Absolutely not; I try to remain half-asleep so I can return to catatonia as easily as possible. If I need to see, I wear all-the-time contacts so that’s no problem.
I never understand movies when the phone rings and people feel compelled to turn on the bedside lamp to answer it. That burns your eyes out and wakes you up way too much. I know it’s to make the scene more interesting, but does anyone actually do this?
I do turn on the light in the bathroom, because for some reason, dark bathrooms scare me a bit. I’m weird. But if I had a bedside phone and got a call I wouldn’t turn on the light unless the reason for the call was the sort that means I’m not getting back to sleep for awhile no matter what.
I turn on the light in the bathroom because it’s windowless and extremely dark, and there are some parts of the household where I don’t wanna be gropin’ my way around, ya know?
However, I did pick up a great trick from another Doper. I can never remember who I hear these lifesaving tips from, damnit—whoever you are, I apologize!
Anyway, before you turn on the light, close one eye. If you keep it closed, you keep your dark adapation in that eye! Then when you turn out the light and grope your way through the dark bedroom, you have an eye that works! It’s really freakin’ keen! This is also helpful at the observatory.
It’s probably an American or USA thing but many houses have a master bedroom with a bathroom. Commonly refered to as a ‘Master Bath’. The door to the bathroom is only a few steps from my side of the bed, I never need to turn on a light to find it. Though I do turn on the light in the bathroom.
I suspect we will live in this house for a long time. If/when we move into another, I’ll want it to have a master bathroom.
There are few things I hate more than waking up in the middle of the night, having to go pee. There’s that 30 seconds or so while you realise you’re awake. Then there’s the “Huzzahwhuzzah? Why am I awake? Not the alarm, it’s still dark out. Musta been a noise or something - wait, no. Gotta go pee. Dammit!!”. And yah, another half minute spent trying to figure out whether you really have to go. And then you think about how cold it’ll be when you get out of bed, and how cozy you really are, and how long it’s going take you to fall back to sleep. Then you stumble to the bathroom in the dark, tripping over things like your own feet, and do your business, and all the while I’m sitting there peeing I’m half-awake and pinching my leg to make sure I’m actually awake and not peeing the bed (which is strange, because I was never a bed-wetter as a kid, I’ve just heard too many horror stories of people thinking they were awake and dreaming about getting up and walking to the bathroom but actually still being asleep and peeing the bed, which I don’t know if that even happens, but I’m paranoid), and then you wash your hands, and the water is either cold and shocks you awake or very hot and it burns you, and I’ve got some compulsion that requires me to moisturize my hands after every time I wash them, so I’m searching around the cabinet for hand cream and OW safety pin OW, and then stumbling back to bed, and lying there for half an hour staring at the ceiling, COMPLETELY AWAKE.
The weird thing is, this getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night thingy is a recent experience for me. I don’t know if I spent the first 20 years of my life very dehydrated, or what, but it’s only in the last year or so I’ve ever woken up in the night having to pee. And when you consider I’m actually in bed for far fewer hours now that I ever was as a child, it makes even less sense.
If I’m alone, I turn the light on. If my husband is already asleep, no. However, I know the exact sequence of steps and turns, and objects to feel for in the dark so I don’t bump into them and cause a ruckus that would be more trouble than the light. I am sometimes literally tripped up, however, by some cat that is lying in the middle of the hall for no apparent reason.
I see you understand the concept of a “sleep return window”. You can go straight back to sleep if you aren’t past a certain point of awake. My wife has no idea what I am talking about when I mention that. Sometimes I will wake up a little and she will see that and say something. I have tried to explain to her that those thoughts and mini-conversations must be kept to less than one minute and ideally less than 30 seconds. She things that all awakes are equal and I have had to resort to full dramatics to get her to be quiet when she is about to blow my window.
I stumble blind into the bathroom and turn the lights on to check for murderers and other thugs that might hide in the bathroom while I sleep. After making sure I’m alone I close my eyes and go about my business only to open them briefly to wash my hands, turn out the light, and return to bed. Once there, I squeeze into the corner that the cats and husband left for me and fall back asleep.
