From The News Journal.
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who loved the sound of their alarm clock.
In fact, I think just about all of us consider the buzzers, bells, ringtones (if you’re using your phone’s alarm), and radio station music, banter, or commercials flat out repulsive as they jar us from the warm, protective comfort of REM sleep. But, somehow we continually fight the urge to press the snooze button more times than our schedules will allow, and we drag our exhausted selves from bed.
Since most of us associate the ear-piercing sound of alarm clocks with waking up earlier than we want to go to jobs we’d rather not have, it’s hard to argue with someone who says something like, “I could never hunt because there’s no way I’m getting up that early, especially on my days off.” However, since such statements are commonly made by folks who don’t hunt, I have some canned responses.
My go-to response argues that we hunters wake up because we want to, not because we have to. I then draw some comparisons to excited kids with visions of sugar plums in their heads who have difficulty sleeping on Christmas Eve and end up waking long before dawn on Christmas Day.
Or, in more technical discussions, I pull out the way too overused proverb of the early bird gets the worm and launch into a detailed explanation specific to the type of game that’s in season. For deer hunting, I explain that deer tend to move more at dawn and dusk, so I need to arrive at my deer stand at least an hour before official sunrise (since legal shooting time is thirty minutes before official sunrise). For duck and goose hunting, I’ll offer a similar explanation about when I hope the birds will arrive, but I’ll sprinkle in some facts about how long it takes to set up decoys. And for wild turkey hunting, I’ll explain how I need to be the first to arrive on public hunting locations so I can get the best spot, how the birds roost in trees at night and tend to fly from their roosts after dawn, and how the birds are sometimes more vocal (which makes them easier to locate) immediately before and after they leave their roosts.
Regardless of my arguments in support of setting my alarm for times as unappealing as 3 a.m., I recognize the value of sleep. On numerous occasions, I’ve gone to bed at 9 p.m. on a work night only to finally fall asleep around midnight. I then was jolted awake by my alarm clock at 3 a.m., sat in bed befuddled because I had no concept of time or space, and still forced myself to layer on my camo, brew coffee and pour it into my thermos, stuff a pack of crackers in my pocket, and drive an hour to a hunting spot.
As the early bird attempting to get the worm, I can attest that lack of sleep and drastically abnormal sleep patterns can cause some bizarre side effects. For starters, waking up three or three-and-a-half hours earlier than normal will throw off your entire biological clock, and for the remainder of the day, you will think it’s always three-and-a-half hours later than it actually is. For me, this phenomenon is especially noticeable on days when I hunt until 8 a.m. and then go to the office for the rest of the day. Ten o’clock feels like afternoon, lunchtime feels like dinner time, and I want all times to be nap time.
Another side effect is the occurrence of vivid—yet bizarre and strangely fast—dreams that occupy my mind after closing my eyes for only a minute (I think). I recall some discussion of this physiological occurrence in a college psychology class, but just trust me when I say it’s a real thing. While hunting and waiting for the first hints of daylight to arrive, I’ve felt the urgent need to rest my eyes. In that second or two, I’ve seemingly had eleven dreams about everything from white turkeys and shape-changing bears to never-ending roads and loose teeth.
Interestingly, I’ve experienced a weird sense of gratification from some of the dreams (or maybe it’s from the minute of sleep), but I’ve been more satisfied when I was jarred awake by nature’s alarm clocks: the thundering sound of gobbling turkeys, the whistle-like calls of wood ducks, or the leaf crunching caused by the footsteps of deer.