• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

3.33am

binkyflip1

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Nov 23, 2009
Messages
2
Does anybody know the significance of 3.33am??

Not long after my son had been born my husband and I received some pretty devastating news concerning the baby's health. Not surprisingly, things like sleep became fitful and sporadic. About 2 weeks after learning our son's diagnosis my husband asked me one morning "Did you call me during the night?". I replied that I hadn't but my husband was insistent that someone had called his name (loudly) and woken him. When he'd checked the time it was 3.33am. This continued to happen to him for several days, each time at 3.33am (although not always accompanied by someone calling his name - sometimes it was just 'being woken by something').
A few weeks after that, it started to happen to me. And continues. It's ALWAYS 3.33am. Sometimes I hear my name being called, sometimes I don't.

Incidentally, my son also regularly wakes up at this time. He's in his nursery so not in the same room as us.
I feel that there should be some significance to this time. And for some reason it makes me think of 'angels' although I don't know why.

Does anyone know if 3.33am should have any significant meaning?

N.B. I know there's another thread about hearing your name called, but I didn't add this there as it's sort of secondary to the fact that the time is ALWAYS the same.
 
Well, in the Golden Dawny type occult tradition I trained in, 333 is the number of Choronzon, who is tricksy to say the least : a difficult challenge, it is about overcoming fear, in a way.

There's a lot of mythology around the 3 to 4am hour, from old blues hoodoo to modern emergency and health services ULs (?) about the most common time to die/commit suicide - 'the darkest hour is before the dawn' etc.

A friend of mine recently passed away 'sometime just before 4am' after a long illness, one of those sad blessings. If anyone will pass that fearsome gatekeeper, he will. RIP Oggy.

/edit/ shit, that's probably really insensitive, with you with a sick kid and all ... I wasn't suggesting anyone was going to die, I just meant it's supposed to be a low point of the day, really - if you are stressed this might well be when it really hits you enough to wake you feeling weird

sorry :/
 
In the Chinese 5 element tradition and it's implications in Chinese medicine, 3-5am is considered to be the time of the Lung, which is the organ associated with the element of metal.

Emotionally, the lung organ/metal element is associated with sadness and grief.
Possibly related to your family's reaction to your child's health crisis?

Also, as a father myself, I frequently woke up in a panic in the middle of the night during my son's first few months. I frequently had to go in to check if he was still breathing.
If your child is having health problems, I imagine this type of parental anxiety would be even more acute.
 
_Lizard23_ said:
There's a lot of mythology around the 3 to 4am hour, from old blues hoodoo to modern emergency and health services ULs (?) about the most common time to die/commit suicide - 'the darkest hour is before the dawn' etc.

I remember reading some kind of crazy christian 'demonologist' website where they said that ghosts preferred this hour 'as a parody of the trinity'.
 
It's mentioned in the William Storr book, the name of which completely skips my memory at the moment.
 
In the movie - The Fourth Kind - 3.33am is the time when the spookiness starts.
 
Others who wake up or are wondering about the significance of 3:33 am:

http://travel-tours.travelerinc.com/sig ... 33-am.html

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/fo ... pic=142220

http://indigosociety.com/3-am-3-33-am-t20928/

http://www.experiencefestival.com/forum ... tedly.html

http://girlmeetslightsaber.blogspot.com ... again.html

http://www.sleepnet.com/rest6/messages/724.html

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum ... 909609/pg1

http://www.astrostar.com/Three33am.htm


On a rational side I believe that 3:33 on a digital clock means only that, it is on your clock 3:33. Is it set automatically by the atomic clock?
If not, what did you use to set it by, the news, your wrist watch etc?
What I am saying is that the so called "time" of 3:33 is irrelevant, however the "number" 333 might have significance. I often look at our clock and see 1:11 or the other day 4:44, making a wish [as when I was young and digital watches started to emerge it seemed lucky]. I have also often woken up at a specific time [2:34 I seem to remember] but it wasn't as glamorous as 3:33. It could be your body clock waking up at that time and it just happen to be more interesting than 2:34.
 
Not quite the same, but only by minutes... my time to wake up is 3.19am, and it happens so often my partner and I call it "wee o'clock", as I always seem to need the loo.
I started a business in summer 2008 and we had horrendous trouble getting things going, which resulted in many sleepless nights for me worrying about money. I'd fall asleep exhausted, but wake up with what I call "the 4 O'clock Fear" at wee o'clock. Everything seems worse at that time, and even a problem which is quite easily resolved can exert enough pressure and fear to make my heart race and get me out of bed and have me making lists of things to do to fix things as soon as morning arrives.
I can't find it now (with a quick search) but recently the BBC ran an article about stress/anxiety/depression and sleep/insomnia and they illustrated it not with their usual stock images of people asleep or one half of a couple asleep and the other awake, but with a black digital alarm clock showing 3:19 in red numbers. I began to wonder if it's not just my time.
 
Hi, this is my first post, been reading for a short while though.

I remember a year or two back, a friend of mine said how her, her mother and around 4 or 5 of her mum's friends woke up at 3.33am every single night for around a week without fail. I thought it was a bit spooky!
 
Personally, I think body clocks are peculiar things, and once you start thinking, "Ooo - 3.33am - how bizarre" you're vastly increasing your chances of waking up at 3.33am again the next night. Whereupon the weirdness strikes you even more, and so the pattern starts. Until you start to forget, and then stop doing it.

I remember, after reading Will Storr's book, waking up at 3.33am several times in a row, and always curses my bloody bodyclock - because, you see, our bedroom clock is deliberately set fast. So if it says 3.33, it's actually 3.28. Or 3.30. Which means that, if you wake up at 3.28, you're then doing the mental arithmetic to work out just exactly how fast you've set the clock, and whether it's really 3.33 :lol:

Either way, I'm certain to this day it was nothing to do with some kind of demonic mockery of the Trinity, or half of 666. It was just my mind doing it to myself. Personally, I can think of better tricks it can play.
 
Woke up this morning and lay there for a while before deciding I needed the loo. Got back in bed, checked the clock... 3:18am. And then couldn't get back to sleep for worrying.... (and realising there was a hangover on the way after a lovely evening with friends).

I agree with Ravenstone that it's a bodyclock thing. I wake up at 7am with or without an alarm these days, whether it's a work day or not. Think I've been looking out for 3:19 for so long it's become a self-fulfilling thingy.
 
Is it possible you are dreaming you are waking at 3:33? Heh, it would be just as weird but maybe its a possibility, unless you are actually getting out of bed at that time.
 
angelo84 said:
Is it possible you are dreaming you are waking at 3:33? Heh, it would be just as weird but maybe its a possibility, unless you are actually getting out of bed at that time.

I'm definitely awake. I usually get out of bed after being woken and 'pay a visit to the smallest room' or just plump my pillow/rearrange the duvet etc.

Who would have thought that 3.33am would have been such a popular time for so many other people to wake up?! I thought it was just me (and my husband).

It happened again last night. And someone called my name again, very loudly this time. It's beginning to cheese me off a bit I must say. Again, as I wake up, the first thought that pops into my fuddled mind is 'angels'. Not generally being a very 'angel orientated' person (not something I talk about/think about/collect info' on/have any strong feelings towards) I have no idea why.

N.B. My bedside clock is a digital CD player/alarm clock/radio. It shows hours, minutes and seconds. I set the time myself using the old fashioned method of calling the speaking clock whilst adjusting the display. It should be pretty accurate (to within a couple of seconds I think).
 
superflip656 said:
N.B. My bedside clock is a digital CD player/alarm clock/radio. It shows hours, minutes and seconds. I set the time myself using the old fashioned method of calling the speaking clock whilst adjusting the display. It should be pretty accurate (to within a couple of seconds I think).

We do that peculiar thing where you set the bedside clock a few minutes fast, to allow yourself an extra five minutes in bed when the alarm goes off. I know, I know. It makes no logical sense whatsoever. My Dad always did it as well, and it never made sense to me then. I think the clock is just about right now. It depends when the power last went off.

My grandparents, both nurses, would call the hour between 3 - 4 am the 'Dead Hour', because apparently it's the most common time of night for people to slip off the mortal coil, either because it's the coldest part of the night (apparently) or it's when most people are in the deepest sleep (again, apparently).
 
I used to work nights in a care home, and anyone else who works nights will tell you that around that time the atmosphere....changes. Everything seems still and quiet. Now, of course at night everything generally is still and quiet, but the feeling is strongest between 3.00 and 4.00am, to the point where you feel you are the only person in the world still awake. I once read that at 4.00am the human body is at it's closest point to death, everything is at it's lowest ebb.
I worked there for 6 years, but always felt the same around that time, and the woman I worked with would always insist on a quick nap around 3.30am.
 
To me, the trouble with 4am is that it doesn't belong anywhere. 3am is a late night, 5am is a really early morning, but 4am juts sits there in the middle, isolated and useless. If I were to wake up at 2.30, say, I'd be thinking that I'd better hurry up and get to sleep. Much after 5, and I'd be resigning myself to catnaps before rising. Waking up at 4, as I have done a few times recently, leaves me confused and anxious, feeling as if I've not slept, and never will, because I don't know which end of the night it's supposed to be.
 
Woke up this morning and checked the time. 3.14

Had some pie.
 
Peripart said:
To me, the trouble with 4am is that it doesn't belong anywhere. 3am is a late night, 5am is a really early morning, but 4am juts sits there in the middle, isolated and useless. If I were to wake up at 2.30, say, I'd be thinking that I'd better hurry up and get to sleep. Much after 5, and I'd be resigning myself to catnaps before rising. Waking up at 4, as I have done a few times recently, leaves me confused and anxious, feeling as if I've not slept, and never will, because I don't know which end of the night it's supposed to be.


This is a fine post.
 
Peripart said:
...Waking up at 4, as I have done a few times recently, leaves me confused and anxious, feeling as if I've not slept, and never will, because I don't know which end of the night it's supposed to be.

Generally speaking I'm a pretty calm and unflappable sort but I've always had the feeling that 4 am is payback time. At this time of the morning ridiculously insignificant issues become enormous problems, and real problems become insurmountable. Fortunately I've found that the most succesful mechanism for dealing with this has been to get up and make a brew, or just wander around the house for ten minutes - works every time.

I used to have to work overnight occasionally, but not on a regular enough basis to get my bodyclock used to it. We always found that there was a particular point of the night where everyone was at their absolute lowest, physically and mentally, and it may come as no surprise that when it took hold of an individual they were said to have a dose of 'the four o'clocks'.

It would be interesting to know if people who work nights on a regular basis experience anything like the same thing.
 
Ive woken at 3:33am many times and for a period of about a week almost nightly. I thought it was just me! Guess it is a bodyclock thing as I think my clock was always set 5 minutes fast
 
Speaking of bodyclocks, has anyone else done that thing when you lightly pat your head against the pillow in order to make you wake up at a corresponding time (i.e. seven pats on the pillow if you want to wake up at seven)? It's not entirely reliable, but it definitely works!

There's absolutely something very primal about the hours of 3-4am, and if I'm ever out at that time after a night out or working late or something I'm very wary of anyone else around because they just, well, shouldn't be!
 
After reading this thread yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night last night for no reason in particular, and was just turning over to go back to sleep when I caught sight of my bedside digital clock...which said 3.33am - I shit you not!!
 
Well, I don't wake up at 3.33am (thank god!) but I do find that very often when I look at the time, the two figures are the same; 13.13 or 17.17. This happens to me sometimes as many as 5 times a day; it's a bit weird...
 
Like some of the others here, if i wake up at a particular time in the night, then I can guarantee I will wake up at the same time (often to the minute) for the next 3 or 4 nights. Then the time will change for the next cluster of nights etc.

While reading the other posts here, a thought struck me. To imagine all these people staggering bleary eyed to their bathrooms almost in unison up & down the country when you think you are the only one awake.......... :lol:
 
jeff544 said:
While reading the other posts here, a thought struck me. To imagine all these people staggering bleary eyed to their bathrooms almost in unison up & down the country when you think you are the only one awake.......... :lol:

I was put in mind of something I was told years ago, that the National Grid have to prep for the massive amount of folks that switch the kettle on straight after Corrie. There was a bit of a todo and a hoohar when the show announced plans to increase the episode frequency.

Do you think that there might be a peak in electricity consumption at 3:35AM, when everyone who wakes up at 3:33AM goes and puts the kettle on/bathroom light etc?
 
............I guess the water board have to stand by for all that flushing of lavatories too.

:eek!!!!:
 
Oh, how weird! I haven't visited this board in months, but yesterday at 3:33am I looked at my alarm clock and thought "ha" (as you do). Then came here and saw this new thread!
 
mr_macabre said:
Speaking of bodyclocks, has anyone else done that thing when you lightly pat your head against the pillow in order to make you wake up at a corresponding time (i.e. seven pats on the pillow if you want to wake up at seven)? It's not entirely reliable, but it definitely works!

There's absolutely something very primal about the hours of 3-4am, and if I'm ever out at that time after a night out or working late or something I'm very wary of anyone else around because they just, well, shouldn't be!

nope I haven't ever tried that but Body Clocks are interesting things and have helped me out on a few occasions to wake up before work to check my phone and see it completely dead lols too much to be saved by the body clock bell :D

I liked what the guy with the pirate avatar mentioned about concentrating on the number may be setting internal body clock to work to wake up at that specific time, the only time I seem to catch while awake is 11:11, I try not to wear a watch or look at clocks as time is useless aside from clocking into work and clocking out of work
 
Here's another one.

Because there is a cupboard off my bedroom containing the flat's gas boiler, I keep a CO detector on my bedside table. The green light on it flashes every 30 seconds.

If I'm in bed, and open my eyes, it ALWAYS flashes within 2 seconds of me opening my eyes. This isn't just synchronicity (in the sense that I only notice it when it happens). I've deliberately tried lying in the other direction and reading, then looking round, and it flashes just at that moment.

In fact, I've stopped 'testing' it now, as it was becoming so reliable. No doubt under experimental conditions it'd fail every time!
 
Back
Top