Why does head feel empty sometimes

Mind blanking is defined as the moment when a person cannot describe a single thought, image, or internal dialogue. The condition is often associated with meditation and mindfulness practices, but, as the researchers note, it often occurs in everyday life, for example, after prolonged mental stress, exams, or lack of sleep. Similar episodes are also more common in people with anxiety disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

To study this phenomenon, 62 healthy volunteers were recruited, who were asked to perform long and monotonous cognitive tasks. During the experiment, the researchers tracked fluctuations in attention, recorded behavioral reactions, and recorded brain activity using high-density electroencephalography.

Data analysis showed that episodes of “emptiness” were accompanied by characteristic changes in brain function. At these moments, connectivity between remote neural networks decreased, and visual information processing was disrupted. Particularly noticeable was the disappearance of the late stage of visual processing, which is usually associated with conscious perception. Participants also became more sleepy, reacted more slowly, and made mistakes more often.

According to the authors of the study, the data obtained indicate that in a state of “emptiness in the head” the brain temporarily loses access to sensory information from the environment. The information suggests that being awake does not always mean having a conscious experience. The phenomenon represents a real break in the stream of consciousness, not just a subjective sensation.

Scientists also hypothesize that “emptiness” may be a form of short—term loss of consciousness in the waking state, a kind of opposite phenomenon of lucid dreaming. According to the researchers, such episodes can occupy from 5 to 20 percent of the waking time, although their frequency varies greatly from person to person.

The results support the idea of consciousness not as a continuous flow, but as a mosaic of individual states in which the temporary absence of fragments leads to short moments of unconsciousness.

In the future, the researchers plan to explore whether “emptiness” can be used in clinical practice to more accurately describe neurological and psychiatric conditions.