The herald., 1893-02-05
WAKING Y WAKING Up AT WILL.
WHY Is 1T THAT MANY PERSONS
WAKE AT A CERTAIN HOuRf

A Discussion of a Peculiar Phase of tho
Sleeping Mind - True, 1t Is Beyond
Doubt That Many There Are Who Can
Set Themselves for Certain Period.
A discussion has been going on in the
Society for Psychioal Research as to the ex
istence and the nature of the power by
which SO many people manage to wake
themselves precisely at the hour at which
they have resolved to awake on the pre-
vious night. There is no question as TO the
fact. 1t Is matter on which probably the
greater number of people can convince
themselves. You may fix a time when no
clock strikes, so that it cannot be half
heard sound which wakes you.
You may fix five minutes before the hous
in house In which no clock strikes the
quarters, or even in a house in which there
is no striking clock at all and no church
clock within a couple of miles, and yet not
one person only but greet many-we
might perhaps say the majority of persons
past middle aegean wake themselves at
the right hour il on the previous night
they go to bed with the resolve to do so
strong ontheir minds. 1t is power which
belongs to all sorts of persons-not only
persons who have been in the habit of get
ting up at given hours, but to persons who
have not.
Most nurses have it, most servants, most
iaborers, most professional men, Yet 1t is
very difficult to account for, for when you
wake you have no distinct, nor indeed in
distinct recognition of the time on you.
You only know what time you ought to
have been awake, but not in the least con-
sciously that this time has arrived, though
when you look at your watch in q fright
you find as a matter of fact that it has ar
rived, and only just arrived We believe
that the same power would apply to the
daytime under the same conditions--name-
ly, that you fix firmly In your mind some
hours. or at least some considerable time
earlier, that you are to do something spe-
cific and to be rodsed to a sense Of the time
at specific minute; only people notice
this less, since thare are so lnhny things In
the daytime which warn us and thus put
us on the watch as to how time Is gying.
The curious thing is that, though you
can arrest your attention and wake up at
| the required time, you never seem to have
| the least assurancethat it Is the right tins
| without consulting your WATCH. II you do
| really divine" the time, you have no
power of recognizing that you have "di-
vined" 1t. You feel as II you had merely
guessed it, and very probably guessed it
wrong, until yourwatoh confirms the guess
1t is not by keen sense of duration tn at
! you compute the hour, for that would i'm
| ply that you knew at what time you made
the resolve--at what time you went to
sleep with the resolve on your mind-and
this is often just what you do not know.
Ii you measured time by the organic
processes which go on within you, by a
general sense of the number of pulsations
of your heart, or the number of breaths
drawn, then you would require to know
accurately what the time was when you
resolved to awake, and YOU would measure
only by the length Of the thread subse-
quently drawn out Not only would that
be very complicated process, but it is al
most certainly not the actual process, fol-
you may be quite unconscious at what
hour exactly the resolve is formed II
seems to be sense Of time as quite dis
tinct from q sense of the duration Of your
sleep or of the length Of any organic proc
ess which has gone on since the resolve was
made.
Yeti is extremely difficult to imagine
that the individual mind can be so closely
identified in feeling with the revolution Of
the earth on its axis as would enable it tt
say at what hour a. m. or p. m. you have
arrived. The mind measures duration chief
ly by the succession Of its own thoughts
buS, as we have seen, 1t is not duration, but
something quite different from duration
of which 1t appears to be conscious. thus
it can wake the body at any given houl
without even knowing Consciously al
leasD how much time has elapsed since
| fha, l. l..
The present writer may assign the pres
ent article as consequence Zone of very
many of the power of waking at the exact
hour desired, an hour which is often varied
in accordance with the urgency Of the case
SO that it cannot be asoribed to the habit o
waking at exactly the same hour. 1t is
very curious power, for which we can as
sign no parallel. We certainly have re
similar power Of waking ourselves on 8
journey at any exact point in space OIL
which we may previously determine. Il
we resolve to wake up at the moment the
express train in which we are travelling
passes particular point from which, sup
pose, striking landscape is visible, We
should not manage it unless the train were
so punctual that we could effect it by de
termining to wakcn at the precise minute
when the train was duo there, though in
that way we believe it might occasionally
be effected.
But there certainly are multitudes Of
persons who appear to carry some kind oi
clock about with them in their inner mind
though whether it be the clock of the
house or the clock of the neighborhood il
would be well to find out.
In the present writer's case it is not the
clock of the house, which Is kept fast, but
as near as he can judge, what he believes
to be right time--i. e., railway time though
ii he were. say, five minutes wrong in his
impression Of what right time is, it is prob
able that he would awaken by the time oi
his impression, and not by railway O,
Greenwich time.-London Spectator.
A Mistaken Impression.
| That tho ir,t,,itio.r, af xz-1x..ox, &. .x.x,e