Japanese always falling asleep on the train. My question do they miss there stop or by some miracle have a timer in there head?

31 comments

1. Miracle timer. 99% of the time. Swear to god. I’ve only missed my stop while drunk. Lol. It’s genetic (it’s not genetic, that part is a joke. The miracle is real though).

2. I’ve seen strangers nudge sleeping travelers at main transfer stations, like Shinagawa station

3. I boarded a train at a terminal station last week in Osaka, and there was a woman who was sound asleep. About a minute before the train departed, she woke up, looked around and then dashed out of the car.

4. It’s the station announcements/chimes. Once you are used to them, your subconscious is listening and will wake you up when you approach your stop. 

5. First of all, Japanese people are human beings so what applies to them also applies to you and I. I have thought about this quite a bit.

   We all have had people virtually sleeping on our shoulders. I often nudge people because it gets annoying only for them to jump up and get out at the correct station. So, they are definitely not sleeping but they are also not 100% awake.

   I think what it is, is a trance situation. Sitting on the train and closing your eyes allows you to go into a trance where you are much more relaxed than your waking state but you still are able to hear the station name and take appropriate action. I do this too, but I don’t think that I am sleeping on my neighbours shoulders but sometimes it drifts into sleep and I wake up a few stations after my stop.

6. I think your body adjusts to the commute. Falling asleep also becomes second nature

7. I use a train app that lets me set an alarm when the train is close to the destination.

   For daily commutes though, I usually wake up a bit before it’s my stop.

8. I used to do this when I was in Japan, 99% of the time you just woke up right before the stop for magical reason. But once in awhile you are so tired you ended up in the ending stop

9. I used to ride a bus to work every morning in USA and would nod off in the back row. I just got used to the timing of it, and it was never super deep sleep.

10. I’ve lived in Japan almost a year. I now feel confident in taking naps on the train. I haven’t missed my stop yet. I usually don’t get into a deep sleep because my ride is usually under 45 minutes.

11. It’s not a Japanese thing, in Australia I’d sleep on the train or even bus and always magically wake up just before my stop. And when I’ve got something important coming up the next day like a test or interview I always beat my alarm by about 20 to 30 minutes. Magic head alarm is a thing. Makes sense, our ancestors used to wake up on time and they didn’t even have clocks way back whenever that was… Don’t think sundial alarms were a thing

12. I remember taking Odakyu line from Shinjuku and slept all the way to Odawara lol.

13. As a lady carrying a toddler who always has to stand over their heads, I swear that they’re pretending and just averting their eyes from me.

14. Comes with experience! After so many years here, I’m also a train sleeper, and usually wake up within one or two stops from my destination.

    At least for me, I’m not 100% dead sleep on the train, there’s a little bit of consciousness that’s aware and listening to announcements and of course the internal timer. It’s like waking up 2 minutes before your alarm.

    With that being said, I have drunk slept past my stops and have also witnessed local folks doing the same.

15. I’m not Japanese but I somehow always wake up shortly before my stop. I can’t explain it, it just happens.

16. The yahoo train app makes my smartwatch vibrate right before my station, that’s enough to wake me up lol

17. habits…once you make something routine, your body just sticks to it. its why people can wake up without alarms like clockwork.

    when i went to college, i had an hour train ride. i would knock out before the 2nd station and wake up just before the train pulls into my stop.

18. My mind doesn’t make me fall into deep sleep on the train so I don’t sleep for more than a few stops at a time.

19. Yep, they sometimes miss their stop; conductors sometimes even have to wake up over-sleepers at the end of the line.

20. I wake up every 2-3 minutes, and once my station is near, I stop sleeping. I screw up and miss my station a few times a year, though.

21. Meanwhile, in my first time trying to do that I ended up running JR Yokohama **twice** in full because I was sleeping. Woke up like two ours later in the same station I had hopped in.

22. I just fall asleep and miraculously wake up on time every time

23. Op never took a subway after work when returning home to his country?

24. I’ve seen several people clearly miss their stops. But most of the time they make it. They’ve just conditioned themselves to their routine. They aren’t fully asleep, just resting, and they have enough cognizance to recognize the announcement of their stop.

25. Feel like people impressed by this “skill” are usually from places where public commuting isn’t a thing. This is a pretty standard feature of anyone, anywhere, who has to regularly commute via bus/train.

26. I know several people who constantly sleep through their stop… they’re yet to take my advice to set an alarm so 🤷‍♂️ I honestly don’t understand how some people get through life

27. Their

28. Thanks to trains being generally on time or at least trying to, i can just set an alarm on my watch and from an outside perspective i look like i woke up on my own just before the train arrived

29. Probably on topic, [this railway fan YouTuber](https://www.youtube.com/@naoya_railway) specializes in riding late-night trains to the middle of bumfuck nowhere, to see what it’s like if you did indeed oversleep in your train after a long grueling day at work and missed your station, and end up stranded in these places in the middle of the night.

    He’s got an [entire playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzO1NgMtDUPdiz95wEFG-niKnOgjKOJIS) of it.

    Some interesting ones include ending up in the mountains of Ome, northwest Tokyo on the Chuo Line all the way from Tokyo Station.

30. Surprisingly my body automatically scares me back awake every time when I’m nearing my station.

31. My greatest memory of Japan is a gorgeous girl sleeping with her head on my shoulder for 45 minutes.