Wake up with light instead of sound

**Tygar** · 04-01-2014 12:21 PM

Hello all. My old alarm clock died last week and I was researching new alarm clocks. I have found that waking up to a buzzer or music typically ruins my dream recall. So I found an alarm clock with a "light" feature. It has an option which switches on gradually brightening LED lights, starting 15 minutes before the actual alarm sounds (you can choose a buzzer or "nature sounds" for the alarm).

So far this is working very well. The last two morning I have awoken to the brightening light, and didn't even need the actual alarm. It feels like I am waking up to the rising sun. And my dream recall has been excellent.

Bellow is a screenshot from Amazon with the information.

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**Fuzzman** · 04-01-2014 04:45 PM

That's really cool, I love the idea of waking up by light. Having a sound go off and interrupt my sleep in the morning makes me want to murder someone and that's not a good way to start the day. Plus you have to usually move to turn it off and that can kill recall. Lately I've been working on just waking up naturally but I still always have to set a fail safe alarm in case I fall back asleep.

One of my ideas for a project I want to eventually make is a "zen" alarm clock, kind of like this with a light but also with a very subtle sound like a soft bell ring that starts playing infrequently maybe about 30 minutes before the set time and gradually increases in volume and frequency. It would be soft enough in the beginning to not wake you up, but also possibly loud enough that you would hear it in a dream and maybe make you lucid

One day hopefully I'll get around to it, when I have the money and resources to work on it.

I just looked at the product description on Amazon and see that this also has sounds, I was wondering if they just play at the wake up time or do kind of like I was describing?

**Tygar** · 04-01-2014 05:01 PM

Unfortunately the sounds just turn on. They don't start softly and slowly increase in sound. However you can select a buzzer, birds, forest, river, or thunder storm.

For me, the light wakes me up gently so I can just shut the alarm off at that point. I am very sound sensitive, so even soft noises can startle me awake.

One other note: The face of the clock is a bit bright for my taste, so I just glued a piece of red clear plastic over it which dimmed it nicely in case I have to look at the clock during the night.