Insomnian Alarm — Shannel Doshi

Mar 30

Mar 30 Insomnian Alarm

For this class of Critical Objects, I decided to pick the topic Insomnia.

Topic: Insomnia

Device: Metaphor

Mood: Calming

I wanted to work with the idea of insomnia as an event that disrupts sleep cycles. The Uberman Sleep Schedule is a sleep schedule consisting entirely of 20-minute naps. It follows the theory that our sleep cycles re-start every 20 minutes. I wanted to use the number 20 as a metaphoric feature in my project.

While I began my research on insomnia and the various methods one uses to fight insomnia, I came across the understanding that dimming the lights a full hour before bedtime encourages our bodies to begin its physiological progression toward sleep.

This concept helped me frame the idea of the project and its development.

My initial idea was a candle lamp diffuser that mimics the 20 minute Ubermann Sleep cycle and reveals a starry night effect. Although, while this talked about sleep cycle, on hearing feedback, it did not really critic the topic of insomnia.

On talking to a few friends, I redefined the idea of the 20 minute Ubermann Sleep cycle, but also having the user interact with the feature of an alarm clock system. I wanted the user to interact with the lamp, and mention a time that it wants the lamp to light up (i.e. work as a light alarm). But instead the lamp gradually increases its brightness in a cycle of every 20 minutes, without really being set for a fixed time. This idea was to mimic the experience of a person with insomnia in an alarm as the alarm acts disobediently and brightens up every 20 minutes.

While the choice of self-isolation during the times of the global pandemic, Coronavirus, my resources to implement a sophisticated alarm system was limited. I instead tried to put together a mock alarm lamp, wherein the user can press a button to set a time vocally, and then observe how the dimness of the light changes over 20 minutes.