You’ve probably heard of the term, “body asleep, mind awake.” But I would that best describes hypnagogia, the state in which you are transitioning into sleep by having your body fall asleep first. You simple just stay aware through it as it naturally happens every night.

Now, the void state has been recognized scientifically and they call contentless consciousness. It happens when only certain regions of the brain fall asleep such as:

thalamus, the sensory gatekeeper dims, shutting out external inputs from your environment.

hippocampus, the memory center goes offline, which is why we rarely remember the exact moment we drift off.

anterior cortex, the frontal areas responsible for logical narrative and executive control quiet down.

but the regions like brainstem arousal systems, networks like the reticular activating system maintain a low baseline level of neural tone and posterior cortical hot zone, regions in the parietal and occipital areas—associated with raw conscious experience—can maintain metabolic activity that’s responsible for awareness stay online.