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Internal Clock

February 7th, 2006

For what must have been the third time this week, I sprang up awake, thinking I had outslept my clock alarms and it was late for me to go to work–and then one minute later, my first alarm of the morning goes off.

So I have an accurate internal clock in my brain, and it’s precise enough to wake me up at an exact time. So why can’t it let me know that it’s waking me up on time instead of making me think I’m late?

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  1. Tim Kane
    February 7th, 2006 at 08:02 | #1
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    I have an internal clock like that as well.

    But I can even tell myself that I have to wake up at 5:30am to catch a plane and I’ll wake up at 5:24am or something like that.

    I have to be well rested for that to work though or not suffering from jet lag – If I am short on sleep or out of kilter it won’t work or my brain will cheat, and I always have to set the alarm clock anyway. Idle threats are seldom any use.

    The bad part is that I can no longer sleep untill 10:30 or something like that. My body always wakes up within an hour of my normal sleep zone.

  2. ykw
    February 7th, 2006 at 16:33 | #2
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    Perhaps you wake up due to little signals from light and sound, and perhaps you figure that if you are awake and the alarm has not yet gone off, you must have outslept the alarm.

  3. Larry
    February 8th, 2006 at 02:59 | #3
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    I, too, have an accurate internal alarm clock. It wakes me up within 5 minutes of my ‘set’ wake up time. I don’t seem to have the feeling that I’m late though. Perhaps its a matter of trust-level?

    Unlike Tim, mine works even if I’m tired. I just wake up resenting it a little more when I’m tired.

    For me, its a wonderful alternative to the alarm clock. I need to turn the volume up on the alarm to make sure I don’t sleep through it. As a result, my heart often ends up racing when I wake up. When I wake up with my internal alarm, the effect is much gentler on the system…

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