Being asleep is not the same as being unconscious. A sleeping person can respond to loud noises or gentle shaking. An unconscious person will not. Mar 08 2011, 6:11 AM Unconsciousness is the condition of being not conscious—in a mental state involves complete or near-complete lack responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli. Unconsciousness when is unable to respond to people and activities. Other changes in awareness can occur without becoming unconscious. Medically, these are called "altered mental status" or "changed mental status." They include sudden confusion, disorientation, or stupor. Sleeping is the rapidly reversible state of unconsciousness. This is of course as opposed to coma or anesthesia.

Muscles relax during sleep, including those in the face. The nervous system relaxes when we go into a deep sleep, which can also cause our facial muscles to relax. This can lead to our mouths falling open and drool escaping from the sides of our mouths. Also saliva can spill out of your mouth as drool when your facial muscles relax in your sleep like if the mouth falls open. Since the muscles around your mouth are relaxed, your mouth can be relaxed enough that saliva slips out. Once in sleep cycle, your body’s muscles, including those in your face and mouth, start to relax, often resulting in less swallowing and more drool. But sometimes when you're asleep, your brain forgets to tell your throat and mouth muscles to swallow, causing saliva to commute from your mouth to your pillow. As you sleep, your body enters a state of relaxation and restoration. This means that your muscles relax – including all of the muscles and tissues in the airway. When these tissues relax, they may fall back into the airway, partially blocking your ability to breathe normally. Sometimes causes your throat to compress as your tongue falls further back into your airway and the open space behind your tongue and soft palate is reduced. Inhaled air becomes turbulent. Directly inhaled air vibrates the soft tissues at the back of your mouth Though breathing is an involuntary function and it may be difficult to control how your breathe while sleeping, if you sleep on your side, the saliva collects in the side of your mouth and the reflex does not kick in to get rid of the drool. However, if you sleep on your back, saliva collects in the back of the throat and leads to automatic swallowing action. If you breathe through partially blocked nose, greater suction forces are created that can cause your throat to collapse and bring on snoring where your uvula and soft palate start to flap. When we fall asleep, many muscles in our body relax. This is true of the muscles in our airway, since not fully conscious. When you doze off and progress from a light sleep to a deep sleep, the muscles in the roof of your mouth (soft palate), tongue and/or throat relax more. This usually happens when the muscles in your body (including your face) relax during sleep, especially during your REM cycle. When this happens, your jaw falls slack and your mouth falls open.

@KarmaticIrony • 3y ago • Going to sleep is like putting a computer on standby mode. The lights aren't on but everything is working and ready to turn back on. In fact some processes are probably running in the background. Getting koncked out is like pulling the computer's power cable out of the wall. Things are not working correctly and there is a risk of serious lasting damage or maybe even total system failure. Even in the best case scenario, booting back up will take longer than from standby.