Should You Be Afraid of the Witching Hour? What is it?

It’s 3AM.

You lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, or at least where the ceiling would be if it wasn’t so dark. You have to go pee, but you’re putting it off, you’re not totally sure why but something tells you to stay under the covers. The pit in your stomach is the only thing competing with the pressure of your bladder but you know that something has to give.

One toe hits the floor, the other nine follow in hot pursuit, this isn’t the time for a leisurely stroll down the hall. You don’t even bother looking ahead and you’re definitely not trying to catch any reflections in the framed photos on the walls. You just have to get to the light switch, do your thing, wash your hands (Even if the devil himself is on your tail, you don’t want to be that guy at the office that starts this year’s flu! Especially now that COVID has reared its ugly head in 2020), and scramble back to your bed, pulling all of your extremities back into your blanket—where everything is safe and nothing hurts.

Why are we so afraid of the space between midnight and sunrise? Have we let modern-day horror films scare us or is it purely an instinct we should listen to? What exactly about the Witching Hour makes us feel so uneasy?

What is the Witching Hour?

There’s a lot up for debate when it comes to the lore of the Witching Hour—like what it even is. Some believe the Witching Hour is the time of night when the veil between life and death is thinnest, allowing spirits and ghosts to travel between two worlds. Others believe that witches and psychics are more powerful at this time of night. Some aren’t really sure what the Witching Hour is, but they know nothing good happens at 3AM.

The purpose of the Witching Hour isn’t the only thing up for debate, the timing of it is as well. So what time is the witching hour? 3AM is commonly the accepted time, but some people consider the start of a new day, or midnight, to be the true Witching Hour. Aside from the obvious issues with time zones (Does the devil just hit ‘em each one by one?) the argument over timing is a divisive one. There are a few thoughts behind the Devil’s Hour landing between 3-4AM. The predominant reasoning lies within religious texts—Jesus was crucified at 3PM, and the inverse of that would be 3AM, making it an hour of demonic activity, according to folklore.

The phrase “Witching Hour” was first recorded sometime around 1835, though the origins seem to be from a period of time in 1535 where the Catholic Church forbade activities during the 3-4AM window due to rising concerns about witchcraft in Europe. Witch hunts, demonic activity, exorcisms, and rituals have all become intertwined with the Witching Hour, as just about any clock in a horror movie will tell you.

The number 3 is often a mockery of the Holy Trinity, making it the perfect time to carry out acts of evil, but is there something else afoot at 3AM?

There is a new theory

It’s super common for folklore to explain strange happenings with outlandish tales that actually boil down to pretty sound logic, given the information they had available to them at the time. Plenty of urban legends and long-held beliefs about the world have been debunked by modern medicine and better understanding of our reality, and the Witching Hour phenomenon may be no different.

In fact, the Witching Hour, might be a lot less about witches, demons, and the devil and a lot more about biology and sleep cycles.

For most people, 3AM hits right about the time their body is going through REM, the deepest sleep possible. This does a few things to you—it slows your heart rate down, drops your body temperature, and generally dulls as many functions as possible so you can get truly deep rest. If you wake up suddenly in the middle of an REM phase, whether from weird sounds or because it’s time for a mattress upgrade, you’re going to feel super, crazy weird. The natural reaction to feeling so disoriented and even colder than normal is fear—we can’t help but instinctually panic when we feel completely different than when we went to sleep.

Fear of the Witching Hour becomes common amongst large groups of people, so we attached meaning to it. If we’re always waking up at 3AM in a panic—something dark and ominous must be at fault. The stories grow, a few witches and demons get peppered in, and hundreds of years later we’re gripping our phone-turned-flashlights in terror on the way to the bathroom at night.

Can we be totally certain that the Witching Hour stems from our own natural circadian rhythms? Maybe not, but it certainly feels like something worth holding on to.

Lastly, if you are experiencing insomnia and don’t want to play along with the tricks your mind is playing, here are some helpful tips to help you get a better night’s sleep.

1. Make your bed every morning. (You’ll see why in another tip.)
2. Start an exercise routine.
3. Avoid caffeinated beverages in the evening.
4. Find a sleep mask that is right for you.
5. Get a white noise machine, like the TN + Snooz machine shown below, to help disguise distracting night time noises.
   
   Shop White Noise Machine
6. Create a sleep ritual and be consistent. (That’s the key!)
   Start these 90 minutes before bed.
   • Turn down the air conditioning in your house a few degrees
   • Get some fresh air.
   • Get into your pajamas.
   • Dim all the lights in the house.
   • Diffuse some essential oils or light an aromatherapy candle in your bedroom.
   • turn on your bedroom fan/air purifier.
   • Pull down your sheets and blankets, so they get cooler for when you crawl into bed. (See why you should make your bed every morning now?)
7. Use a podcast to help you fall asleep, here are some of our favorite sleep podcasts.