Silencing Alarm Clocks

I use two alarm clocks, at staggered times, because sometimes I just don't want to get out of bed. But this morning I had a strange lucid experience. It was a false awakening, one of my alarm clocks is beeping, I try to shut them both off, but the goddamned beeping won't stop. But then I suddenly thought of another dream (non-lucid) where I had tried to answer a beeping cell phone. In that dream, instead of realizing that it was my alarm clock going off in real life I proceeded to try and fix the phone, unsuccessfully. Eventually that dream ended for some other reason or the other, I'd given up on the cell phone and went on to other dream stuff (upon waking the alarm was still going off). After remembering that debacle I RCed and went lucid, and it was a normal lucid dream. However for the whole lucid dream that alarm clock kept going off. I tried at first to get it out of my head but couldn't, so I just suffered through it in the end. But at one point my second alarm clock started, and when I heard that I popped out of the dream.

So, has anyone had any success in shutting off external aural stimuli while they dream? If so, what sort of technique did you use to shut it out? I tried an obvious voice command, but after that gave up, because I didn't want to waste time with something that was only irritating, and wasn't affecting dream control. But it would be nice to have less noise pollution if it happens again.

So you're talking about an alarm clock actually going off in waking life? It probably wouldn't be easy to put that out of your head. Normally, you experience dreams because your mind puts together an environment more or less by guessing because there's no sensory input. When you're hearing something that's actually there though, you won't be able to control it like you can with the dream world created by your mind. :disconcerted:

Wow that's funny. I never had anything like that, yet I heard about it.

My advice: Get a clock that just beeps for 10 seconds, then stops, and beeps a few minutes later. At least less anoying to your 'ears' :)

Yeah, I know that it's not something you can straight out control, but I'm asking if anyone's had any success ignoring outside input successfully. Sometimes we do that when we're awake, normally by concentrated effort Though I understand that while we're sleeping there's normally something of a dearth of stimuli, so we might be sensitized to something as obnoxious as an alarm clock. However, I didn't make it clear in that first post, in the non-lucid dream I was dreaming of that alarm clock/cell phone, because my clock was going off in real life, but though I never went lucid, I moved on in my dream and I didn't hear it anymore. But after a couple of dream scenes, when I woke up my alarm clock was still going off. So I've managed to unintentionally ignore it in the past. And when I used to live with my family, it was a pretty noisy household, and I imagine there were plenty of times when I'd been sleeping in one room and had a lot of little kids being noisy. I can recount dreams where that had leaked through into my dream during REM sleep, but I also imagine there are plenty of times when my body just ignored it during REM sleep. So I don't think it's impossible to do so when you're lucid, though it's probably exceedingly difficult.

As for the new alarm clock, haha, if I got that I'd always be late for work/class! That sort of alarm clock is the type that just begs to be ignored. :P Maybe when I have a break and have some time to kill.

Well, personally I wear earplugs, at least, when I do my WILD attempts. It seems to block out most of the noise.

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Originally posted by The Blue Meanie
Well, personally I wear earplugs, at least, when I do my WILD attempts. *It seems to block out most of the noise.

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Good idea, Matt. I've never tried that. Perhaps I will in my next WILD attempt.

Okay, I dont think anyone has anwsered the original question, which I find quite a fasinating one. I cannot say that I have internaly blocked out external stimuli. I do want to try it though, it should be a matter of mind over matter, but im sure it will be extreamly difficult.

Hello onemoretime,

I had a similar problem with my father’s car pulling into the driveway. He usually gets in late some days and most of those days he is bringing me books and other things from town. Well, I would hear the car noise very distinctively in my dream and then wake from the dream. Bothering me a lot I asked my father to get in a little earlier than he did, so that he would arrive just as I was getting into bed.

What I’m saying is that I hold this noise from the car as a signal that something important is about to happen. The noise of the car was significant enough to seep into my dreams and wake me. The can apply to people in comas; people say that they could hear the voices of their friends and family while in the coma.

Maybe your alarm clock has trained you to know that it is time to get up and going when you hear that noise. I know that when ever I hear an alarm clock go of it irritates me because of the fact that I feel as if I need to get up from sleeping. I would advise that you train yourself to think of the alarm clock as something a little less significant.

I hope that made sense. Good luck.


- Axis