“I always wake up at 2:46 am, what does this mean?”

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen  countless variants of this question. As a long time paranormal researcher and educator it is my obligation to let you know that it does not mean that the ghost cat of your long dead Aunt Miranda is trying to let you know she is being held captive by a demon. It also probably does not mean you’re “gifted” and getting messages from the other side. It doesn’t have anything to do with being around the purported “witching hour”. Unless you are being yanked out of bed at that time and dragged down the hall by your hair or you have a garbage truck beep beeping outside your house at that time every day, it more than likely means your body is trying to tell you something.

Pop culture has gone a long way in influencing the way we see things related to the paranormal. More than 300 years ago people were hung, burned, compressed, and all sorts of nasty ugly things for even a hint that a person might be “gifted”. In the 1800’s spiritualism gained momentum and the pop culture of the time made it “cool” to visit mediums and go to séances. Somewhere in the 1900’s paranormal phenomena became taboo again, no one wanted to admit their house might be haunted and people scoffed at mediums. Now we are in the 2000’s, inundated with paranormal entertainment, and once again it has become “cool”. Mediums and “gifted” people are coming out of the woodwork. I can think of at least 4 shows on tv right now dedicated to mediums and that doesn’t even include the ghost shows that feature them as part of their investigations.

Now, before you try to burn ME at the stake, don’t get me wrong. I do believe ghosts and in mediumship. By very definition it means someone that communicates with the dead, and isn’t that what we as paranormal investigators do? Yes, some of us have an elevated level of that gift and can communicate in ways other than through question and answer sessions using voice recorders and spirit boxes, and we take that ability very seriously because quite frankly it can be an awesome and VERY scary experience at the same time.

I digress though. When we do a client interview, a large part of it is dedicated to medical questions. No, we are not being nosy. We do it because those of us that care about our clients do everything in our power to find the normal explanation first, and SO many things can be attributed physiology. The effect of our environment and medical conditions on our body can be amazing if you take the time to seriously look into it.

Adrenal glands are a good example, and one that speaks to the “waking up at the same time every night” problem. Cortisol, produced by the adrenal gland, is normally highest in the morning (6-8am) and then slowly lowers itself throughout the day until it is at its lowest around 11pm – midnight, allowing your body to prepare for sleep. SO many things can affect this, among them, stress, too many carbs during the day, diabetes, and EMF exposure.

EMF is most often talked about as “proof” of ghostly activity, but EMF affects people in ways that is really not talked about enough and it’s a real presence in each and every home in the world that has electricity. Even short term exposure to EMF can cause you to think you’re seeing/hearing ghosts (i.e. hallucinate) and being followed (i.e. paranoia). Long term exposure is even worse on your body. How many people have you heard say, every time I lay down at night I see faces, hear sounds, get sick to my stomach, feel scared etc? When we have a client that says that, the very first thing we do is an EMF reading on what is right there beside their bed, and how far out it radiates if we do get a reading. We have seen your normal big box store alarm clocks give off readings as high as 60 at the clock and radiate out to around 30 around the clients pillow. This IS going to affect how you sleep, it is also quite possibly going to affect your long term health. Studies now are linking long term EMF exposure to cushings syndrome and other adrenal problems including tumors. Fixing this is simple, move the alarm clock to where you are not sleeping in the radius of EMF output (or get a clock that does not need to be plugged in).

That is just one example of something that can cause you to wake up at the same time every night. There is something called the Chinese Medicine Meridian clock (TCM). You can look at this clock, find your “time” and see which organ relates to that time. Phooey you say? Let me give you an example.

I have a specific time I wake up every single night. My time falls between the liver and lung time. It is well known I have ongoing lung issues, but even without that, I am diabetic. Something is tripping my sleep-wake cycle that needs to be corrected, most likely a spike in my cortisol and adrenaline levels and that something is a drop my blood sugar. Your body increases epinephrine levels when your blood sugar drops too low so it can pull glucose (sugar) from glycogen (stored sugar) from your…wait for it…..LIVER. Your body will increase cortisol to break down valuable anabolic amino acids from protein to convert into glucose to elevate your blood sugar. That surge in either stress hormone will wake me up.

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2008 and not long after I started waking up at the exact same time every night. A few months later we acquired a cat and he would wake me up at the same time I had been waking up on my own every single night (and 10 years later he still does it). I talked to my doctor about this and she let me know right quick that my sugar was low and that believe it or not my cat could tell this and was waking me up to alert me I needed to do something about it. This directly correlates to the TCM.

As you can see, there is a myriad of reasons you’re “waking up at the same time”. Take a look at the clock, find your time and see which organ falls into that time frame and then do some due diligence research of your own and you might just find that your “demon” is your body trying to tell you something.

The 12 at the top of the clock is PM and the 12 at the bottom is AM. So 3 PM is bladder and 3 AM is lungs