You..are...getting....sleepy...

Happy New Year, Beloved Readers in the Addiverse! Make it an amazing year!
************************************************
Somehow, with no memory of how it came about, I found an app that supposedly tracks your sleep using a smart phone. Now, that seems like a mighty long stretch, but the app was free, my phone is pretty smart and I thought it sounded fun. Free and fun works for me; besides, all I had to do was load the app and go to bed.

The premise is kind of hazy to me, but it goes something like this: turn on the app, set the timer, put the smart phone on the bed (near the corner of the mattress at the top) and go to sleep. In the morning, you are awakened by a beautiful little chiming song, sometime before or at the time you set the alarm. The time isn't exact because the alarm goes off during the time you are supposedly in the lightest phase of sleep, making your wake up pleasant and most wonderful. Once awake, you are provided data, including how long you slept, how efficient your sleep was and what your sleep cycles looked like.  Here's a photo of a not-so-efficient's night sleep:

Blue is REM sleep; green is light sleep; orange is "what the hell are you doing awake at this time of night?" As you can see, I only had a 75% efficiency in sleeping. The alarm was set for 6 AM but went off at 5:53 AM, making my rise and shine that much more rise and shinier.

The thing is.....although I find this very impossible, this thing got it right. The humorous part? Despite my smart phone being placed right by my pillow, on my side of the bed, it was tracking the wife's sleep, not mine.

How do I know? Because every time she got up or was awake peeking at her iPad, I asked her what time it was.  Guess what? The times matched exactly what is on the screen. Why she is up so much, I do not know. But, I do know that when she's awake, I wake up, so I had the chance to ask about the time:
Me: (Sense the glow of an iPad) "You awake?"

The wife: "Yes, I can't sleep."

Me: (muttered through a fog of sleep) "What time is it?"

The wife: "About 1:15 AM."

A few hours later, I feel the rustling of an awaken human being.

Me: (praying for seven more hours of sleep) "You awake?"

The wife: "Yeah. I've been awake since about 4:30 or 4:45 AM."

Me: "What time did you get up and let Freckles out last night?"

The wife: "About 11:45 PM."

I pry one eye open and look at the graph. That can't be possible. I mean, how the hell can an upside down smart phone figure out if you are awake or asleep and what kind of sleep you are having?

I've tried it about seven times and each time it's been pretty accurate....well, about the awake parts--I have no idea if the REM and light sleep are accurate. I'd need electrodes and a real sleep lab to know about that. It's based on movement, so it makes sense on a very basic level. You don't move when you are in REM sleep and you do when in light sleep. A smart phone can certainly detect movement via some internal doohickey.

Tonight's experiment: I am going to put my smart phone in Freckles' bed. She gets up at least twice a night so I figure I can check the times in the morning. I don't know if dogs have REM sleep or not but if my phone is really that smart, it should figure out that Freckles is a dog and not me or the wife.

If the app tracks the wife's sleep cycle while the phone is in Freckles' bed, I am going to be REALLY impressed.

The Addiverse Sleep Lab is open for business.  I'll let you know what transpires with tonight's experiment. Until then, Happy New Year and sweet dreams!