100 years from now the conversation will be about how back in the day we didn't know all of the ways time, space and quantum mechanics worked and we thought it was just a coincidence or some psychological brain function that has a highly tuned timer.
Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
11–20 of 86 posts
Re: Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
#12I think even more interesting is when I wake up before my alarm and actually get up/out of bed I feel like I had proper sleep. However, if I decide to go back to sleep for the short period of time before my alarm, I usually wake up by the alarm and feel like I got terrible sleep.
Yes! Basically, every time I wake up because of alarm I feel disgusting.
But the most bizarre thing for me is that I pretty much always get up before the alarm (and hence feeling perfectly fine) if I drastically changed my regimen recently (which normally is pretty much non-existent), even if it leaves me with 5 hours of sleep. But once I get comfortable with it, I start sleeping longer, waking up after the alarm (even if I set it purposefully late, making place for, like, 9-10 hours of sleep), waking up tired and hating my life.
Re: Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
#13Personally, I rarely wake up before my regular alarm goes off. However, if I have to wake up earlier than I normally do for something (dr's appt, scheduled flight, etc), my body seems to wake itself up every couple of hours out of fear that I will sleep through the alarm. So I normally wake up at 8 and sleep soundly through the night, but if I've gotta be up at 7 for some reason, even if I have an alarm set, I seem to wake up in a panic at about 4 AM, 6 AM, 6:30 AM, etc.
Re: Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
#14Nope. I slept in a common room with 3 brothers. If my alarm went off (half an hour before they needed to get up) I got a whopping. So I would wake up moments before the alarm, scramble from bed to my desk and slap the snooze button sometimes just as the buzzer started to sound.
This guy is over-thinking it. And underestimating the human brain.
Re: Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
#15I think even more interesting is when I wake up before my alarm and actually get up/out of bed I feel like I had proper sleep. However, if I decide to go back to sleep for the short period of time before my alarm, I usually wake up by the alarm and feel like I got terrible sleep.
This phenomenon is known as “sleep inertia”: if you’re awakened during certain stages of deep sleep, you’ll generally feel foggier and tired for longer after waking up.
Re: Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
#16I think even more interesting is when I wake up before my alarm and actually get up/out of bed I feel like I had proper sleep. However, if I decide to go back to sleep for the short period of time before my alarm, I usually wake up by the alarm and feel like I got terrible sleep.
That's a lot simpler. The deeper asleep you are, the less pleasant it is to be dragged out of sleep. When you wake up on your own, that effect is basically at zero.
Re: Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
#17I discovered at an early age that I could "will" myself to wake up at a desired time. It's certainly not perfect, but my accuracy is way better than chance. Living things have all sorts of biological clocks, so this isn't really magic. Rather, it might be a bit surprising that we have some conscious control over it.
I can do this too. Like you it doesn't work all the time, but far better then coincidence would allow.
For fun I try variations: I will wake up in 6hrs. vs I will wake up at 7 o'clock. vs I will wake up 10 minutes before my alarm.
...or whatever my target is.
Re: Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
#18I think even more interesting is when I wake up before my alarm and actually get up/out of bed I feel like I had proper sleep. However, if I decide to go back to sleep for the short period of time before my alarm, I usually wake up by the alarm and feel like I got terrible sleep.
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Re: Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
#19I discovered at an early age that I could "will" myself to wake up at a desired time. It's certainly not perfect, but my accuracy is way better than chance. Living things have all sorts of biological clocks, so this isn't really magic. Rather, it might be a bit surprising that we have some conscious control over it.
Yeah, I'm pretty much sure OP is unnecessarily complicating things. It I am getting up like 5 minutes before the alarm every time I know I really need to get up at that specific time (because I know something more important than just dragging my ass to the fucking office needs to happen this time), well, that means I somehow know subconsciously really well what's the time is. Because either I'm living in my sleep ever since, or I actually got up, turned off the alarm clock so it won't bother me, got dressed and went on with my day. Not just lied there fooling myself I'm awake before I actually got awake.
Re: Why did I wake up before my alarm clock went off? (2015)
#20The famous experiments from Benjamin Libet seem relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet#Implications_of... . In particular, see Daniel Dennett's response (the relevant aspects of which are quoted on the Wikipedia article linked above). I will say, I don't think this is a terribly interesting _example_; as others have noted, it's not uncommon to actually wake up minutes before the alarm goes off. (…
During high school I had an alarm. I would wake up within about 1 to 3 seconds of it going off, stand up, walk to the alarm that was in my washroom and turn it off just as it was starting. Every school day for years.
I became convinced that the precision of the brain at a task is partially a function of its reliability long before learning anything about machine learning.