# What hour is "middle of the night"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 13, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315 "2011-06-13T15:14:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/1 "2011-06-13T15:14:31Z")
When you say or hear “middle of the night” what hour comes to mind? (poll on the way) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/2 "2011-06-13T17:09:37Z")
It’s not midnight. Midnight may be the middle of the period of time when it’s dark outside, but I interpret the “night” of the phrase “middle of the night” as the period of time when people are normally in bed asleep. So I think of a time when the most people (including, usually, myself) would be in bed, like 3:00 a.m. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/3 "2011-06-13T17:35:19Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It’s not midnight. Midnight may be the middle of the period of time when it’s dark outside, but I interpret the “night” of the phrase “middle of the night” as the period of time when people are normally in bed asleep. So I think of a time when the most people (including, usually, myself) would be in bed, like 3:00 a.m. We think alike. I wonder at the relative rarity of a 1 AM vote. But I’m not surprised at the low frequency of PM hours. The expression came up on a Toots Shor documentary and Jackie Gleason said either 3 or 4 AM. That sounded right to me. It’s rare that I’m in for the night before 11 PM or after 2 AM, so assuming a waking hour in the 6-8 AM range, 3 AM seems closest for my habits. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/4 "2011-06-13T17:40:37Z")
I voted 3AM and have a sub-question: is the “middle of the night” the same as “0 dark 30”? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/5 "2011-06-13T17:41:09Z")
9 in the afternoon. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/6 "2011-06-13T17:44:50Z")
Serious answer: 3 am is the closest. But 3 am isn’t the exact middle of the night. It’s more like 3:30. But since 4 am is only 2 hours from dawn, 3 am is a better answer if I had to select one. Really, any time between 3 am and 4 am is the middle of the night, with 2:31 to 4:59 on the edges. (Advance an hour or so in both cases if it’s a party weekend.) ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/7 "2011-06-13T17:47:48Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > I voted 3AM and have a sub-question: is the “middle of the night” the same as “0 dark 30”? Not in my world, anyway. O-Dark-30 is the time you have to get up when you must get up way earlier than normal. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/8 "2011-06-13T17:49:33Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > 9 in the afternoon. I’m not laughing! When I worked nights that was real close to the right answer. > [@blondebear](#): > > I voted 3AM and have a sub-question: is the “middle of the night” the same as “0 dark 30”? Seems reasonable to me, and I have always wondered about that, too. Why not post a poll for ideas on that? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/9 "2011-06-13T17:50:36Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Not in my world, anyway. O-Dark-30 is the time you have to get up when you must get up way earlier than normal. So, what hour? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/10 "2011-06-13T17:51:11Z")
I said 2 am. My reasoning is that I usually sleep 11-6, so half way between those is 2:30 am. I just rounded that to 2:00 since that is usually about the time my pre-schooler wanders into our bedroom crying about a bad dream. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/11 "2011-06-13T17:55:11Z")
I picked 3:00 AM. If I woke up at 2:00 I would still have plenty of sleep time left. However, waking up at 4:00 is only a couple of hours away from wakey up time. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/12 "2011-06-13T17:58:20Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > So, what hour? When I was in the Air Force, it was usually about 4:00 AM. Time to shower, dress, and attend a 5:00 AM briefing for a 7:00 AM takeoff. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/13 "2011-06-13T18:06:44Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > So, what hour? Anytime you have to get up but have to say “What the hell?!? Why do I have to be up this damn early?!?” In other words, 4am. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/14 "2011-06-13T18:08:01Z")
I tend to stay up late most evenings anyway, and though I am even sometimes up 'til 2 or 3, even on a work night, I still think of those hours as “the middle of the night”. I’d think most reasonable people would be to bed at or before midnight, and I know plenty of reasonable people waking up as early as 4:00 to get to work. So, that leaves the only real hours that one could pretty much expect a given person to be asleep, not working night shift or out partying, would be around 2-3. I think if, say, someone called me at 1:00, I’d describe it as really late, or if someone called me at 4:00, I’d describe it as really early. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/15 "2011-06-13T18:17:21Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > I think if, say, someone called me at 1:00, I’d describe it as really late, or if someone called me at 4:00, I’d describe it as really early. Ah, excellent point! So “the middle of the night” could be defined as the dividing line between “really late” and “really early.” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/16 "2011-06-13T18:25:52Z")
Looking at it from the Earth’s point of view instead of the POV of electrically-lit humans: 12 midnight, approximately, at least if you’re at the central meridian of a given time zone. Except that daylight savings time moves that to circa 1 am. Anything else than the sun being at the midpoint between the western horizon and the eastern horizon would vary widely depending on the season, making the answer difficult to pinpoint at a fixed time, unless you’re near the equator. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/17 "2011-06-13T18:33:52Z")
Middle of the night: 1 - 3 AM Wee hours: 3 - 5 AM Early morning 5 - 7 AM ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/18 "2011-06-13T19:22:12Z")
I picked 2:00, but it could just as easily been 3:00. Anytime after the bars close, there’s nothing but crap on TV, but it’s not yet early morning. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/19 "2011-06-13T19:58:09Z")
I’d say based off my own intuition of the average adult bedtime being around 10-11 pm, and the average wake time to be around 7-8 am… the middle of that would but it right in the neighborhood of 3am. Intuitively then, I always picture 3am-ish anytime I hear that expression. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315/20 "2011-06-13T20:09:54Z")
I interpret “night” to mean the night. It has nothing to do with when I or anyone else is sleeping. I have worked a night shift–that didn’t make day “night.” The _hour_ I first thought of is that from 12 to 1, so I went with 12 as the first significant digits of that hour. 😉 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-hour-is-middle-of-the-night/585315.md?page=2)