Charlatan

Last night I was woken from a sound sleep at 3:10 am by the sounds of screeching tires followed by the unmistakable crunch of metal on metal. It was a loud noise and it the noise carried on for longer than seemed right.

It was a very big car accident.

I live on the 14th floor and given the heat, always sleep with my windows wide open. The sound was unbelievably loud. The second bang came a moment later as, apparently, another car slammed into the first accident.

From my window, I couldn't see the point of impact but I could see the cars backing up and going in the other direction.

I was tempted to go down and look at the carnage but felt it was too voyeuristic. Then I lay down and tried to sleep again. It took a while but I finally managed to get back to sleep.


What things have woken you up in the middle of the night?

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Destrox

I'm one of those sound sleepers. I wont even know that there was a massive thunder-storm last night, people can turn on all the lights in the room and I'll stay asleep.

Heck the only thing that wakes me up is the sound of my alarm clock, I never hear my gf's alarm clock or even notice her getting out of bed.

I suppose its a good thing, but could be bad as well.

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You bore me.... next.

DaveOrion

A new stray cat showed up at 3 this morning. Its a male of course and although my female cats are fixed he doesnt seem to know the diffference. He cries outside while my cats hiss from the window inside, the females are not impressed and want nothing to do with him. This upsets my dogs so they start barking, oh what fun. I throw on a robe, run the cat off, but he's back in an hour. I just put the coffee on at 5, I feel a nap coming on today.

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

bermuDa

In October, I awoke numerous times to the house shaking from earthquakes. The first time was startled, but thought to myself "nah, it's not my time," and let the planet rock me back to sleep.

Nowadays I think I just sleep through them. There's no saving me when the big one hits.

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I am the very model of a moderator gentleman.

Grasshopper Green

I'm a pretty light sleeper so I wake up fairly easily. I run a fan at night to drown out background noises that would normally wake me up.

One of the stranger things that have woke me up wasn't noise, but lights. I woke one night to the reflection of police lights flashing in my window. I thought it was odd because the street I live on is small and isn't a place police catch speeders. I found out the next day that an attempted kidnapping had happened in the alleyway behind my apartment and the police were looking for the suspect.

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"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings; steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king"

Formerly Medusa

Toaster126

Me? Wake in the middle of the night? Un-possible!

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"The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me." (Ayn Rand)
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." (M. Scott Peck)

noodle

The cat chasing a fake mouse around the laminate flooring.
The air conditioner or de-humidifier clicking on.
My boyfriend's cell vibrating.
His violent rolling-over as well.
Any kind of light.

I hate being a light sleeper. There isn't anything I've ever found to help me stay asleep.

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flstf

About a month ago I awoke to the sound of a pack of coyotes yelping loudly in the back yard killing a deer or something I guess. After checking my pets to see that they were OK I made a cup of coffee and stood out on the back deck listening to them (too dark to see anything).

When they were done yelping and growling after about 15 minutes all was silent except for a single long howl. This was answered by two other howls from different locations far in the distance. I wondered if the coyotes were bragging to other packs about their kill.

Fly

we have coyotes than run in the back field huntin' for vermin.

my dogs have no mercy on who or what ventures close to our fence so........i hear them often but........i can tell the "crazy batshit bark" (like someone is comin' to the door) and the "get the hell outta my yard bark" from each other so.........

getting used to this farm life..........

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BASTARD

SterlingStudios

fhqwhgads

I'm on call 24/7, an no one seems to barricade themselves in their homes or take a hostage in the middle of the day, so my answer would be: the phone. Damn that phone.

rhaevyn

It seems kinda' ridiculous, but a few weeks ago, I was awoken by the sound of one of my post-it notes unsticking itself from the wall and falling between my desk and wardrobe. I know, not something that should make a whole lot of noise, right? But I guess my hearing was extra sharp that night, because it woke me up in an instant. Scared the hell out of me, too.

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~Alex~

You've come far, and though you're far from the end, you don't mind where you are, 'cause you know where you've been.

Atropos4

Sometimes the cats deciding to clean themselves right next to my head wakes me up.

Another time an earthquake woke me.

Usually Cleo barking wakes me instantly. She's a very good guard dog and I know what her different barks mean. Her pissed off one freaks me out in the middle of the night. Last time that happened at 2 or so in the morning it was followed by something screaming. I flew out of bed and alpha phi was still awake and he went running outside. A raccoon decided that Cleo's kennel was a nice place to stay. Cleo we think grabbed it and shook it. When alpha went out there it was hiding behind the house trying to hide and limping around snarling. Took awhile for all the neighborhood dogs to calm down. Cleo was unscathed thankfully.

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SSJTWIZTA

ive slept through tornados and hurricanes before....i sleep through all.

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First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for me And there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Pastor Martin Niemoller

Meditrina

I used to sleep soundly. Until I had children. Now I wake up for anything and everything. No funny stories to share though, sorry.

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"Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles." ~Alex Karras

Jetée

The radioactive monkey that I keep in my closet because it escaped from a top-secret military installation for reasons of horrid experimentation conducted by the nation's foremost politicians that are secretly evil scientists hell-bent on unleashing a legion of genetically-enhanced super-soldiers that are in reality gorillas capable of mass destruction on a scale the world cannot even begin to comprehend.

Only I... alone... can comprehend... the HORROR... the HORROR of it all... because of this monkey in my closet... that keeps me up at night.

Dilbert1234567

the loudest:

some guy shouting 'I'll never be taken alive', followed by some gunfire. it was a few blocks away from me but very loud.

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Donate Blood!

"Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

bermuDa

I spoke too soon, I woke up this morning to another earthquake. This one was over 6.0 at the epicenter, but just a 2 or so here

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I am the very model of a moderator gentleman.

analog

I've slept through every hurricane that's come through here.

As it is, I have to set an alarm in ten minute increments for an hour to make sure I get up, because I sleep through the first one or two, and will continue to sleep if they don't keep going off, annoying me.

Charlatan

I was awoken this morning, before my alarm, but the loud crash of lightening. Scared the shit out of me.

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Sultana

I am a pretty heavy sleeper. Very little wakes me up, but once I'm up, it's very rarely I can go back to sleep.

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"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
At night, the ice weasels come." -

Matt Groening

My goal? To fulfill my potential.

Dilbert1234567

sorry about your sheet's dude.

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Donate Blood!

"Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

BobAlmighty

Really crazy-ass loud and powerful thunderstorms sometimes wake me up. Living in the mid-west, we get a lot of those :P

Charlatan

I was awoken last night by the phone ringing at 1am. Apparently someone in Toronto was trying to reach us. It was noon in Toronto.

When I went to answer the phone, the connection was lost.

Just as I was drifting off, the same number called my wife's phone.

Doesn't anyone know how to send an email anymore?

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

jewels

Everything.

My own snoring (yes, sleep apnea), other people's snoring, cats in heat, hurricanes, kids blasting gangsta rap in their cars, incorrectly set cell phone alarms.

Push-Pull

My wife shaking me violently and asking "Did you hear that?!?!"

Oh, and our (now passed) cat using my face for traction. Didja know that cats can fly? And while I DID have something to do with the cat flying, I did NOT have anything to do with it's passing.

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"No laws, no matter how rigidly enforced, can protect a person from their own stupidity." -Me-

"Some people are like Slinkies..... They are not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs." -Unknown-

DAMMIT! -Jack Bauer-

inBOIL

Some asshole picking up his friend from my neighbor's house. The lazy fuck couldn't be bothered to get out of his car and ring the doorbell; he just lays on the horn.

The faint tickle of a spider crawling across my face. The resulting shot of adrenaline and the "get it off me!" flailing that ensues guarantees that I won't ge getting back to sleep.

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And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

Plan9

Post traumatic stress disorder.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

blktour

I once woke up to my girlfriend turning around and Karate chopping me in the neck on accident.

I was so upset for about 10 seconds and then cracked up so hard that I woke her up. That'll teach her!

Grancey

Back in the days when I regularly snoozed while Red was driving I fell asleep sometime after midnight on a trip home from B'ham. To be awakened by the sound of screeching brakes and then to realize that I was in the car that had slammed on the brakes is a moment in time that I will never forget or fully recover from. A deer with large antlers was standing in the middle of the road. Only after Red had braked and we had come to a stop did the deer calmly walk away. No snoozing in the car for me now. We drove back the next day to see if we could find the black marks in the road. We were less than 5 miles from home at the time.

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Quiet, mild-mannered souls might just turn out to be roaring lions of two-fisted cool.

biznatch

The dog jumping on my nuts, because my dog randomly moves around the bed at night.
Also, this really huge freak of a bug once, which made noise not unlike that of a helicopter. I actually had to act asleep, with the lights out, for it to come out...did that routine twice, finally got it. The thrill of the hunt kept me up for another hour or so.

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Check it out: The Open Source/Freeware/Gratis Software Thread

kramus

I lived in the attic of my parents old home on and off. As a teenager I had 2 occassions where insistant dreams full of alarms and flashing lights woke me up. Once I went walk-about and found my baby brother had a pillow that had fallen against a space heater and was beginning to smoulder. The other time it was a new sister-in-law who hung a towel in front of a seldom-used electric wall heater with a built in fan that she had accidently turned on. That too was beginning to smoulder. In each instance I soaked the offending object and left it in a pool of water in the bathtub, and went back to bed.
As a young adult I woke to a humming noise that rapidly came closer, very quickly and very loudly, and the sound exploded directly overhead knocking me out of my bed and onto the floor. I have absolutely no idea what the hell that was.
There are some memorable awakenings involving my Lady, and TLC, but I tuck those happy memories in my reverie place and smile quietly to myself

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And now to disengage the clutch of the forebrain ...
I'm going with this - if you like artwork visit http://markfineart.ca

TotalMILF

Once, right after out son was born, I was just drifting off to sleep when I felt something crawling across my right ear. I sat up, batted wildly at my head and flung what turned out to be a giant cockroach against the opposite wall, screaming the entire time. Xeph woke up to me screaming "KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!!!" It was the biggest cockroach I've ever seen.

Somehow the baby slept through it all.

Another time we were taking an afternoon family nap when we woke to the sound of helicopters hovering directly above our apartment complex. Turns out one of our neighbors across the parking lot had shot and killed an intruder in a home invasion. Three other guys were on the run, hence the helicopters.

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"I'm sorry, all I heard was blah blah blah, I'm a dirty tramp."

Fotzlid

the dog barking at shadows.
other than that, i'm a fairly sound sleeper.

analog

Nothing for me recently, but tonight I responded to a car being driven into someone's house. Those people were quite awake when we got there. lol The house won, though, because they hit the very corner, and it was a cinder block home... so a small chunk was missing, but the car didn't penetrate the walls.

Ourcrazymodern?

I woke up once.
It won't happen again.

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Hain

"My mother woke me up once, Johnny... once!"

I once woke up after a car accident happened outside my dorm, and then heard gun shots. I was dazed since I was having a dream before that and went back to sleep. The paper in my floormate's room told me I was wrong about it being a dream, luckily not dead wrong.

medlar

I was woken up by something large sliding and collapsing in my closet..it was my snowboard and it sounded alot like that of a body slumping to the floor. A huge racket. Otherwise Im usually woken up with a full-on view of the cat's sphincter smiling at me. Not nice.

LazyBoy

Coyotes are the first interesting thing that came to mind....

-Will

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Life is nothing, everything.....and something in between...

abaya

That's usually my mother calling from Seattle, 8 hours behind us... she works the graveyard shift and gets all out of whack on the time difference. My reactions have taught her to be very careful to check the time before she calls now, though.

Recently, our friend from Belgium missed his flight to Iceland at 7:30am and decided to call us in his panic. Which shouldn't matter, except that the sun doesn't rise until 11:30am now, it was a pitch-black Saturday morning (after being out until 4am the night before), and he called my cell, ktspktsp's cell, and then our land line before one of us finally cogitated what was going on and answered. Jesus!

And lastly, 3 windstorms of up to 90 mph (40 meters/second) woke me up at 2am, 3 nights last week... with the sound of our windows being raped and pounded by the wind. I battened down the hatches to stop the crying sound (coming from the wind finding every single crack to scream through), but could not go back to sleep for a couple of hours.

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And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ritzy

my daughter has night terrors and wakes me up frequently during the night, ear piercing screams that have you pinned to the ceiling is not a nice way to wake u p lol