What wakes you up in the morning? Is it a buzz, bell, ring, radio, recording, swift kick from your partner, or just the light from the rising sun?
Currently I wake to the sound of Cee-Lo’s Closet Freak.
My cat screams in my face at 4am. That’s when his stomach says its time to roust The Feeder.
As I don’t use an alarm device these days, I would have to go with the light in the room. I can take 50-60 minute naps almost anytime day and night, so there’s that internal clock thing, too.
I somehow ‘trained’ myself to wake up without any buzzer, radio, tv, cat, rooster, bucket of cold water, etc. But the unintentional side effect of this is that I am a very light sleeper and sometimes I confuse myself into thinking it’s time to get up too early.
I have an alarm set on my phone, and NPR on the clock radio as a backup.
Although when we first moved into our house, we actually did hear a rooster some mornings, as well as the occasional donkey. Our house is about two blocks from the city limits and there was a house on the other side of the county road that had some farm animals.
Another vote for the #$%@!! cats.
We have four cats and sometime during the night, they meet and designate one of their number to wake The Beast ( AKA me ). At precisely 5am they assemble at the foot of our bed and go over final details of their plan. The designated cat comes up and gently taps The Beast on his chin. The Beast mutters a few unkind words and rolls over to sneak a few more minutes of rest. A minute later, and with the encouragement of the others, the cat will once again approach The Beast and deliver a slightly more emphatic tap to the chin and a meow. If this fails to produce the desired results the cat will seek the help of The Nice Lady ( aka Ms. DrumBum ) who delivers a nudge to The Beast who grumbles and finally gets up.
My phone’s alarm is set for 6 am. Five minutes to six, Kali (one of our dogs) licks my arm/face/neck depending on how I’m sleeping.
We used to have a rooster. Our nearest neighbors (retired couple) would complain, lightheartedly, about crowing at sunrise. The rooster was old and died recently. The neighbors keep asking when we will be getting another rooster.
I’m kind of the same way; if I wake up at the same time long enough (at first with an alarm), and I’m getting a reasonable amount of sleep in general, my body will grow accustomed to it and I’ll wake up on my own between 2 and 10 minutes beforehand.
So if my alarm’s been set to 7 am for several months, I’ll start waking up somewhere between 6:50 and 6:58 on my own, and be able to turn off the alarm before it wakes anyone else up. I’ll even do this on the weekends when I don’t have to be up at 7- I’ll wake up at 6:50 or so, and just go right back to sleep.
If I’m extraordinarily tired though, I’ll sleep until the alarm wakes me up.
Lately though, it’s as likely that my 6 week old son will start fussing for my wife to feed him at some random time between 6 and 7, and will wake me up in the process.
During the school year, our kid is up before us and we hear her. If she oversleeps (a rarity) we’re all in trouble. This time of year, the sun is up around 5:00 a.m., and I’m up by six or 6:30 at the latest. If it’s ever important i wake up at a certain time (and in hotels), I use the alarm on my iPhone.
Lately a buzzing, whirring, or explosive sound in my head or a creepy voice jabbering strange things at me. Or me kicking covers off the bed as I dream I fight off space aliens and Nazis.
I typically like to sleep w/ noise, so most nights, I’ll have my tv on, w/ the volume at a low level. What usually wakes me up (sooner than I’d like) is when a program ends / changes, and suddenly there is a considerable decibel difference.
Also, I find that, while waking up and starting my day on M - F is a struggle, my body has no issue whatsoever with being wide awake at 6 am on Saturday and Sunday. Ahhhh… adulthood.
My bladder.
I do have a radio alarm, located across the room and set to the only station that particular corner gets without static. Walking across the room several times to hit snooze, while listening to modern Christian music or Good News, lubricates my joints. But the real motivation for getting completely up is my bladder.
It tells me it’s time to stop lubricating the joints and get on with things. It tells me to get up even on weekends and holidays, when I could otherwise sleep in. It sometimes gets me up half an hour before the alarm. That last kind of throws my rhythm off. It feels wrong to lubricate my joints while awake.
What I should have said before. Those short naps usually don’t end this way, but the overnight several-hour things, yes. Sunlight is an adjunct, but not the rooster as such.
Same, usually it’s my bursting bladder. Thanks, BPH.
But just to be safe, I set an alarm to talk radio.
The back-up us a clock radio set to bad music, but that rarely goes off. Instead, conditioning or one of the cats rouses me from my slumbers.
A large, cold, wet black nose is pushed into my shrinking flesh at 5:58am precisely. Every single morning. Weekdays, Saturdays, holidays - no matter. Every single morning.
If this fails to convince me to get up and feed the owner of said nose his breakfast and let him outside, it is followed by several pokes with a large, furry paw and attempts to get under the covers and shove me out onto the floor.
After all, it’s Time to Get Up! Breakfast! Potty Time! Rise and shine, Grampa! The day’s a-wasting!
Regards,
Shodan
Intenal clock, on most weekdays. On the weekend I wake the same time as on weekedays but I roll over and go back to sleep. Then it’s typically birdsong or someone mowing their lawn.
Unfortunately, it is an actual rooster. The bastards start crowing around 3 am.