So, I fell asleep with my contacts in, which I know you shouldn’t do…but it happened. Well, when I woke up the next morning, I could NOT find my contacts anywhere. I have searched my eye and had my boyfriend look in my eyes to see if he could find them. Nothing. Is is possible that they fell out? Are they stuck somewhere in my eye that I do not know about? My eyes do not hurt or anything and I would think they would hurt if they were not on the right part of my eye. I just don’t know what to do or think about this situation. A little advice would be helpful. Thanks
For starters, don’t worry. If your eyes are not red or bothering you, chances are it did fall out and get lost as you were sleeping.
So why does a contact lens get lost so easily while you are sleeping. I am not certain which style of lens you are wearing (gas permeable or soft) so I will assume they are soft lenses. A soft lens is composed, basically, of plastic and water. Notice when you leave it out of solution for a while it tends to dry rapidly. As you wear your lenses, every time you blink your lens is cleaned and re-coated with a fresh layer of tears which in turn keeps it hydrated.
As you sleep, you are not blinking so the lens slowly begins to dehydrate behind your lids. When a lens gets real dry on the eye, all it takes is a gentle rub or sometimes less to have that lens pop out.
Because neither you nor your boyfriend could locate the lens on your eye, it is probably safe to say it is gone. Just for future reference, if a contact lens is lost somewhere on your eye, there is probably a 95% chance it is folded under your upper lid.
To check for the lens, you want to look all the way down with your eyes, towards your nose. Then lift your upper lid as far as you comfortably can. Have your friend check there for the lens. If its there, just keep looking down and rub over your lid from your nasal side towards your temple. The lens will slide to an area you can easily pick it up. You can find more detailed instruction at my other post about removing a lost contact lens.
And FYI – if you have trouble removing a soft lens from under your lid, your eye would naturally flush it out anyway in time.
Now if you woke up and your eye really hurt, that would be a different story, but it does not sound like it did.
I hope this helps, and remember not to sleep in your lenses next time. Then you would have nothing to worry about 
