The mysteries and wonders of your own internal alarm clock.

Good Morning!


Question: Can you throw away your alarm clock and set your own internal one to do the job instead?


My Internal Alarm Clock Story

I am not a morning person. I'm a sleepaholic. I love to sleep, and to sleep in, very much so.

The idea of waking up naturally, at a particular time, would be an utterly absurd concept to me. I'm definitely an alarm clock person, or so I thought..

The problem for me with the whole alarm clock situation, was the being jolted awake to the blaring of my alarm clock - wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah! Oh it made me so mad! Not a good way to wake up in the morning.

My solution? - the snooze button.

But the problem with the snooze button, is that it defeats the whole purpose of the alarm clock itself, because if you're a sleepaholic and a sleepinaholic like I am, then you can, while sleeping, integrate the alarm and the snooze together and get to go back to sleep over and over again once every 9 minutes or whatever, sometimes, if the opportunity allows it, for hours! A type of rebelliousness kicks in, so you fight it and every time you press snooze and go back to sleep, you do it with a little smirk of self-satisfaction, as if you're getting away with something when all the while it was you yourself who set it to begin with, at a particular time, when you intended to get up (but isn't even the road to hell paved with good intentions?).

Working the snooze button like I could, both sleeping and, at some level not sleeping (how did I know precisely where to find the snooze button each and every time if I was fast asleep?), can make a person into a real rebel, against one's self.

This total breakdown in integrity will of course, spill right over and into your day, to the shower and usual prep, hauling ass to work and generally not living up to one's promise and true potential, all because you started your day in total self-delusion and rebellion against waking up to that damn thing.

Oh you can set it to classical radio, or get one with a "softer" alarm sound, but it's still the same damn thing trying to wake you up and only making you want to go back to sleep, in response.

Mine might as well say - "wake up! go back to sleep, wake up! go back to sleep - loser" it's bad. We only have one day. Today.

So if the whole alarm clock ordeal is getting you down and if you can relate to what I'm talking about here, then I have a solution, and even an experiment that I'd like to propose to my fellow ATS'rs.

Here's what I did, and please, keep an open mind because at first you probably won't believe me, and certainly not when I take it to it's furthest reaching conclusion about the nature of consciousness and unconsciousness in this matter of awakening first thing in the morning.

I refused to participate in that alarm clock bs game, any more!

So I just didn't set it, while at the same time intending a certain time to wake up.

Now I'm sure we've all had the experience of waking up one minute or less just before the alarm clock goes off, and that's precisely what I'm really talking about here in terms of the precision of your own internal alarm clock. Those weren't coincidences. That's how precise it is.

But where it get's freaky is it's discipline, and get this, I can even do "snooze" every ten minutes if I like, but since there's nothing to rebel against any more, what's the point of that? I'm waking up. Might as well get up.

You can even go to bed LATE, like hours later than normal, and once you've learned to trust it, it will even actively WAKE you up, as needed.

Your own dreams will wake you up

Last night, because I was messing around here at ATS, I didn't get to sleep until 2:00am, so to wake me up, not an easy task as a sleepaholic, I had a dream of being on board a plane, right at the end of something else that was going on, and it was unable to pull up at a mountain, and as the trees came to meet me, I went with it, and tried to experience my impending death, with courage, and that was the signal, there was nothing there to do but to wake up, so my internal alarm clock made the dream extra dramatic to get the job done, and it's kind of nice waking up to an NDE where what you're waking up into wasn't death, but life, yeah and the other stuff was all about new possibility in some form or another. My dreamlife was encouraging my integrity, which is generally doing what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it, including waking up in the morning, as a start.

Of course some of you will be alarm clock huggers here at this point, and you'll think it impossible to just have faith that you'll wake up at the right time, but I'm here to tell you that it works, and, you get wonderful dreams nudging you into the new day, and although crashing into a mountain might not be as enjoyable as a hot cup of joe in the morning, so long as it gets the job done, so be it, provided there's a hot cup of coffee still waiting in the resurrected life.

My point here, and where I wanted to go with this, is that even in sleep, we are not completely unconscious.

This makes sense in terms of our evolution. If you trusted an alarm clock when you were a Neanderthal, you could very easily be eaten. You had to be both awake and asleep at the same time, and that's the way it is, but it get's even better, where an even higher level of consciousness than every day waking consciousness plays an active part at very edge between sleep and waking life, so the unconscious becomes more conscious, provided the conscious can trust the unconscious to be sufficiently conscious not to let you sleep in and lose your job.

I think it gets even trippier relative to the early morning REM sleep, whereby your highest consciousness, where it meets the lowest consciousness can almost play the role of a friendly Godlike alarm clock, which even seems to have a certain playful sense of irony, mirth and charm in the WAY that it wakes you up via that REM activity, to the internal alarm clock's "spring" or whatever you want to call it, but it's not JARRING and an absolute destroyer of personal integrity that is the traditional alarm clock. Damn that monstrosity!

Throw it out and trust in God or your higher self or whatever to very simply wake you up at the appropriate and relevant time, unless you work really weird hours or something I guess.

That it works is a wonder and a marvel, and a bit of a mystery.

Personally I think it's the first step in learning to trust in God who at some level plays a role in our dreamlife and also our own higher self, and that becomes more distinct when this new friend figures out a way to wake you up every morning based on nothing but faith as the very first cause in your new day.

There's something to it, along those lines I am absolutely convinced.

I also recommend melatonin and or any other all natural sleep aids to increase REM. That way, even when you go to bed a little late, your who system figures out a way to get the required rest and regeneration in the allotted time, as if in ANTICIPATON.

Therefore I encourage those who will, to consider it as a means to get into relationship with God and with your deeper self.

But oh to have integrity restored to the very origin of each new day!

And if you can remember those early morning dreams, tell me it isn't playful and funny and out of this world..

I'll have to finish reading your post tomorrow. Eyelids getting heavy. My internal clock will make we up in 6 hours, just like it does every day. Good Night.
-cwm

a reply to: carewemust

night night

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

what -if i told you that i can break your "inner alarm clock" in just 3 days ?

a reply to: ignorant_ape

Or 2000 miles.

Hell, working graveyard shift does it. Wake up at 5 in the afternoon, "Arrgh! I overslept! Wait! Is it morning? Arrgh!"

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: AnkhMorpork

what -if i told you that i can break your "inner alarm clock" in just 3 days ?

I guess my father in heaven would rebuild it? lol

And it's not just the circadian rhythm that I'm referring to but the nature of those final dreams that wake us up and function as the alarm clock.

For me it was like making a new friend and getting rid of a hated one when I took the leap and stopped setting my alarm clock.

I think it's also an interesting experience. People don't have to subscribe to my interpretation, but the ingenuity of some of those awakening dreams, I don't know, as they seem to be beyond my capability as a humorist in terms of the level of play and irony involved. It seems to be from beyond me some mornings, yes, like a dear friend saying "come on come on let's go it's time to play and create and have fun and love life to the full", instead of fighting with some mechanism.

For a lot of people I presume that it just comes naturally.

For me, I took a leap of faith and it worked wonders for me.

Just sharing, that's all.

Best regards, and good night (it's time),

Ankh

Edit: Ah, you meant shifting hours. Gotcha. Sorry to hear that. That would suck.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

sigh - i am not getting irrate or snarky - just a statement of fact

as you didnt ask the obvious question - how ?

i shall leave you to your own devices

PS - i am an atheist - and has a very good sense of timekeeping and internal clock - but someone 20 years ago - said - i can break your clock in 3 days - i didnt believe them - but they did it

a reply to: AnkhMorpork
I no longer have a father. Never a heavenly one and my actual one passed away at 93 years of age.

I've woken to some good dreams, and some bad dreams.

a reply to: ignorant_ape

I'm sorry I'd misinterpreted and had already edited it out. I only understood later. I really thought the three days was in reference to Jesus for a minute there.

"Break my internal alarm clock in THREE DAYS?"

Do you mean permanently? Who were these people, Satanists?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: AnkhMorpork

I've woken to some good dreams, and some bad dreams.

Did you ever get the sense that those dreams both good and bad, were prompting you, as if in relationship say to a higher you, if not a "heavenly father" as I describe?

It seems to shift and change over time in my experience, and of course it does have to do with our internal constitution, but sometime I get such wonderful unexpected good dreams just when I need them most, and bad ones too when they are needed.

For me it's like a teacher. If I'm paying attention.

Anyway, it's past my bedtime and I don't want to have to die again just to wake up.

Good night.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Did you ever get the sense that those dreams both good and bad, were prompting you, as if in relationship say to a higher you, if not a "heavenly father" as I describe?

No. Just, "that was a cool dream" or, "that was an uncool dream."
Seems it depends on your mindset.

I feel like my Internal alarm clock is the result of such a repetitious sleep schedule I had a few years back. I dream a lot, some good, some bad, sometimes not at all. I have the ability to consciously wake myself up at the snap of a finge, and I haven't seen any repetition when it comes to times I've awoken.

I work a graveyard, so I try to keep a subconscious thought in my head of the time I'd like to wake up. I determine a time I should wake up if I want to sleep roughly 5-6 hours and sometimes I'm successful, other times not. A time I consistently see though, is somewhere between 3:00-3:07 PM eastern.

Not downplaying your theory at all, just sharing my clock experience lol.

a reply to: ignorant_ape

What do you mean by "break the inner alarm clock?" I think most people have it already broken. I know mine does not work, because I tried this experiment proposed here so many times, and overslept so many times. Besides that, if you have a nice functioning inner alarm clock, what's the purpose of breaking it?
Anyway, you got me curious...how would you do it?

Kids....have great internal alarm clocks. No matter what (going to bed later or on time) my oldest is up and at my bed side at 6am.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

I tend to wake up a few mins before my alarm goes off, its a blessing.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

This has worked for me for years, always five minutes before, and seems to work best if you believe its important to be up at a certain time.

a reply to: rogertom

Yes, you still have to have that intent in the back of your mind, and set the internal alarm clock.

What's really interesting, imo, is just how unbelievably accurate it can be as I'm sure that many people have had the experience of waking up and looking at their alarm clock within the last minute before it goes off.

It's like there's another level of awareness that can SEE the clock even when a person is sleeping..

For anyone who might like to try this experiment, just place a clock within sight that you can access to signify the moment of waking up.

Maybe best to do it on a Saturday or Sunday but with a strong and powerful intent to get up at a certain time.

It's better if you KNOW before you go to sleep how important it is to be up at a particular time.

Then you just go to sleep with faith that it will go off.

If you're hypervigilant about it, you'll probably find yourself checking the clock too early, but as you begin to trust the internal alarm clock more, you realize that it's more reliable than you thought.

One you've gone without the physical alarm clock for a few nights then there it is and you become a natural waking person at just the right time.

Maybe it's not such a big deal to people who've been doing it all their lives, but for me it was.

If you take it on as an experiment, I'd ask you to also pay attention to your early morning dreams that precede and might precipitate or lead up to the awakening, to see what's going on there. For this keeping a dream journal might be handy and just that additional intention, to not move on waking and to do a dream review before getting out of bed will be sufficient in and of itself to increase dream recall, but it's even better if you actually write something down, so that the intent is absolute.

I'm curious if anyone who might try this "cold turkey" like I did, might notice some of the more interesting phenomenon that I have as if gaining a newfound sense of awareness where the conscious and the unconscious meet to provide potentially helpful insight and integration (whether you fully understand it or not) to kickstart your day in a whole new light.

For me it seems to have a sort of miraculous, divine intervention quality to it, as I mentioned in terms of this outside myself higher awareness becoming a type of advocate as the first cause in each new day, as if being woken up by something both deep within, and, above the domain of the self.

That's what I picked up on was a type of humorous playfulness in the being woken up based on nothing but faith as if entrusting yourself to a favorable outcome while also losing control of it in entering into a deep sleep.

It's very curious when done as an experiment.

Curious though what someone else's experience might have been if going off the alarm clock in this abrupt manner and discovering that it actually works.

Sweet dreams,

Ankh