I sleep heavily but now and again get a niggling worry that I'll oversleep. This incubates for a few hours and I wake up about 3 hours too soon. By the time I'm awake enough to check the time, I'm too roused to fall back to sleep easily (and I'm aware that I've been tossing and turning fitfully for a while). After a few hours of this mild torture the clock goes off and I fully awaken to start a groggy day. This clock will use EEG or an eye motion detector to recognize the early stages of arousal and lull the subject back into deeper sleep, perhaps using bio- feedback, soothing music or aromas. The strength of the correction would be meted according to the time left before the regular alarm, and would never be so strong as to override physiological needs or emergency response.
-- bpilot, Jul 15 2004

obligatory zen alarm clock joke.
-- RayfordSteele, Jul 15 2004


It's taken me years to figure it out, but I can ususaly just wake up when I want to these days... no noisy alarm clocks (although i still have one set for a half hour after I want to get up just in case... wake up and turn it off first thing)

Something like this idea would be interesting to see in the market.
-- photojunkie, Jul 15 2004


If it wasn't for the headgear necessary for the eyemotion detector, I could see this a worthwhile invention. If I were you, I'd build it into a bed, but the clock idea gets a [+] anyway.
-- Cheekio, Jul 16 2004


I don't think the biofeedback is necessary to the idea. The clock could simply play a gentle, reassuring, background noise all night. In the half- hour before the alarm, this could change or be added to so that, if you are awake, or your mind is alert enough in sleep, you know its almost time to get up.
-- st3f, Jul 17 2004


Aroma? If I had one of these, I would hook it up to a morphine pump.

Long haul truck drivers have a saying: "If you need an alarm clock to wake up, then you haven't slept long enough".

[+]
-- 1st2know, Jul 17 2004


Why not a programmed music pattern where the music gets more bouncy toward wakeup time and even worse after. A quiet voice over between tunes could tell you just how much time you have to sleep hence you have gentle assurance without even opening your eyes. The whole contraption could be wired to your pillow rather than your head
-- tasman, Jul 17 2004


I'm not sure about the voice telling me the time (i think that'd get into dreams and freak me out)... The music part of Tasman's idea though seems kinda cool... you can accomplish about the same with multiple playlists set to timers... (sorta)
-- photojunkie, Jul 17 2004



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