Sleep and Alarm Clocks.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about sleep, probably because I never get enough. And what little shuteye I manage to grab is always low-quality; I sleep like a war criminal with a conscience. Lots of tossing and turning, restless moaning, waking up in a cold sweat, the whole nine.
And the nightmares, oh my nightmares. Terror has a new name, and it’s Ivan’s Nightmares. Dante Alighieri would watch them and be like “Man this shit is scary.”
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Waking up is hard to do (and I know that makes me sound like Big Tom with a speech impediment). I once had a habit of eating right before going to bed, and it took me years to realize there’s a correlation between waking up groggy and having chowed late.
Did you know waking up is really bad for you? By alarm clock, anyway. Sleep is when the body repairs itself. Being suddenly jolted awake by a piercing alarm is a biologically traumatic event, and having it happen to you every day shaves years off your life.
So I’ve been seeking a more natural way to wake up. The latest thing I’d tried was drinking lots of water before I went to bed, so my bladder would be in charge of reveille, but those things are tricky to time. Last time I tried I had to pee after three hours, and then I had a problem getting back to sleep.
Another thing I tried was garlic. Actually that one happened by accident. A couple nights in a row I ate meals with heavy garlic and I noticed I woke up bright and early on the following mornings--because I had slight heartburn and hadn’t slept heavy. And anyways waking up on time isn’t worth it if your breath is gonna be fucked up all day.
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Couple years ago I read this article about alarm clocks. There’s a company called Bio-Brite that makes an alarm clock for deaf people. It wakes you up with a light that gradually ramps up and eventually becomes super-bright.
I think they call it a “dawn simulator” or something, it’s basically supposed to mimic the sun. But instead of being a gaseous ball of light that gives life to everything on our planet, it’s an incandescent bulb that helps you make it to the office on time. Imitating nature never works.
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I think the alarm clock of the future should be a glass of water and a machine that x-rays your stomach right before you go to bed. The machine figures out how much food is in your gullet and of what density, then calculates exactly how much water you’d have to drink to activate your bladder by whatever time you want to get up.
I’m sure my body would find a snooze button, though. I’d probably just wet the bed and continue sleeping.
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Other Alarm Clock Ideas
Clock-based:
- an alarm clock with a snooze button shaped like the Rubik’s Cube (you have to solve it to shut it off)
- an alarm clock on robot legs (you have to chase it around the apartment to turn it off)
- an alarm clock that releases pepper spray when you hit the snooze button (“Unnnnh...what time izzit...GAAAAAHHHHH!”)
Bed-based:
- a bed that slowly tilts to a full vertical position
- a freon-laced bed that gets really cold
- a bed that starts vibrating, like those old motel beds
- a waterbed filled with sleeping piranhas. But at 6am a silent alarm awakens them
Con-based:
- someone’s overgrown cellmate from Changi Prison comes to stay with you every night, and he climbs into your bed at 6am on the dot.
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Well, Graham Bell I ain’t.