Why don't loud snorers wake themselves up?

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If you are a loud snorer and you have got a sleeping partner, you might be the object of angry complaints in the morning for disturbing their sleep. But there are some reasons why you did not wake up as a consequence of your own snoring.

When we sleep we go through different stages and depending on which stage we are in, our body changes its tolerance towards loud noises. Thus, during the deep 'slow-wave' stage of the sleep cycle our body might be unaware of snores louder than 100 decibels, which is higher than the noise a fire alarm makes. However, this stage lasts for only twenty percent of the night, or just over an hour and a half from an average eight-hour sleep.

The majority of time people are going through shallow sleep and they can be woken up by their snores dozens of times without even realizing it. Loud snorts may wake a person for a few seconds, but this is such a short time that the person doesn't completely wake up, neither is it possible to remember it the next morning. This means that snorers will be unaware of their broken sleep, but they will probably feel sleepier during the day.

Adapted from Popular Science, December, 2009 · Level: B2

COMPREHENSION
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• True or False?
  
  1. Loud snorers usually distub their sleeping partner's sleep.
  2. There are different types of sleep
  3. The noise made by a fire alarm is always higher than the noise made by a big snort.
  4. We are deeply sleeping 80% of the sleeping time.
  5. Some people can remember how many times they were woken up by snores the previous night
  
  
• Questions
  
  1. What reaction can snores have on a sleeping partner?
  2. When is our body most tolerant towards noise?
  3. How noisy can a big snort be?
  4. How long does a typical person sleep?
  5. What is the usual consequence of continually being woken up for short periods during the sleep?
  
  
• Find in the text
  
  1. Make noise while sleeping (v)
  2. Interrupt, bother or avoid the normal course of an action (v)
  3. The different parts in a process (n)
  4. The unit we use to measure sound
  5. Unconscious, ignorant (adj)