What hour is "middle of the night"?

[Zeldar]

Just looking at the bar graph (after 74 Voters) I’m speculating that the 12 Midnight choice is driven less by bedtime hours than by the semantic connection between MIDnight and MIDDLE of the night. If that speculation is close to the facts, I believe we have a strong sense of “middle of the night” falling between 1:30 and 3:30 AM. Maybe a more precise hour/half-hour would develop in a follow-up poll starting at 12 Midnight and going until 5:00 AM in half-hour slots.

Somebody else want to test that?

[panache45]

Definitely 3 a.m. Too late to be staying up, too early to be waking up.

[BigT]

@spark240

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.

Me, too. But I could have also went a lot earlier, since people (around here at least) tend to say 1:00 AM as “one o’clock in the morning.” So, then, the middle of the night would be halfway between sunset and midnight.

If I’d have known most people would not be choosing midnight, I’d have went with 9:00 to show off the other way of thinking. But I wanted to be one of the popular ones

[Markxxx]

I think of 2am as middle of the night

[pulykamell]

I picked midnight. I almost never go to sleep until after that time, but that’s the middle of the night to me. Nightfall starts at around 8:30 here right now and sunrise at 5:15 a.m. It doesn’t work out perfectly, but midnight is a good, convenient midpoint. 3 a.m. is more like early early morning than the middle of the night to me. 2 a.m. is the outside edge of what I would call the middle of the night. So, I’d consider the range 12 midnight - 2 a.m. to be “the middle of the night.” By that logic, I guess I should have picked 1 a.m. Now that I think about it, 1 a.m. would have been a slightly better answer.

[Peremensoe]

@pulykamell

Nightfall starts at around 8:30 here right now and sunrise at 5:15 a.m. It doesn’t work out perfectly, but midnight is a good, convenient midpoint. 3 a.m. is more like early early morning than the middle of the night to me.

If your local sunrise is 5:15, 3:00 almost is the beginning of your astronomical twilight–if you’re awake and outside with good night eyes (not ruined by artificial lighting), you should literally be able to see the dawn advancing by 3:30.

[Dr.Strangelove]

I’m going with the “middle of my sleeping period” interpretation, which for me comes to 7 AM. 5 AM will have to be close enough.

[Carmady]

The expression “the middle of the night” makes me think of 2:30 am. The morning shows around here start at 3 am, and the late shows end at 2 am.

The middle of my sleeping is later than that, but I have no problem saying that I sleep through mornings.

[Dr.Strangelove]

@spark240

If your local sunrise is 5:15, 3:00 almost is the beginning of your astronomical twilight–if you’re awake and outside with good night eyes (not ruined by artificial lighting), you should literally be able to see the dawn advancing by 3:30.

We have quite terrible light pollution around here and I can’t see how anything could notice twilight at 3:30, but somehow the local bird population has it figured out since that’s when they begin their squawking.

[Sierra_Indigo]

The middle of the night is somewhere around fuck-off-o’clock, which is way too late to be up and I really should be in bed.

O’dark thirty is I’m awake much too early, I don’t get paid for this shit.

[YaraMateo]

I wanna say 3am, because honestly if someone (I knew!) called me at any time before 3am, I’d be cool with it. I don’t really consider 3am night. It’s early morning. I don’t think the middle of the night should be the line between too late and too early. The middle of the night should be the period when night time is at it’s height. So, I’m going with midnight. That’s about 4 hours between the start and roughly the finish.