How Did People Wake Up Before Alarm Clocks?

[Judi Lynn]

By Emma Bryce, Live Science Contributor | November 3, 2018 10:18am ET

Of all the modern inventions we rely on in our daily lives, the alarm clock is probably the most universally despised. Its jarring morning jangles jolt us uncomfortably out of our slumber, and back to reality. And yet however annoying alarm clocks are, they're also indispensable in getting us out of bed. That raises an interesting question: How did people wake up before alarm clocks became so ubiquitous?

Throughout the ages, even the simple act of telling the time has presented a huge challenge to humans that we've tried to solve with elaborate inventions. The ancient Greeks and Egyptians developed sundials and towering obelisks that would mark the time with a shadow that moved with the sun. Dating back to around 1500 B.C., humans produced hourglasses, water clocks and oil lamps, which calibrated the passing of hours with movements of sand, water and oil.

Out of these early inventions came a few rudimentary attempts to create a morning alarm — such as candle clocks. These simplistic devices from ancient China were embedded with nails that were released as the wax melted away, leaving the nails to clatter loudly into a metal tray below at a designated time, waking the sleeper. [Why Can't We Remember Our Dreams?]

But such crude inventions were unpredictable and unreliable. And so, until more precise mechanical inventions were created, humans had to depend on another more innate form of timekeeping: our own internal body clocks.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/64002-how-wake-up-before-alarm-clocks.html?utm_source=notification

[KCDebbie]

1. In cities, people paid a fee for someone to come

To their door and wake them up every morning...

[TlalocW]

10. Or their window

TlalocW

[Xipe Totec]

2. The indian alarm clock - Two glasses of water before going to bed. nt

[SCantiGOP]

14. The older you get,

The better it works. And I’m down to a sip when I brush my teeth and I know I’ll be up in 6 hours to get rid of it.

[shanny]

3. Same way I wake up now, I imagine: light.

(I confess this is a problem in northern climes)

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I wake up with day break.

[TexasTowelie]

5. I have a rooster in my neighborhood.

He may not wake me up, but I suspect that the people that live next door aren't thrilled about him.

[PSPS]

6. Go way back and people used to have two sleep periods

It's referenced in very old writings. Go to sleep when it gets dark. That's the "first sleep." Then you awake in the middle of the night and get up and do things, visit people, whatever, then you have "second sleep" which ends with daylight.

[qazplm135]

7. do things

aka have sex

[eppur_se_muova]

13. Years ago, I heard a program on NPR where they interviewed an author ...

... who had written a book that discussed that, although I don't know what the main topic of the book was. The time between first and second sleep was known as "the watching hour", IIRC, and I thought that was the title of the book. But I've never been able to find a book by that name. I'd be interested to know where you read about the first and second sleep, if you can remember. TIA.

[keithbvadu2]

8. The alarm clock says 'get up'... The bladder says "NOW"!

The alarm clock says 'get up'... The bladder says "NOW"!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Cats.

[Sancho]

11. The dog wants...

....out
....feeding
....to play

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

12. That's how I am woken up most mornings.

My 95 pound Great Pyrenees wants to go out.