Like what does a light sleeper sleep through and wake up to?
Mirroring what others have said, often even heavy sleepers have sounds there sensitive to that wake them up immediately. I had someone crash on my couch one night. I knew they had to be up in the morning for work, so I set an alarm for myself to make sure they got up too (this is right around when smartphones were starting to become a thing, and it wasn’t really common to have alarms set on your phone, hence why I was going through the extra effort for them). I woke up and went over to try and wake them up. First it was a soft nudge in the shoulder, then a harder one, then a shake, then grabbing them by both shoulders and aggressively shaking them. I literally stopped to check their breathing and make sure they hadn’t died on me. My roommate came out during this and was also laughing and wondering if they had died. I really had to use the restroom, so said I was going to do that and then come back and give it another go. While I’m in there, I hear their phone go off and my roommate starts laughing hysterically. Apparently as soon as the tone went off on their phone, they sat upright, wide awake.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
I dunno that it’s cut and dried.
Me? I’ll sleep through storms and music and loud cars. But if you even tiptoe into my room, I’m awake and usually already moving by the time you’ve taken a few steps.
However, different people cause different levels of response. My wife and kid can usually get close to the bed, maybe even reach out to touch my leg. My best friend is the same way. My dad, and my best friend’s husband I wake as soon as whatever it is that my brain recognizes is in the room, but I’m not on edge the way I am with anyone else.
My dad is similar about sounds outside the house, he’ll snore through a hurricane, and has. But if you speak his name quietly outside his door, he’s awake and talking to you, ready to move if he needs to.
My wife though? Fuck me, she sleeps hard. I have had to shake her awake more than once.
The kid is more like my dad with their name being called, but they also wake up to any loud noises outside. They will, however, sleep through an entire conversation right outside their door.
I believe the reason is that our brains filter senses all the time, awake or asleep. Everyone filters a little differently. So it makes sense that we’ll all pick up habits of filtering things our brains have learned are low priority, but rouse us for higher priority things. What’s crazy to me is that those filters don’t always make sense.
Default_Defect@midwest.social 9 hours ago
Back when I was a military child, we lived near a runway for the jets to practice on. Pretty constant jet noise, loud enough to shake the whole house, on days that they used it.
I was able to sleep through that after a couple months, but now? I have to run a fan at max speed with my door closed so one of the other people walking normally across the house doesn’t wake me up.