> I think it's related to the fact that if you have been woken up at the same time of day (/morning/night) for a long period of time, you start waking up at this time, even if you alarm clock fails. I once noticed that I regularly woke up 2-5 (aka "a couple of") minutes before I was supposed to. I bet someone has done some serious research on this, but it's one of those things which I can't be bothered to find out.

If I'm going on a long trip by bus, train or plane, or otherwise have a very important appointment that I absolutely can't miss and I have to be up really early to be in time, I almost could drop setting the alarm clock, because I'm always wide awake before the alarm goes off anyway.

Also, I have a pretty good notion of time. If I set a timer at fifteen minutes and sit with my eyes closed (a kind of meditation, but not religious; just relaxing and thinking of nothing), I can hit the spot within half a minute, often even closer.

Not always, though. Right now, I had no idea that it was only two o'clock. But that might have to do with the fact that I got up reasonably early today and was at work a couple of hours earlier than usual. :-)

Trav"being your own boss takes a whole lot of self dicipline"holt