Log.

Last summer a drunk driver left the road and drove through my neighbors yard into the side of my house crushing my air conditioner and moving my living room wall in about 4 inches. It also knocked everything off the wall...books, art, etc... I'll admit I stirred a bit and thought, "those damn cats", but was back in slumber right away.

What woke me up was the policeman ringing my doorbell as what I can best estimate was 30 minutes after the crash because the ambulance had already taken the driver to the hospital and firetrucks were pulling out when I came out to see the aftermath.

So yes...I'm a log.

I'm a feather and my boyfriend is a log (and he snores - loudly). I also discovered that I need the fan on while I go to sleep, much in the same way you did. We live in DC and summer here gets *hot*, and once I started going to sleep with the fan on, I couldn't stop. Music is too distracting because I want to sing along or listen, but the fan is perfect ambient noise.

I'm so glad you posted this. I am such a Feather, that not only do I have to also have to sleep with a fan (and have for years), I also need Unisom, Melatonin and an elaborate bed time ritual, or I will toss and turn all night.

I also recommend a memory foam mattress. You can get them cheap from Walmart online.

I'm going to invest in a white noise machine soon.

Pleasant dreams.

i'm a feather, so i sympathize completely. I can't even get a good night's sleep in hotel rooms, because if i'm not in a place my brain's hearing center can recognize, i'm on edge. i completely agree about the white noise tho! i downloaded a wonderful app on my phone called White Noise Lite (they have it for iphone and android!) and my problems are soved! it goes with me wherever i go, and helps me sleep anywhere. silly enough, my favorite one is the crickets :) it reminds me of the only place away from home i sleep like a baby, Camping

Log.

And I don't know exactly how it developed. But I can sleep through thunderstorms, alarms, kitties jumping on me, even vacuuming in the bedroom (it's happened!). Sometimes noises make it more difficult for me to fall asleep - say, loud snoring - but once I'm asleep, I'm ASLEEP.

In some ways, I'm sure it's better to be a log, but it is soooo crazy hard to wake up, no matter how much sleep I've gotten. Mornings are never easy and never blessed with an abundance of time.

feather! We began to sleep with a fan since the AC in our apartment stinks and we left it on all winter because I can't sleep without it now. not only the white noise factor, but I tend to wake up boiling lava hot and the fan helps me out. I have also tried ocean and bird sounds and my hubby tried music, but those keep my mind going!!

I am most definitely a log. But my husband is a feather! He also uses a portable white noise machine. In fact, in the years that we've been together, he's on his third!

Log here too.
Once I lie on my bed, I go to sleep almost immediately and never wake up until 6:30 in the morning. My husband on the other hand is a feather. One good thing about being a log is my husband attended our infant daughter while I slept through her crying.

I'm definitely a light sleeper, especially when not in my usual environment! Hard for me to relax if I'm not in my own bed. Awhile back I downloaded Relax Melodies to my iphone (free!), has all sorts of great noises that you can mix in any combo you want, including just plain white noise. Helps a lot when I travel and I don't have to worry about bringing anything extra with me.

I'm a log. And like emmelemm it's hard to wake up. Any kind of music or other noise just gets incorporated into what ever I'm dreaming about.

I'm both...if that's possible? Anyway...right now, I'm just concerned with WHERE I can get those striped sheets and duvet cover at!?!? Anyone?

I'm somewhere between. I sleep well once I'm asleep, but it takes a while sometimes, especially if its too quiet (or too noisy). I love sleeping with the fan on but it drives my husband crazy. The noise, the moving air (even when its warm), and most of all, the electricity thats being wasted. I know I'd sleep so much better with a fan on but he just won't budge. I've tried white noise apps and machines but they're just so...so not a real fan! Anybody have any advice?

Log. Despite growing up in a fairly rural area, I have no trouble sleeping in the big city. And I'm near a hospital so there are always ambulances racing up the avenue at the end of my block. Unlike DUSTINSTRUCKMEYER I haven't slept through a house crash, but I have slept through several earthquakes! I can still sleep late on Saturdays like a teenage boy -- and I love it!

I didn't even know I needed the white noise of the fan until we turned it off one night. I can't sleep at home without it now.

I'm a total feather, but melatonin has helped me become more of a log. I still wake up at noises, but I'm so tired from the melatonin that I fall back asleep instantly.

Feather.

I sleep with earplugs, but vague street noise often acts as white noise for me. I also sleep with a night guard to prevent grinding/clenching and I've found that if I wait till I'm almost asleep to put it in (15-30 mins), the ritual of wearing it will put me right to sleep.

Oddly, I am the complete opposite with naps. I can nap ANYWHERE in an instant and the louder, colder, and weirder it is and the less comfortable I am, the better I nap. My mother and I are both like this. Bed is for sleeping. Hard wooden chair with no neck support in the rain next to a construction site is for napping.

Feather. I have a really hard time sleeping in new places, and it takes me forever to recalibrate.

@RufTufCreamPuff: I am also a fan of White Noise Lite, although my favorite setting is airplane. Which I have to use to drown out the stupid crickets outside my house this time of year, funny enough. Noisy buggers.

I'm with StripedShirt.... I'm somewhere in the middle.
I am an excellent sleeper, but I can't fall asleep anywhere, anytime - although by appearances it seems that way! Sometimes I can sleep on a plane. Although, unlike my dad, I wouldn't be able to fall asleep in the living room chair in the middle of a conversation!!

White noise drives me nutty! Gah... it's easier to fall asleep to the natural sounds of traffic, and the media-helicopter landing at the hospital two streets over than it is listening to the blades of the ceiling fan wobble back and forth!!!

That said, I stirred a bit when the house down the block was struck by lightening, but I slept through the resulting 5 alarm fire and all the trucks and sirens that came with it! (I'd totally forgotten about the lightening strike until I saw my neighbors note on my door wondering what all the fire trucks were about.)

That should be medic-helicopter... although there's not much difference!

Feather here. Luckily I live in a quiet neighborhood, but the occasional time when it's loud (bird chirping at 3 am or neighbor having...um.."fun"times) earplugs work great! I buy the moldable silicone ones since the foam ones don't seem to stay in as well. If not that then Ambiance app on my Ipod (My favorite sound is "furnace" strangely enough). I tried the White Noise app when my friend was snoring once but that small skip when the loop repeats always woke me up. Yes that's how sensitive I am to sound, at least in the early stages of sleep.

I live near train tracks and the trains blare their horn every single time they pass through our neighborhood, no matter the time of night. Strangely, It has only woken me up once.

The photo above is not Matteo. It is by DwellStudio. We sell it at our store.
www.eclecticlivinghome.com

dustinstruckmeyer that made me laugh!!

Log. I sleep through my husband’s pager, the dogs barking, pretty much everything. I’ve slept through the night my entire life, even as a premature infant. Although I imagine my sleeping habits might change once we have kids (or so I hear). I also LOVE to sleep, it’s one of my favorite things to do. In bed at 9 pm!

Log. I fall asleep very easily (within a few minutes normally) and I can sleep anywhere. But I am not a long sleeper or a late sleeper-- I'm normally out of bed by 6:30 or 7 even on the weekends, because I value my early mornings so much.

My husband and I are both logs once we're asleep, but sometimes it can take me a little while to get there.

I can also nap or sleep just about anywhere, as long as I can finagle decent lumbar support. This weekend I stayed with friends and slept on their porch. All I needed in the chair I used was a throw pillow and a blanket.

I've been playing nature sounds on my ipod (usually ocean) while I sleep for years now. It conditioned me to get sleepy as soon as I hear the waves start. Not only does it block ambient noise, it's like an all-natural Ambien!

Feather. I sleep with a fan running and earplugs in--the earplugs to cover up noise from the cats, the fan running to soothe and cover up my tinnitus, which is worse with the earplugs in. White noise machine is on the 'to-buy' list.

I'm actually not sure what I am, but I lean towards feather. I always sleep with ear plugs in because I can't get to sleep when I hear other noises (cars outside, my partner snoring, etc.) I've also asked my partner in the past to roll over or away from me because he's breathing too hard/too loudly in my ear, haha. But once I get to sleep, I usually sleep throughout the night - though come to think of it, if I receive an e-mail while sleeping, I usually stir awake.

So in sum: probably a feather. Partner's a log.

As a child my mother woke me up for every lunar eclipse until high school. I never remembered any of them despite her claims that we had entire conversations.

These days I'm usually asleep before takeoff. On one flight I slept the entire way from LA to Hong Kong in the middle seat with a pregnant woman crawling over me to use the bathroom. And then there is the embarrassing story of waking up in an airport surrounded by Jesse Jackson's entourage...

That being said, the drunks screaming outside after bars let out always wakes me up. Grrr....

I'm with cese-ed. I think I'm a feather, but I can't stand white noise... I need utter and complete silence. I always turn off the fan in hotel rooms. Earplugs work well when I'm going through particularly feathery periods -- but sometimes I'll sleep through my partner getting in and out of bed and occasionally snoring, so maybe I'm a ... twig?

Forgot to say - I am SUPER susceptible to auditory pareidolia, specifically electronic voice phenomenon, which is when you can hear voices and music behind white noise. Even the vacuum drives me batty. If I had a white noise machine, I'd lay awake all night convinced people in the next room were talking quietly or playing the radio.

As a kid I used to stay in bed for one hour or two before actually sleeping, but now most of the time I can sleep right away. I couldn't make myself stop thinking about things going on in my life, even as a child then. There were times I was up until 1am, even though my parents made me go to bed at 9pm. My solution that has always worked for decades is to keep thinking, but about something totally separated from my life and thus, no anxiety or uneasiness. It might not work for everyone, but I think it's worth a try. (For me, I'm on another planet hanging with my imaginary friend. Weird, but whatever that works for you to sleep, right?)

I love that bedding

I'm both. I used to be a log until I had a baby. I can still fall right asleep, but I can hear the tiniest sounds out of my son, while my husband sleeps right though...

Interesting comments.

@cese_ed How do you know you receive an email while you're sleeping?

@doityourself If you are really becoming sleep deprived tell your husband you'll sleep elsewhere (in another room, not a different country LOL) to catch up. Ages ago my husband and I decided we felt too crappy when sleep deprived to insist we sleep together, we have completely different habits and like to sleep on very different surfaces.

If I'm physically tired and not spinning much in my mind, I go to sleep quickly, and love to fall off to sleep listening to the night noises -- wind in the trees, hunting owls, etc. Lovelorn make mockingbirds will start singing soon, at midnight, outside my bedroom window. Love to hear them, and wish them luck in their search for true love. Extraordinary noises wake me ... the dogs barking an alarm bark, severe thunder cracks. Have never been an easy waker, my Mom knew not to let me sit down in the morning because I'd fall asleep right there and never get to school. :-) Cannot sleep in rooms that feel "closed in" - no air movement - love my ceiling fan with ultra-low setting and no noise. So .. log? feather? or just picky and a morning sleepyhead?

* male mockingbirds ..*

I'm a feather. Running the fan all night helps. I pack earplugs to sleep when I travel because I know otherwise I'll be woken up in the night by either a random sound or the unusual silence. If I'm having trouble falling asleep at home, the earplugs help too.

ha! i thought you meant do we prefer sleeping on feather pillows or hard pillows! (maybe i am influenced by the pellet pillow i am currently reviewing for my site--it's like a bag o' rocks!) anyway i am a log by your definition and my bf with sleep apnea doesn't even qualify as a sleeper :)

Log, though I've trained myself to listen for unusual noises. I once slept through a tree crashing into my bedroom in a bad storm and woke to branches by my head--believe me, there is such a thing as being too sound a sleeper. I have to be responsible and get to bed in time because it's really hard to find anything to wake me up if I don't! I recently bought a digital lamp timer for one of my lamps, and it has proven to be the best alarm clock I've ever had--light beats noise every day.

Feather, and I HATE all you logs, hate hate hate!!! (OK, just jealousy, I take it back!)

I have memory foam, I have a sleep mask, I turn my overly bright digital clock face down before going to sleep -- um, TRYING to go to sleep, I drink chamomile tea, I take hot showers or baths, I avoid caffeine, I work out in the morning, I use my ceiling fan as white noise and a cooler... and I still am often awake all night. Ambien works, but only briefly and only in emergencies... It's ridiculous! And exhausting.

Feather here. I've used fans for years. Sometimes use ear plugs.
But a few months ago, I got so sick I had to sleep propped up on an extra pillow and it made a HUGE difference.
Now I sleep with a pillow underneath my tempurpedic one, and then wiggle my way under very tightly tucked sheets so I don't flop around. Laying propped up and on my back has made sleep so much easier.

I am SO a feather! When I was still a teenager, living at home; my dad was a 'suck the whole house in" snorer. :-) I started using wax earplugs and turning my TV on to a "static" station that just created the white noise, and threw my robe over the TV screen to block the light. Since then, I have had to sleep with a fan running, and a white noise machine. 25 years later, I have only recently gotten away from the earplugs. People don't seem to understand that I can't sleep in "quiet" and I can't sleep with "noise"...it has to be that consistent "hummmmm" that drowns out the world. I also prefer to sleep in a separate bedroom from my boyfriend, just because I want my sleep. :-)

In my home, with a normal routine, I am definitely a Log. Thunderstorms don't bother me, as I've spent my entire life sleeping through them.

At other people's houses, or if a routine changes suddenly (such as when my hubby started getting up an hour before me, or our first apartment where the trains would roll through with horns blaring at 3 am), I switch to Feather. If the new routine stays, I adjust and start sleeping through that as well.

I used to be a log but have turned into a feather in the last few year.
I agree with T-U about thinking about something totally unrelated to your life. I often can't turn off my brain, but thinking about something detailed really helps. I love Disneyland, so I 'think' myself through the park. I start off at the entrance and walk myself through, and I am almost always asleep by the time I get to Pirates of the Caribbean. It sounds a little bit crazy, but it works!

Log with night owl tendencies. I don't relax easily but once asleep, I'm unconscious to earthquakes, thunderstorms, really loud snoring, although I think I would wake up if a car hit my house. Funny thing, I never had trouble getting up every few hours to nurse my sons. Now we're all logs.

@mginwa:

Branches by your head! That's hard-core.

PSA: If you're a log, take a lot of naps, snore a lot, or just in general find sleep unrestful then get yourself checked for one of the more than 80 sleep disorders. Some are literally life threatening.

And you don't have a sleep disorder, stop being so selfish and go to bed earlier. Anyone consistently relying on an alarm to wake up is by definition sleep deprived. And that's dangerous to yourself and others--studies show that it can be as bad as drunk driving.

OK I am a serious Feather and I need some white noise machine help. Any suggestions?

I saw a fascinating report once on smoke alarms. Children tend to sleep right through them, the little logs, which is obviously NOT what you want in a smoke alarm! A recording of their mom's voice yelling "GET UP! THERE'S A FIRE! MOVE!' turned them into insta-feathers. So maybe some of our reactions are survival-hard-wires. Except DustinTruckMeyer who needs an evolutionary jolt. No one should sleep though a car crashing into the living room!!! Impressive, yes, but...Well, must have given the cop something to talk about!

Totally log.
Feather only on airplanes.
In normal conditions I can sleep everywhere, even if the bed is a mess, in daylight, on boats...I just need some light I hate when there's total darkness.

Earplugs!!! I travel with them -- my husband snores loudly.
White noise is ok bu earplugs win every time.

I used to be a feather but I discovered ear plugs and now, as long as I have those I can sleep in the middle of a dance party. And have.

I think it's a learned behavior. I thought I was a pretty light sleeper, but then I backpacked through europe, sleeping in hostels. As long as I fell asleep before anyone else came in (I was going to bed early and getting up early) and they didn't turn on the light / make a ton of noise, I slept right on through.

I'm a definite feather but I wouldn't change it. I do allow a little extra time in my scheduled sleep for a few natural wake-ups (plus the cat's 3am breakfast time!). I figure it's good that I can wake up quickly if something ever happened. I recently read somewhere that sleeping somewhat lightly is the natural state of sleep: we all cycle through our sleep cycle and come very close to waking or actually wake up several times a night, EVEN IF we're not aware of it, as an adaptation against danger. I never feel unrested after what is for me a regular night of sleep.

But I must admit I do use nature sounds to help me drift off, mostly after years of living on a noisy downtown corner. I download them from Amazon into my mp3. I have campfire with crickets (my favorite!), gentle rain, gentle ocean waves, and plain white noise, but I'm always out before I get to the white noise. Be careful of ones with jungle themes, those birds & frogs are NOT restful in my opinion!

Log, for sure. It usually takes me a while to fall asleep, and around 5+ am I become more of a feather (usually), but once I'm asleep, nothing wakes me. I once slept through a fire alarm in college. Didn't realize until people were talking about it the next day in class. Good thing it was a drunk prank, not a real fire!
I've also had conversations with people while asleep. One year while working at summer camp, another staff member in my bunk woke me up to tell me that she was suddenly, violently ill, and needed my help to get a ride to the health lodge. I have no recollection of this, but apparently I told her to go back to sleep. She had to seek help elsewhere! After that, I always told my campers that I was more than happy to help them at night, but they would have to be sure I was really awake.

I am a feather. I've also lived in a busy house growing up (big family), dorms, and communal houses to follow. It's not consistent, I'm either out or tossing and turning (and getting mad about it). I'll have to try the white noise machines as I have used fans in the past but they really set off my already horrible allergies.

I work evenings in a restaurants and some day time shifts at a vet clinic. The schedule really sucks because coming home from a restaurant job at 1am, I need a natural 2-ish hours of wind-down, tea, a movie, reading, but when I know I have to be up at 6 am, it's just not possible. I suppose I may as well do it since crawling into bed right after work only leads to me waking up and tossing and turning all night.

Any recommendations for white noise devices? Prices?

Big fan of SleepPhones. I alternate between log and feather. Depends on what's going on in life!

Log. I love to sleep. I do however like total darkness at night for going to sleep. I am good with the moon and stars in sky but not electric light.

My Sweetie use to teach bagpipes and I could sleep through the lessons. Strangely I would hear the students arrive and depart but would instantly go back to sleep.

Log. I just had to comment and leave my own loggy stories... I have definitely slept through dorm fire alarms (alarm in my room), crazy thunderstorms, someone lighting off a firecracker underneath my aparment window, but what takes the cake for me was a story like dustinstruckmeyer... I lived above a cupcake shop with a very large, single sheet plate glass front window, and one night someone(s) decided to throw a huge log through it. There was a big "boom" and shaking in my dream, but I didn't wake up until my roommate came into my room to get me.

Log. Majorly. Last May I fell asleep outside in the stadium at the Indy 500. Need I say more?

@CKAL - Ditto to the airplane sounds in White Noise Lite!

@DOITYERSELF - I find it's the closest thing to a fan noise that isn't actually a fan. :)

But I've actually switched to the brown noise in Simply Noise's app.

Anything with more noticeable characteristics than that - waves, rain, crickets - drives me nuts!

Definitely a feather.

Sometimes I use earplugs. For those times, I can't sleep, I meditate. It puts me to sleep fairly quickly. I even explained to a friend over IM once how I meditate. Soon after, I had fallen asleep within minutes. =p

Why doesn't AT ever post polls on this type of post?

Oh yes, I am very familiar with the joy of white noise. I am closer to the feather end of the spectrum than the log end and my partner has always used a white noise machine or fan to help her sleep - though she is a serious log. Now, more than 5 years into our sharing a sleeping space, I have come to thoroughly enjoy the white noise of a fan in particular. I definitely sleep better with it. We use a big box fan and when its too cold to have it directed at us, we just turn it around and direct it at the wall - you still get the white noise sound benefits with fewer frosty toes!

Totally a log! As a child I slept through a minor earthquake which's epicenter was just a few miles from my house. I even slept through my mom pulling me out of bed and dragging me to the doorway for safety. I was about six and I was so mad I slept through it because everyone was talking about it the next day at school.

I also once fell asleep in a Las Vegas airport, with a bank of noisy slot machines just a foot or so from my head.