How to "fight the fade" during terribly boring lectures.

One minute your eyes are locked-in on your professor and you are taking notes. The next minute, your hand is slowing as your eyelids are being forced down involuntarily. The next minute, your head is making its way backward, ready to bottom out on the notebook of the kid behind you. Suddenly your slumberous motion startles you awake and you are primed to repeat the process.

Easy to describe because we've all done it before… and seen it done by the kid next to us countless times more.

Some start to snore, some appear severely hypnotized, some seem to be doing subconscious calisthenics and some look like Pauly Shore when… well, whenever.

So how to avoid this most common of classroom fates?

The key is to keep yourself involved somehow in the lecture. Taking notes doesn't qualify because you are simply regurgitating information instead of actively processing thoughts.

The best advice I can offer is to ask a question. It doesn't matter what the question pertains to, as long as it can be linked to the topic at hand and doesn't make you look like a kid who has zoned out for the past 10 minutes (or past 10 lectures).

Anytime you have to present yourself to the professor, you'll need to stay awake. It'll keep you alert and give you the stimulation needed to make it through another energy-sapping lecture.

If that still doesn't work, you can always fall back on electroshock therapy…

What helps you stay awake in the most boring lectures? Strategies or tips to share?