My theory

[Looperpuck]

I was laying in bed the other night, sleepless of course. And I glance over at the clock, It reads 2:23 Am. And I was thinking to myself, when I go to Alberta and visit my cousins, I would usually be asleep by now because it is 2 hours ahead, and the clock would read 4:23. And my theory is that me getting to sleep is in co-relation to what time it says on my clock. So I set my clock to 4:30 Am, quickly forgetting what the real time was, and I fell asleep in a matter of minutes. What I think happens, is since it's dark out, the brain focuses on the clock time only, because you can only tell what time it is at night at around 5 Am because the sky starts getting lighter. And the later the time on the clock says the more tired I feel. Just felt like sharing this, kinda neat.

~Looperpuck

[Lingus]

Actually, there have been studies where someone will go into a cave or other such area that is completely without natural light and they have no means of telling time. They have found that the person will fall into a rhythm very similar to a 24 hour day. In other words, they do not fall out of sync with the normal day just because they can't tell what time it is. What they have found is that the body actually has an internal clock mechanism. Obviously it's not a real clock, but some sort of biological mechanism that allows people to perceive time. They have also done studies on rats using different drugs that will speed up or slow down this mechanism and they found that the rats actually have trouble with their perception of time whereas the control rat can keep time with near perfect accuracy.

With that said, I think looking at the clock and seeing what time it is will automatically cause your body to have a certain reaction. I do the same thing. I look at the clock and think, "Oh, I'm not tired. It's only..." or, "Am I hungry for lunch? What time is it?" Similarly if I am having trouble getting to sleep, seeing that it is very late makes it harder for me to sleep because I am more anxious to fall asleep so I get enough rest. Because I'm stressed out about not sleeping I can't sleep. If I didn't know what time it was I wouldn't be as anxious and would probably fall asleep better. Though, thinking that it is even later would probably stress me out even more... So what you are describing is probably a psychological reaction. Yours is apparently different than mine. When you see that it is extremely late, you think you should be more tired and so you fall asleep, whereas I would be more stressed that I'm not asleep yet and have trouble falling asleep.

None of that has anything to do with the biological time keeping mechanism that keeps our body in a certain rhythm. If you typically get tired and fall asleep around a certain time, that's the time your body will naturally fall asleep with no outside interference such as a clock. Maybe try turning your clock off next time?

[Looperpuck]

Thats pretty cool. I'll try turning off my clock tonight and see what happens.

~Looperpuck

[Torch]

Last summer, I went to sleep at 11PM, set my alarm for 3:00AM to catch an early flight to Europe, and woken up at 2:59AM without any light or noise. Internal clock?

[Looperpuck]

Lol, yeah, not sure how some people can wake themselves up at just the right time, pretty interesting.

~Looperpuck

[yottabyte]

Last summer, I went to sleep at 11PM, set my alarm for 3:00AM to catch an early flight to Europe, and woken up at 2:59AM without any light or noise. Internal clock?

Yeah that has happened to me too. If you go to bed and you think "Tomorrow I will wake up at 7 AM" you will most likely wake up around 7 AM. It's really scary

[Bo-sox]

Last summer, I went to sleep at 11PM, set my alarm for 3:00AM to catch an early flight to Europe, and woken up at 2:59AM without any light or noise. Internal clock?

There has been a few times where i have forgotten to set my alarm and woken up on time anyway, its pretty cool.

[ArtGames]

Actually, there have been studies where someone will go into a cave or other such area that is completely without natural light and they have no means of telling time. They have found that the person will fall into a rhythm very similar to a 24 hour day.

The found out it was longer than a 24 houre cycal.
http://thetruthaboutsleep.com/circadian-rhythm-meltdown/18/

[Lingus]

Actually, there have been studies where someone will go into a cave or other such area that is completely without natural light and they have no means of telling time. They have found that the person will fall into a rhythm very similar to a 24 hour day.

The found out it was longer than a 24 houre cycal.
http://thetruthaboutsleep.com/circadian-rhythm-meltdown/18/

Wow. You know what's funny? The guy they are talking about in that article is the exact same guy I'm talking about. Either the thing I watched on TV got it wrong or the article you linked to got it wrong... Apparently from further research, it appears the thing I watched on TV was wrong. But, if you read this article: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/30/foer.php you see that that same man explains that he did similar experiments with other people, and that all of them, except for himself, fell into a 48 hour sleep/wake cycle. So basically twice as long as normal. Kinda crazy.

But the other part of that is that the experiments that they were doing took months for them to fall out of sync with the normal clock. So it probably relates to sunlight and other factors as well as just seeing what time it is.

[ArtGames]

Lol wired. Well all i know is when i sleep i sometimes do that thing they were talking about up there ware you wake up at a time you want to.

[Lingus]

Yea, I know that a lot of people get that. Some people don't even need an alarm to wake up in the morning at the right time. I personally always wake up a couple hours late. Even with an alarm. If I didn't have an alarm I would probably sleep through most of the day. I think the subject of sleep and internal clocks is very interesting as I seem to have such a different internal clock than most people. There has to be more to it than simply the time on the clock and amount of sunlight. If that were the case then everyone would be able to get up at the same time without any issue. But, from my own personal experience that is simply not the case. There has to be some kind of internal mechanism that in most people says "Wake up at 7am" (or w/e) whereas in me it says, "Wake up at noon".

[krele]

I remember when I was younger I liked the DBZ series very much. The show was in early hours, something like 6-7 AM on Tuesday-Thursday. I remember being perfectly allinged with time when the show was on, and I remember that I slept like a log till 2PM at days on which show wasn't aired...

[Mystery]

I remember when I was younger I liked the DBZ series very much. The show was in early hours, something like 6-7 AM on Tuesday-Thursday. I remember being perfectly allinged with time when the show was on, and I remember that I slept like a log till 2PM at days on which show wasn't aired...

That's like what happens with me and school. Whenever I have it, I always wake up perfectly on time. But on weekends/vacations, I usually sleep in to about noon.

[Delicious]

Last summer, I went to sleep at 11PM, set my alarm for 3:00AM to catch an early flight to Europe, and woken up at 2:59AM without any light or noise. Internal clock?

Yeah that has happened to me too. If you go to bed and you think "Tomorrow I will wake up at 7 AM" you will most likely wake up around 7 AM. It's really scary

Exactly the same insidents with me as well. I usually don't set an alarm because of this, as I would most likely wake a minute or two before it. I find that this doesn't take effect when I wake up in the middle of the night due to me not being comfortable.. odd though, indeed.

[Soup]

I can never trick myself. :(

During school though, I'd have my alarm set to 7:00 and I'd often wake up at 6:55-6:59. So like someone else said your body does seem to work up an internal clock.