Sleeping Through Alarms? Please Help!

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>This is getting to be a serious problem. I just sleep right through the alarms I set, turning them off in my sleep. My alarm clock is across the room from my bed, so I have to get up and walk across the room to turn it off. Nevertheless, I wake up in the morning (late for class) and with no memory of ever getting up to turn it off. I also use the alarm clock feature on my cell phone to set 3 alarms (the maximum) at two-minute intervals, with the volume high and an obnoxious ringtone, and I turn all those off in my sleep, too.</p>

<p>I don't know what to do, but I need to change something. I can't keep being late to class because of this. Does anyone else have this problem? How do you get around it? Please help!</p>

2

<p>I had this problem as well. Try to sign up for afternoon or evening classes. That failing, go to sleep at least seven hours before you need to wake up.</p>

3

<p>Give the Sonic Boom clock a try. It sounds like an M-80 going off and also has a vibrating pad that you put under your pillow. Don’t have the website but you can google it.</p>

4

<p>Go to bed earlier?</p>

5

<p>Yup go to bed earlier like goldshadow said. I used to be the same way as you but I just started to sleep earlier and got used to waking up earlier. If you’ve been skipping classes then I’d stop since when you start skipping classes you tend to skip more often afterwards. I was an example of this during my first year in college.</p>

6

<p>[ThinkGeek</a> :: Sonic Bomb Alarm Clock with Bed Shaker](<a href=“http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/8f1a/]ThinkGeek”>http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/8f1a/)</p>

<p>I’d be careful with that alarm though, you will wake up everyone within a 50 ft radius</p>

7

<p>My bed is lofted so I am forced to get out of bed to turn off my horribly loud and annoying alarm. If you need a comparison, think of a cat howling. But it does the job :).</p>

8

<p>I used to do this in high school, so I put my alarm clock on the floor across the room in a big metal cooking pot.</p>

9

<p>^^^So did the cooking pot make the sound waves reverberate throughout it, thus making it louder or did that just require extra effort on you behalf to turn it off?</p>

10

<p>Planning to write a script that will wake up my laptop from hibernation, play air raid siren sounds until I correctly answer a math problem. I wonder if there’s a way to prevent myself from turning off the computer/sound though.</p>

11

<p>Take night classes? So what are you going to do after graduation? Take night jobs?</p>

12

<p>“^^^So did the cooking pot make the sound waves reverberate throughout it, thus making it louder or did that just require extra effort on you behalf to turn it off?”</p>

<p>It reverberates and makes it ridiculously loud.</p>

13

<p>^^^ I might try that.</p>

<p>Xenon, if you’re that adept at programming, let me know. I need a program like that. Hell, you should probably just sell it. I’m sure there’s tons of people who would buy a product like that.</p>

14

<p>Lol, not sure if the answering a math problem thing would work for me, although it does sound cool. Before I went to college, I had my sister as a back-up alarm (we shared a room), and once she asked me math problems to make sure I was awake, and I answered them correctly, so she left me alone. When I woke up later I had no memory of it, and flipped out at her for not making sure I was awake, lol.</p>

<p>The metal pot and the sonic bomb alarm clock sound like good ideas, although I want to avoid waking everybody else up, since I get up a lot earlier than most other people on my floor.</p>

<p>I’ve also had problems with just turning the sound on the alarm clock off. I put tape over the volume dial so I couldn’t turn it down in my sleep, but then I would wake up in the morning to find the plug ripped out of the wall. Probably not a good thing to be groping around electrical outlets in my sleep, lol.</p>

<p>Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions, everybody! I guess I will try to get to bed earlier from now on; I HAVE been staying up pretty late. So maybe that’ll help. Thanks again!</p>

15

<p>The Sonic Bomb sounds pretty effin awesome.
I just might get one.</p>

16

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Sonic Boom SBB500ss Sonic Bomb Loud Plus Vibrating Alarm Clock: Health & Personal Care](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-SBB500ss-Vibrating-Alarm-Clock/dp/B000OOWZUK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1254598747&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-SBB500ss-Vibrating-Alarm-Clock/dp/B000OOWZUK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1254598747&sr=8-1)</p>

<p>Always read the reviews.</p>

17

<p>I have a similar problem, but mine is worse. I don’t get up and turn off the alarm, I sleep through it. I get a new annoying ringtone on my phone every week or so… I wake up the first two days fine and by the third day my body becomes immune to it and I sleep through it. Same thing happens with alarm clocks even the crazy ridiculously loud siren alarm ones =/ so I guess I’ll try the sonic boom too.
OP, one thing that worked for me though is [Naked</a> Alarm Clock - Free Web-based Flash Alarm Clock for Everyone](<a href=“http://www.nakedalarmclock.com%5DNaked”>http://www.nakedalarmclock.com), I set the alarm at the highest and use the “bugle revelle” tone and it usually does the trick only because my computer lags a little while I’m trying to turn it off, since it’s been on and untouched for a while, which gets me to really wake up</p>

18

<p>As well as getting to bed earlier (early enough to get 8 hours), it’s important to keep your sleep/wake pattern consistent throughout the week. Don’t have weekend hours that are wildly different than what you want your weekday hours to be.</p>

<p>And don’t drink anything with caffeine in it after 2 pm.</p>

19

<p>I know exactly what you are talking about. I personally have had this problem for almost a decade, and I sometimes wonder if it is not some form of sleep disorder. I see many people suggesting obvious answers, like get more sleep, but that isnt really helpful. </p>

<p>I personally have tried just about everything. I moved the alarms further from my bed so I couldnt reach over and snooze them, didnt matter. My freshman year of college I had the top bunk of a bunk bed, and could literally climb down off it, in my sleep, turn off the alarm, and get back in bed without waking up. I tried adiding more alarms, different alarms, louder alarms. I tried hiding the alarms in random places. At one point i had, LITERALLY, 8 different alarm clocks stashed in 8 different places in my apartment. It worked for a while, but after a couple weeks I could turn them all off in my sleep and not remember doing it. At all. I bought a clocky, one of those alarm clocks on wheels that rolls off your nighstand and runs around the room after you snooze it once or twice. Nope. I could catch the damn thing, in my sleep, and not even recall doing it. </p>

<p>I should point out that I can also have full conversations in my sleep with people who are awake and not wake up. 2 different college roomates and one exboyfriend all report the same thing. They just randomly realize I’m asleep because I suddenly stop talking or start making bizarre replies. I also sleep walk on occasion. And apparently the aforementioned exboyfriend got smacked in the head repeatedly while I shouted gibberesh at him for about a minute and a half one night, after which I simply laid back down and went back to sleeping normally without missing a beat. He was less than pleased.</p>

<p>Ive slept through hotel fire alarms, and the fire alarm in a friends dorm that not only rang about as loud as a tornado, but also had a strobe light that flashed at like 300 watts accompanying it. </p>

<p>I dont always have a problem though, sometimes I wake right up. </p>

<p>It doesnt matter if Ive been asleep 10 minutes or 12 hours. </p>

<p>The only surefire way I have found to combat the problem is to have an actual person shake me awake. </p>

<p>Im debating buying an alarm for deaf people that actually shakes my bed, but the ones I know of are really expensive. </p>

<p>If anyone else has any ideas besides sleep more, I know Id love to hear them. Cause Ive tried that. It doesnt matter.</p>

20

<p>If you have an android, get the app “EarlyBird” or find something on IOS equivalent. Basically, it requires you to scan a QR code before the alarm turns off - I put the QR code in my bathroom so I’m forced to walk inside. </p>

<p>Pretty easy from there.</p>