Zombie vs. Ninja: Sleep Edition
December 10, 2013 3:14 PM Subscribe
How easy is it for you to wake up? Are you alert, or do you slowly come to? Is waking up quickly a learnable skill?
I'm not a particularly light sleeper - I sleep through a restless 40lb dog in the bed, and a roommate who keeps late hours, but when something wakes me up I'm up. I am instantly awake and alert, and know where I am/what's going on around me. (Hell, even when I've had a few drinks, or am very tired.) This has always come naturally for me.
My roommate, on the other hand, though he often claims I wake him when I'm (quietly) getting ready in the morning, is like a zombie when I have to try to get him up for some reason. Complete with moans and groans, and seeming to be completely disoriented. It's so over the top it often seems fake, but I think his reaction is mostly real. If I wake him to tell him something and he goes back to sleep he usually doesn't remember the conversation afterwards, even though he was responding to me at the time. I can find this very annoying, probably especially because I wake up so easily. I've known plenty of other people who also wake up like this, but I've always wondered how much of it is dramatics. Sometimes there is a legitimate reason I need him to wake up and be coherent quickly, and that really doesn't happen.
So I am curious: how easy is it for you to wake up? How alert are you/how long does it take to orient yourself? Do you think this is in part a choice? Is waking up quickly a skill you think you can-or have- learned?
I'd like to see what the consensus is; do more people wake easily, or do you have to ease into it? What do you think the factors are? I'd like to hear your opinions/experience/anecdotes.
(P.S. This isn't a roommate conflict question, it's just got me curious.)
I'm not a particularly light sleeper - I sleep through a restless 40lb dog in the bed, and a roommate who keeps late hours, but when something wakes me up I'm up. I am instantly awake and alert, and know where I am/what's going on around me. (Hell, even when I've had a few drinks, or am very tired.) This has always come naturally for me.
My roommate, on the other hand, though he often claims I wake him when I'm (quietly) getting ready in the morning, is like a zombie when I have to try to get him up for some reason. Complete with moans and groans, and seeming to be completely disoriented. It's so over the top it often seems fake, but I think his reaction is mostly real. If I wake him to tell him something and he goes back to sleep he usually doesn't remember the conversation afterwards, even though he was responding to me at the time. I can find this very annoying, probably especially because I wake up so easily. I've known plenty of other people who also wake up like this, but I've always wondered how much of it is dramatics. Sometimes there is a legitimate reason I need him to wake up and be coherent quickly, and that really doesn't happen.
So I am curious: how easy is it for you to wake up? How alert are you/how long does it take to orient yourself? Do you think this is in part a choice? Is waking up quickly a skill you think you can-or have- learned?
I'd like to see what the consensus is; do more people wake easily, or do you have to ease into it? What do you think the factors are? I'd like to hear your opinions/experience/anecdotes.
(P.S. This isn't a roommate conflict question, it's just got me curious.)
This post was deleted for the following reason: Heya, there's not any clear problem to be solved here and this seems like it's pretty aggressively just "let's chat about sleep". -- cortex
I respond both ways with about equal frequency, so I am here to say that yes, this is a legitimate thing and not just dramatics.
Sometimes I can hear a strange noise or my alarm will go off or something and I pop awake and I'm all WOO YEAH INVESTIGATE START THE DAY START THE DAY. Other times someone will try to wake me up or my alarm will go off and I have no idea where I am and I feel like I'm drowning a little bit and my head hurts and it's just like oh my god I am dying I am literally dying right now.
I believe this is due to sleep cycles. If you are at the top of your cycle, in an asleep but close-to-wakefulness stage, the waking up transition is pretty easy. If you're in REM sleep at the bottom of your cycle, that's when it gets really tough to wake up. If your alarm goes off at the bottom of your cycle, of course it's going to be unpleasant. This is why those sleep cycle phone alarm apps are so popular: they try to predict what stage of sleep you're in and target your alarm to go off during a period of light sleep.
I know that I am personally very affected by this because of the tremendous difference between how lightly/heavily I sleep. I once slept through our apartment's garage catching on fire--two fire trucks were next to our place with their sirens blaring and my roommate was pounding on my door trying to wake me, terrified that the fire would move and I would sleep right through it and get burned to death. I didn't wake up until she came in to physically shake me awake. Other times I can wake up at even a slight sound. It all depends on how long I've been asleep and what sleep stage I'm in.
Perhaps you are just naturally a person with short sleep cycles, so tend to hit the peaks more often than not.
posted by phunniemee at 3:24 PM on December 10, 2013
Sometimes I can hear a strange noise or my alarm will go off or something and I pop awake and I'm all WOO YEAH INVESTIGATE START THE DAY START THE DAY. Other times someone will try to wake me up or my alarm will go off and I have no idea where I am and I feel like I'm drowning a little bit and my head hurts and it's just like oh my god I am dying I am literally dying right now.
I believe this is due to sleep cycles. If you are at the top of your cycle, in an asleep but close-to-wakefulness stage, the waking up transition is pretty easy. If you're in REM sleep at the bottom of your cycle, that's when it gets really tough to wake up. If your alarm goes off at the bottom of your cycle, of course it's going to be unpleasant. This is why those sleep cycle phone alarm apps are so popular: they try to predict what stage of sleep you're in and target your alarm to go off during a period of light sleep.
I know that I am personally very affected by this because of the tremendous difference between how lightly/heavily I sleep. I once slept through our apartment's garage catching on fire--two fire trucks were next to our place with their sirens blaring and my roommate was pounding on my door trying to wake me, terrified that the fire would move and I would sleep right through it and get burned to death. I didn't wake up until she came in to physically shake me awake. Other times I can wake up at even a slight sound. It all depends on how long I've been asleep and what sleep stage I'm in.
Perhaps you are just naturally a person with short sleep cycles, so tend to hit the peaks more often than not.
posted by phunniemee at 3:24 PM on December 10, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
I think it has something to do with REM or something like that. Really though, I don't question it. Just gotta adapt to what your -or your roommate's- body needs to really wake up.
Invest in a spray bottle full of ice-water for real emergencies when you need the roomie up quickly (assuming they've got an okay sense of humor about that sort of thing).
posted by johnpoe50 at 3:21 PM on December 10, 2013