"George Hammond" <nowhere1@notspam.org> wrote in message
news:u4amf2hjnhmbudqf41n74a4crkjb87gs98@4ax.com...

At any rate, if ANYONE has ever experienced one of these
uncanny "alarm clock type of dream awakenings", I would
appreciate hearing about it here..... the phenomenon is
still not explained and now seems to have a very interesting
and relevant application!!!!

Yes, I've had these experiences, where external noises were factored
into the dream, but none where I could say there was any opportunity to
extract timing data as in the guillotine example. However, the
guillotine example may have happened over time as well, and there's no
telling how long Maury had laid there with the small board on him. We
are told he awoke immediately, but perhaps that was not so. Critical
analysis is always required.

I do have an experience of timing. Once, in my sleep, rolled over, and
knocked the alarm clock off the night stand with my outstretched hand.
From a dead sleep, interrupted by the feel of contact of my hand, I made
a responsive grab, and caught hold of the cord as the clock went. I
grabbed the cord and arrested the fall at just the moment the face of
the clock touched the floor. As I came fully awake, I had about a foor
and a half of the cord in my hand, clock dangling from it, the protruded
faceplate of the clock was cracked, but there was no further damage
because of the arrested momentum. The night stand was about 22" as best
I recall. There is a pretty exact reaction time measurement to muscles
active there, the time to fall 22" in a 1G field. Very short. Newtonian
physics approximation will answer nicely here. The distance is equal to
1/2 G t^2 or about 1/3 of a second.

Now, before anyone goes long on this issue of time dilation in dreams,
you need to remember what is proposed here runs backwards from the time
dialation of General Relativity. In GR, time can run more slowly for one
under acceleration, or a strong gravitational field, or with high speed
"relative" to someone else who is otherwise not so unaccelerated/moving.
However, there is no way to speed up an observer relative to the rest of
the world.