An (Un)Alarming Development

I have always been somewhat skeptical of people who claim they don't need an alarm clock, that if they have to be up at a certain time, they just "tell themselves" when to be awake, and it happens. But lately more often than not when I'm on morning shift -- and thus relying on an alarm clock instead of just getting up whenever I'm rested, the way nature intended -- I find that I'm waking up a little before the alarm goes off. In fact, I set my alarm late enough that I'm cutting it a bit fine with getting showered and dressed and in to work on time, and my brain seems to be waking me up just enough earlier to make things less rushed and more comfortable. In other words, I'm waking up at just about when I know I should be setting the alarm for, instead of when I'm actually setting it for.

It isn't that I'm waking up just because I've had enough sleep, either. I didn't get to bed until about 11:30 last night, and I still woke up at 6:45, which is somewhat less than my preferred eight hour minimum. More than that, it wasn't a gradual "I've had enough sleep and now I'm ready to be awake" sort of awakening. It was a sudden jolt into wakefulness, exactly like someone had shaken me roughly by the shoulder.

So, either the Invisible Man is hanging around my bedroom making sure I'm up in time for work, or my brain has learned a really interesting new trick. And I'm honestly not sure which theory weirds me out more.