike moments.
4. Ask one clarifying question out loud once this week.
Something simple:
“Is that what you meant?”
“Can you tell me more about that part?”
These questions often reveal that the story your brain built was only partially accurate.
5. Revisit one memory you’re sure you have right.
Pick a familiar memory and talk to someone else who was there.
You’ll notice details you lost, things you added, and interpretations your brain formed automatically.
It’s a gentle way to see misperception in action.
I can’t wait to hear what you start noticing. And if you want some company while you sort through it, I’d love to talk — after a (better than we think!) night’s sleep.
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PS If you liked this post – or any others, I’d love you to pass me and my work on to a friend. They can find out much more about me here if they’re interested!
