this sounds very interesting and i will try this.
as for the alarm that starts and stops by itself.. i would suggest downloading this to your cell phone.
http://www.lucidweaver.com/
its free so dont worry about that. i got it a while ago and realized it would work for this. it has three functions.
The first is meant to wake the person up at a set time during the night or in cycles during the night.
The second is an actual waking alarm.
The third sets up random periods where your phone prompts you to do reality checks.
The only one you need to worry about is the Dream function. if you set it right in the options you can set it so it only goes off once and stops immediately.
Steps:
1: Highlight the "Dream" icon, it has what looks like a moon on it. Hit Options, then Settings.
2. Click on "Dream Settings"
3. The options in here can be set to every individuals needs depending on how they want to be woken up. The only ones you have to change are:
a. Delay set to 1
b. Cycle length set to the number of minutes you want it to wake you up. EX: if you want 6 hours you would type in "360"
c. Extra Period to 1
d. Extra Repeat to 1

and thats it.. and trust me its not really that hard i just put instructions for people that couldnt figure it out by themselves.

notes: you need to have someway to get the application to your phone, whether through bluetooth on your computer or a direct connection etc.
the instructions i gave could be different for other phones, so beware of that. and also make sure to shut off the application after you wake up, so it doesnt go off during the day 360 minutes later (or however long you set it).

hope this helps yalls.