Sometimes you just know it is time…

…to go back to sleep.

It is day 14. I made it to the 2 week mark, sort of. The past few days had been going well for the most part, until last night. I don’t even remember exactly how it happened. I think I went to go take my midnight nap and ended up sleepily disabling all of my alarms when they went off. Yes, I overslept again. This time it was for 6 hours. X_x

This was my 3^rd oversleep in a week. Keeping in mind how far back each oversleep sets me, I’ve decided that taking a break from this schedule would be best. I’m taking a few summer courses still, and I should start giving it 100% of my focus again. My current plan is to take three weeks or so off from polyphasic, and start up onto an Uberman schedule when this class ends. I’ll be much more mentally prepared and I’ll have a better idea what I’m up against.

I’ve learned a lot from the past 2 weeks on the Everyman schedule. For one thing, I learned that even on little sleep, my body functions pretty well. For another, I learned -how- to nap and what times are easiest for me to do so. It’s a little disheartening to give up on this, but as a friend reminded me, I did better than most people on their first try. So, instead of showing regret for the mistakes I made in the past two weeks, I’ll plan ahead and discipline myself to avoid the roadblocks that I hit head on this time around.

Polyphasic starts up again the week of August 11^th. I’ll find another use for this blog for the next three weeks. Perhaps I’ll go into detail on what my schedule was and the problems I faced – and then plan ahead for Uberman. Stay tuned!

-DB

ADPU – Day 11

Day 11:

It be time for a new set of rules! Some of the ones that I used previously still apply. Others have been replaced.

1.    If by the end of week three, I have not gone a week without any oversleep, I quit. – The initial “3 oversleeps” rule was a bit too strict. If I overslept, I would look for an excuse to not count it as one of my three. This should fix that. I have a week and a half to spend 7 days with no oversleeping.

2.    Laying down for any reason (even if awake) after alarms go off is considered oversleeping. - A problem I’ve been having is motivating myself to get up after a nap. After going a week with two really bad oversleeps, it’s definitely been harder to convince myself to get up. In the past day, I’ve probably lost an hour just by laying down for a few more minutes after a nap.

3.    For every nap, 3 alarms must be set for no more than 25 minutes for a nap and 185 minutes for a core (nap times plus 5 minutes). - Until I finally learned to fall asleep quickly (Yay Pzizz), I would be adding 10 minutes to the nap time to give me time to fall asleep. Couple that with my issue of laying down after my alarms have gone off, and it is obvious that I’ve been losing a lot of time and haven’t been strict enough.

4.    If by the end of week four, I have not truly adjusted to the schedule, I quit. - It’s pretty self-explanatory.  If I’m not 100% adapted or if it looks like I’m not getting anywhere, I’ll need to quit. One month is my cutoff.

5.    I need to follow my schedule to the point until I either adapt or quit. – Here I am just reaffirming my commitment and ensuring I maintain some perseverance.

6.    I cannot let outside opinion influence my own opinion. - I haven’t really had this problem since week 1, but it bears repeating.

7.    No caffeine. - This one has been really easy to follow, and I’m sure it has helped me hit my naps quickly and on time.

Overall, the theme of my rules is to stop spending extra time in bed. In the area of falling asleep, I’ve shown tremendous discipline, and it shows in my newfound ability to fall asleep quickly. On the other side of things, getting up has been a much larger problem than I expected. I just haven’t disciplined myself enough. I hope this new set of rules will make the rest of my adaptation a success.

——

As some of my newer rules hint at, oversleeping has been a problem for me. Both Monday morning and Wednesday morning I had massive oversleeps, and in the past day I’ve had some pseudo-oversleeps just by laying down for extra time following a nap. These slipups have made me really tired at certain points of the day, particularly around my midnight nap (since that is when my 2 major oversleeps happened).

My short-term goal for the next week is to have no oversleeps at all. I can do it!

-DB

Polyphasic Oversleeper – Day 9

Well, today was my second oversleep, after I hit all of my naps perfectly for an entire day – again. My mom came in at 12:30 and decided it’d be a good idea to turn my alarm off since it had been going off for a few minutes. >.> With no alarm and my body still holding on to monophasic tendencies, I didn’t wake up on my own til 5:30. I just had a lengthy discussion about it with her – and I’m kind of angry. I’m really tired right now for my sleep schedule being screwed up… and I have work tonight, which I’m considering calling in sick to.

Sigh. I never considered in my plans that a family member could screw up my schedule. At least that won’t happen again. I suggested that if my alarm is going off and I’m asleep, that if she feel the need to get up, she could pour a glass of cold water on my head.

On the one hand, I’m almost thinking I should take a break from polyphasic and go to pure uberman in a month like I was planning since problems keep arising – and the more I oversleep, the harder it’ll be to get up. On the other hand, I’ve only overslept twice (I made a rule that I can’t quit unless I oversleep 3 times) and I’m tempted to make tonight’s not count since it was almost entirely out of my control (though I’m chalking it up to a lack of communication. I guess it is my fault). I’ll very likely continue on my schedule; I’m just super-frustrated with all of the problems that arise as soon as things start looking good.

Incoming! Day of extreme lethargy! LEFT SIDE!

-A tired kitty.

ADPU – Day 7

Well, I just set my polyphasic schedule back a bit. This morning I went to take my midnight nap, couldn’t fall asleep, and made the mistake of laying there with no alarm set. I ended up sleeping for 5 hours, waking up right in the middle of where I’d normally take my core. This is a little disheartening since I’ve been almost flawless until now, but I guess I can’t ease up the strictness I have been holding.

Last night was just a really bad night. I wasn’t able to sleep for that 6:30 pm nap or the midnight nap, and was stressed about an exam I have today. I think I’m going to take the exam and leave early to try and spend a bit more time coming up with a way to get back on schedule. My current line of thinking is that I’ll lay down at all my scheduled nap times and lay there regardless of whether or not I fall asleep.

I’m an angry panda.

-DB

ADPU – Day 6

Day 6!

Well, things have gotten a lot better in the past 24 hours. I downloaded Pzizz to try out to help alleviate the restlessness I was having and for the most part the sleep tracks worked! I went out cold for my midnight nap, but woke up feeling a bit groggy. I used a 40 minute track for that, so I’ll try a 30 minute for my next midnight nap to try and reduce the grogginess. My core nap could not have been more perfect. I fell asleep near instantly, had a dream, woke up halfway through the nap, fell back asleep, had another dream, and ended up waking up 5 minutes before any of my alarms went off. I slept so well that I was worried I had overslept by hours.

I managed to sleep for the first time in my afternoon nap, which is definitely good news, but for some reason despite being physically tired from being out shopping all afternoon, my mind didn’t want to shut down. Regardless, that is a very small blemish on this near perfect day. I couldn’t be happier with how it went. I’m still a little confused at why I seem to hit some of my daylight naps well and for others I cannot fall asleep. My first guess would be that it is either too bright in the room or

Now… I have some studying to do tonight that I blew off until the last minute. It seems more time hasn’t helped my procrastination skills at all.

EDIT: Oh, I am so smooth. I just realized now that I’ve had my blog’s clock set to GMT. xD

Set polyphasers to stun!

-DB

ADPU – Day 4-5

Days 4 + 5.

You’d think that if I neglected to update for a day, things must be going well. Not really. My 3 hour core nap has been going perfectly, but I’ve been unable to sleep during any of my other naps the past two days. I currently have better mental clarity than I did on the first two days, but I’m only getting the 3 hour core, so I‘m not sure how long I can sustain it without being able to nap if it comes to it.

The problem seems to be that I just can’t relax enough to fall asleep. I’m already tired at the time of the naps, but my mind is running a mile a minute as I lay down. The longer it takes for me to fall asleep, the more my internal voice starts to worry that I’m not going to get to sleep before my alarms go off. The really frustrating part of all of this is that my core nap is so refreshing – better than any sleep I’ve had before. Maybe I just don’t know how to nap.

There are a couple of possible solutions that immediately come to mind. My first option is to continue my schedule without any modification and just try to relax my mind before naps. My second option would be to switch to an uberman schedule for a day to force sleep deprivation. A third option would be to switch my midnight nap with my core, which would actually even out my schedule to a nap roughly every 5 hours. A final option would be to increase the time I spend laying down from 25 minutes to roughly 45 minutes.

I’m not really qualified to make a decision based on the limited data I have on polyphasing, but I like the second option because it will cause sleep one way or another and the fourth because it isn’t a drastic schedule change. Do any of the few that are reading my blog know if switching off of my schedule for a day while adapting is viable? Or will it cause more harm than good?

-DB

Another Daily Polyphasic Update – ADPU – Day 3

Huzzah!

Day three is now over and it hasn’t been much different. Energy levels have been good during the day and somewhat low at night. My early afternoon nap still continues to escape the grasp of my sleep, but I still find it incredibly refreshing to just unwind and lay there. It might also be that for some reason I have a hard time napping on the couch – for my other naps I sleep in my bed (except for the one today in which I slept at work).

Speaking of work, my bosses seem to not only be okay with me taking a nap break, but at least one has interest in applying it to his life if it works for me. Just another reason for me to push to make this work! I also found out today that the library will likely be downsizing their part time staff this fall, and it might leave me out a job. Should that happen, it just means I can find a higher paying job since I’ll presumably have the time to work more often than I do currently.

For the moment I have one major concern about this adaptation period. After exercising I have been much more fatigued than usual and the accompanied soreness is lasting much longer (it might just be that I can’t escape the soreness via sleep). Over the past few days I’ve walked/jogged at least 5 miles a day and my legs are remarkably tense and sore. For now jogging to keep myself awake isn’t an option. S’okay though. I’ve only burned through three items on my “Do when tired” list.

Go go polyphasic rangers!

-DB

Everyman for Himself

I’ve changed when I update the blog now to the evenings. It is much less awkward to talk about my experiences of the current day rather than the previous.

So, it’s the end of Day 2 of my Everyman adaptation. So far, so good. My energy levels the past two days have been very consistent and surprisingly high. During the day I am only slightly tired – the real sleepiness hits me as the sun goes down. With plenty of people to talk to and a whole list of shit to do at night, remaining awake hasn’t been much of a problem… yet.

I am under the impression, however, that it will get harder for me over the next several days – probably until Day 5 or 6. I’m failing to fall asleep at all during my 1:30 PM nap, and only just today have I been able to get to sleep at all during my 6:30 PM one. My three hour core though is sooo yummy. I fall asleep instantly and wake up at the end of it on my own. This does not mean that I am letting my guard down though. I am sure that I haven’t suffered enough sleep depravity in the past few days to get my body to -need- to use my 20 minute naps for REM. The next few nights will very likely be much harder on me and will really test my resolve.

For reasons that I don’t totally understand, I have a lot of drive and desire to see this work. It might be the appeal of 20-22 hour days, the fact that it makes me look like a total whacko to people who have no knowledge of polyphasic sleeping, or maybe it’s just that I really dislike sleeping. I’m going to contemplate this more deeply over the next few days to figure out what my main drive is so I know if it is sustainable.

As of now, this experiment is looking up. I’m very excited about the next few nights – I really want to start dreaming during my naps.

-DB

Who’s Sleepy? Not me!

Day Uno

Today I’m feeling surprisingly good. My mental clarity isn’t what it normally is, but for the amount of sleep that I got it isn’t bad at all. My two naps during the day (1:00 PMish and 6:00 PMish) did not result in anything but tossing and turning, but I managed to sleep for my 12:00 PM nap. My core nap only lasted for two hours though; for some reason my body decided to wake up.

Other than that, there are a few rules that I set up to ensure that my adaptation is smoother:

1. If I oversleep three times, I call the experiment quits for now. – Oversleeping is the biggest problem faced during adaptation. When you are depriving your body of sleep, it will of course fight to get the rest it needs before it figures out what the hell you are doing. This rule is quite generous since every time you oversleep, your adaptation is set back.

2. If I get sick, I call it quits. – When you get sick, you need as much sleep as possible in order to fight the virus/bacteria off. While adapting, it is not a wise idea to push your body if it isn’t at 100%.

3. If my energy levels after one week are low enough that I cannot function reasonably, the experiment is over. – This is just some common sense. I’m enrolled in a summer course currently so I’m taking a bit of a risk just by starting the schedule right now. If my functionality remains low with no sign of going up, I’ll need to stop the adaptation until this class ends before trying again.

4. I need to follow my schedule to the point until I either adapt or quit. – Here I am just reaffirming my commitment and ensuring I maintain some perseverance.

5. I cannot let outside opinion influence my own opinion. – Last night I was starting to get bummed out since my mom decided to start drilling me about how dumb of an idea polyphasic sleeping is. Her constant badgering almost made me quit on my first night. This rule will hopefully negate future incidents.

6. No caffeine. – I’ve read that caffeine really fucks with polyphasic schedules. I’d rather not risk prolonging the adaptation any more than I need to.

7. I don’t need scissors. Not even 61. Raw blinks off of Hari Kiri Rock are difficult to do. I can’t imagine how much harder it is for a famous purple stuffed worm WITH a tuning fork to do it in flap-jaw space. It boggles the mind.

I suppose that’s it for now. My class is starting soon. Soon we shall see how much sleep depravity actually affects my ability to focus and learn new information.

-DB

Oh God! He started blogging!

Yes, I am now trying my hand at blogging. First I suppose an introduction is in order.

Hi, I’m Ghalati. I’m just your average nineteen year old. My boring life consists of going to college classes, working at the uni part time, and playing lots and lots of World of Warcraft. In order to hopefully shake things up a bit, I’m going to be making an attempt to sleep polyphasically. Over the next several weeks, I will be adapting to the “Everyman” schedule; basically I’ll be sleeping three hours during the night (from 4:30 to 7:30 AM roughly) and will be supplementing it with three 20 minute naps spread throughout the day. Assuming this works, then I will switch to the “Uberman” schedule – in which I’ll be dropping the 3 hour core nap and adding on an additional 3 naps.

To prepare for this large task, I have been taking naps during the day for the past few days. Last night’s sleep was also cut down to 6 hours. I’m definitely ready to start depriving myself of sleep!

Today is officially “Day 0″ of my adaptation.