I needed to get up early this morning, so I set the spare alarm clock to go off fifteen minutes ahead of the radio alarm. (Beep! Beep! Beep! is harder to ignore.)
But this measure proved unnecessary. Dreaming in a senseless, wandering fashion, I was woken by the phone, which I heard quite clearly through the fuzz of sleep. As always when surprised by an early morning phone, I hopped right up, concerned that something important must be going on to justify it, only to discover that the phone had not rung at all. My own treacherous subconscious had inserted the noise into the dream, and did so with a clarity that fooled me into thinking, “Whoops! I’m dreaming, and that isn’t part of it!†Fifteen minutes before the alarm was set to wake me.
I say “treacherous†because I’d suffered a bout of insomnia the night before, and fifteen more minutes of sleep—fifteen good minutes, which I was enjoying in a breezy, comfortable bed—can take the edge off of a bad night.
A hindbrain that can function as a failsafe against sleeping late, when it’s important, can be handy, but most often it’s just another case of insufficient submission to the forebrain.
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