Polyphasic Sleep

A second try

2009-11-23T22:30:00.002-06:00

I want to give this polyphasic sleep schedule a second chance. It will much different this time. My goals will be smaller and (hopefully) my dedication will be higher. My previous attempt followed the "Uberman" schedule, but I had a lot of difficulty adapting. On the other hand, I learned a lot about myself, and what works best for me.

This time around, I think the "Everyman" schedule will fit my biological clock more naturally. I'll do 3-4 short naps, then one core nap. I'll start the schedule sometime after Thanksgiving, probably within the first or second week of December.

To be continued...

2008-09-17T10:46:00.003-05:00

Sometime around August 9th I decided my polyphasic attempts had had a fair run. I discovered a more true understanding of my level of self-control and self-discipline. Though I never truly adapted, I think it is likely that one day I will make another attempt and my chances of success will be much higher.

There was little or no adjustment to returning to monophasic sleeping. I remember being a little tired the first day but nothing unusual.

Good luck to anyone out there trying polyphasic sleep for the first time. My advice is to be very active. I don't remember if I've done this already, but I'll list a few things that helped me fall asleep quickly and stay awake when I felt tired. Eating an extra meal, to compensate for the extra energy I was using, was one of the most helpful things I did to keep me going. To fall asleep quickly, I started sleeping on my back, in the center of the bed, and making the room as dark and quiet as possible. Counting backward from an obscure number (I used 2786) sometimes worked for quickly falling asleep. Also, if I ate a large meal, then tried to nap, it never worked out.

A problem I encountered that you should consider is what you should do if you end up lying awake for 30 minutes. Should you get up under the idea that resting your body is sufficient, at least until the next nap? Or should you reset your alarm for another 30 minutes? Personally, I never figured out which was ideal.

Another thing to be careful with is waking up a few minutes before the alarm goes off. If this happens, do not wait for the alarm, get up immediately. You'll feel better. Good luck.

2 months

2008-07-30T03:05:00.002-05:00

Well, it's almost been a full two months since I started my polyphasic spree. This last month was another one of persistent oversleeping. But lately I have been keeping things under control. I have a slightly stronger sense of discipline and self-control. I may very well be on the verge of adapting. We'll find out within the next few days.

I've learned a lot these last two months. I have discovered myself even further, yet I still have a long way to go.

Wish me luck.

Day 38

2008-07-09T02:59:00.003-05:00

Not long after my last posting, about an hour or so later, I crawled back into bed for a short nap. Unfortunately, however, I ended up oversleeping and being very late for work. I'm supposed to be there at 9:00am, but yesterday I woke up at 10:30am, and to make matters worse as I was on my way to work I absentmindedly began driving in the wrong direction. I made it to a traffic light before realizing, "Where am I going?"

Anyway, I feel very very sleepy now. Probably not as sleepy as my last delirious posting. Many times as I was typing last night's post I would sort of drift off but somehow remain typing something, and when I would come to I would see that I had typed something like "asoi wojlwi aoina sd asjio qowielal iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii..."

Currently I'm close to that level of tiredness...

Gtg find an activity to stimulate me a bit more.

Day 37

2008-07-08T01:40:00.002-05:00

Well, it's been over a month. Truth be told, I still haven't adapted yet.

Although, I have made some degree of progress. As of now, I've gone more or less ten or eleven naps without oversleeping. I feel extremely sleepy. Once again, it is a great struggle to hold my head and eyes up high. Just now I zoned out long enough for my thumbs to fall on the space key and create a long string of spaces in this blog, but that's only the, tip of the iceburg. This is going to a tough next few hours struggling to remain conscious.

Sometimes I think my body, my physiology just wasn't built for this sort of stress. Firefox/Blogger is underlining all of my typos and whatnot. Apparently I don't know how to spell.

Uuuunnnhh.... I feel very dumb, sleep, and zombie-like. It seems right nearly impossible that I'll make it through another 2 hours till my next official nap. I definitely need to get away from the computer if I'm going to stay awake.

Day 23

2008-06-24T10:16:00.004-05:00

Yet another turbulent week for my sleep schedule. In some ways my sleep patterns look more like a core-sleep pattern, where I take naps throughout the day and have one extended "core" nap at night. In some ways I have adapted. During my 25 minute naps I can fall asleep much quicker and go into much deeper sleep than before.

In other ways I'm still trying to adapt. As many people have said before me, one of the main issues with being polyphasic is that we live in a predominately monophasic world. For example, going to dinner and a movie typically lasts longer than 3.5 hours. You might say polynapping can cramp your lifestyle unless your super flexible.

I don't always remember my dreams. Actually, it seems like most of the time I don't remember them. I've probably overslept more this week than any other. But I won't budge, I'm going to keep going until I'm fully adapted.

When/If I ever stop being polyphasic, I've decided I'll go biphasic (like the Spainards with their siesta), which is supposedly the natural human sleep pattern.

Day 16

2008-06-17T06:14:00.004-05:00

It's been a rough weekend for polyphasic.

There was a good deal of over-sleeping this weekend, but I'm far from giving up. I thought the weekend would be easier to follow a strict schedule due to the extra freedom. The work-week starts again here in a few hours. Hopefully that will put me back on track.

Last Saturday/Sunday I did have a 24 hour period where I didn't miss a single nap. But every other nap Sunday/Monday ended up being an oversleeper. I got well over eight hours between the Sunday/Monday period. In any case, I got considerably less sleep than I normally did while being monophasic. Typical weekends involved a lot of 12-hour sleeps.

My dreams have become more vivid. Although I think I'm still not dreaming often enough, so I think I'm still very much in the adaptation phase. I imagine it's going to be at the very least one more week, probably two, before I become successfully adapted.

The 5:30 monster.

2008-06-13T15:19:00.002-05:00

As the days slowly pass my sleep schedule has progressively worked it self into a fixed pattern, which includes oversleeping during my after-work 5:30pm nap. Today I figured out what I believe to be the problem.

The problem lies in my 12:30pm lunch nap. I've been sleeping on the couches down stairs, where it's mostly quiet, but there's still tons of light from all the florescent lights. So basically I'm not hitting REM like with my other naps. My crash from yesterday was the worst I've had yet. Went to bed at 5:30 like usual, and woke up around midnight.

One solution I've considered is buying a sleep mask to block out the light and maybe some ear plugs too. Another possibility is finding a more secluded nap-spot. There is a closet where we store a bunch of our computers that I could sleep in, but that would involve sleeping on the hard carpet floor, which doesn't share the appeal of the couches.

Well, Friday the 13th workday is almost over. I hope beat the 5:30 monster this time. Wish me luck.

Day 8

2008-06-10T06:29:00.002-05:00

Ah, hello again!

It's been week since I began my polyphasic endeveur. Since my last post there has been much oversleeping. Yet, more and more I am getting my schedule under control, especially over the last 48 hours since I haven't had any social obligations and I can be more strict. Last Saturday I went to a non-blood relative's wedding and I had to make a lot of accommodations to my schedule.

People I have discussed my new sleep schedule have been a lot more open minded less critical than I had anticipated. In the back of my mind I was mentally prepared for nay-sayers telling me that it's a bad idea or try to discourage me.

I'm starting to understand what Steve Pavlina was talking about getting a different perception of time. The hours of night I typically think of as being the late hours or late at night I started to think of more as very early in the morning. I felt at times that I could peek out the window and see a rising sun even though it was only 2:00am.

I wonder if I have already passed the toughest part of the adaptation. Eric (stepdad) suggested to me that he thinks this week will be the toughest part. We'll find out if he is right soon.

I spent a big chunk of yesterday (monday, that is) putting my coins into wrappers. I later cashed them in for a dandy $250.oo. I'm going to save my money for now. At least until I decide what to do with it. I would like to drop more into my mutual fund account.

Ah, I am feeling especially sleepy now. I just need to hold out a little longer till my next nap (at 8:00), then off to work.

So Far So Good

2008-06-05T10:01:00.002-05:00

Ah, I believe after I made it to my 2:30am nap last night it was all down hill. I cooked up some spaghetti to help use up the rest of my meat, finished up on some laundry, and watched X-men 2. Being active required energy I didn't really have, but what little I did helped keep me awake immessuarbly.

I'm at work right now, by the way. Also, I wanted to mention I overslept for a 3rd time during yesterday's 5:30. I went over by an hour this time. My memory of what happened is fuzzy. I think I began to get up but somehow crashed again. I think perhaps the gap between my 12:30pm lunch nap, and my 5:30pm-arrive-home nap might just be too much for my body, at least for now. I do think that after a week or so this won't be such a problem. Also, last night I added an extra nap, so maybe that will help me survive the 5:30 nap when I go home later today.

Day 3

2008-06-05T00:32:00.002-05:00

Oh my. I am definitely struggling very much to maintain consciousness. I need to figure out some busy work to do. My next naps are 3:30 AM, 5:30 am, and 8 am...

I hope this doesn't kill me, to struggle this hard from falling asleep. Right now my ego is begging me to go back to monophasic. I must resist. I must succeed. Each sentence so far has been a struggle telling me I should return to good ole' monophasic. I thinking I'm going to bump my 3:30 am back an hour.

Maybe I should stop listening to relaxing music?

Doing Fairly Well

2008-06-04T09:29:00.002-05:00

I'm at work right now. I feel mostly normal. Though I definitely could easily fall asleep right now if I wanted to. So far I've easily been able to keep awake and on schedule. Although, after rereading Steve's Day 3 blog, I really do think his argument for adding a few extra naps is well justified.

There's not a lot of room for adjustment during my naps while at work, so I think I'll add just one more nap during my schedule at home. I am getting very close to full on dreams during my naps. I do vaguely remember having something of a dream during my last nap earlier this morning at 8-8:30.

Anywho, I guess I'll find something to keep me busy till 12:30. I'm still not sure where I'm going to take my lunch nap.

Human Error Strikes Again!

2008-06-04T05:50:00.003-05:00

Bad news! I overslept again by half an hour during my 5:00-5:30 AM nap (I woke up at 6:00). I guess my body is having a lot of difficulty making the adjustment, or at least during this early morning period. I've definitely noticed that I need to have more meals on this sleep schedule. The bowl of cereal I had when the night started was a great help.

My next nap is coming up at 8:00 AM, and I absolutely cannot oversleep this one. I must wake up on time or face the troubles of being late. I managed this easily yesterday, so I anticipate a similar outcome... I can feel that today's going to be a good day. Day 3 begins soon, wish me luck. :)

Still fighting

2008-06-04T03:17:00.003-05:00

I went for a walk to keep myself busy and to kill a large chunk of time. Now I'm back, and I'm still trying hard as ever to stay conscious. The only thing I feel like doing is taking a shower... This is definitely much harder than just getting up on time.

Day 2

2008-06-04T01:31:00.003-05:00

Strange. I some how managed to wake up within a second or two just before the alarm went off. I still feel very sleepy. I need to eat something or stay busy. I'm not sure I made it to REM during this last nap, but certainly I am making progress. I think I was able to go just a little deeper this time...

I am already looking forward to my next nap 2.5 hrs later... MUST!.... STAY!.... AWAKE!!!...

Fighting the Urge

2008-06-04T00:50:00.002-05:00

I just needed some activity to occupy myself for ten more minutes, where I can take a much needed 30 minute nap. I am oh so sleepy. I pray I do not oversleep. I got up right on time for my last nap at 10-10:30.

Since then I watched the first X-men. I'm considering making a marathon out of it. I had already seen X-men 1, but 2 and 3 are new and fresh to me...

Wow, I think I have some serious fog brain going on here. Hopefully there aren't many typos. I keep phasing in and out as I type each sentence, each letter, each button on the keyboard.... alright, only 6 more minutes to go.asdf;linzxc;lvinzxc....Must!.... . . ... STay!.. alskd fa AWAKE!
I... I don't know how much longer I can stay awake. I hope this nap rejuventates me. I think I'm reaching the more difficult period in the adjustment phase, the phase that requires a greater amount of self discipline.... Just 4 more minutes now.

Time, as of lately, definitely does seem to be going slower. (Yet it's all relative.) I think it's largely do to the fact that now I am glancing at the clock way more often when I normal would be doing. Simply noticing the time seems to.... Almost there! Just 2 more minutes! I can make it! Or die trying!

It's time! see you in 30 minutes!

My First Mistake

2008-06-03T18:54:00.004-05:00

As much faith as I do have in myself I am not blind to my own imperfections. I made my first major mistake (relative) this afternoon during my 5:30pm-6:00pm nap. By the way, this is Day 2, Tuesday, of my new polyphasic sleep cycle. I'm not sure if my alarm simply did not go off, or if I missed my window of opportunity to get out of bed when it did. Chances are, it was the later. Luckily I didn't over sleep excessively. I woke up at 6:30. But I haven't felt any grogginess since I've started. I remember Steve Pavlina saying early on, on either Day 3 or 4, that that was the hardest day for him or something to that effect. So far I haven't experience much of a battle, yet I sense the hard part has yet to come.

Now that I've experienced one day of work on this new schedule I have already mapped out some changes into my sleep schedule. Based on the real times I have been sleeping, I came up with this:
PM 12:30
5:30
10:00
AM 2:00
5:00
8:00

For the most part I have felt as rest and awake as usual throughout the day. The only time I began to feel really drowsy, and thus succumbing to the head nodding, was during the 5 hour gap between lunch and returning home (i.e. 12:30-5:30).

That's really it for now. I may update again later tonight. (Hopefully not on anymore mistakes!)

Day 1

2008-06-03T01:38:00.004-05:00

I just woke up from my 4th successful nap of the day.

After my 12:30-1:00pm nap I spent most of my time hanging out at the pool soaking up the sun for the third day in a row. I can actually notice a difference in skin color, so thus far my tanning discipline has been a success. Then Porter, Janson, Sam, and I drove over to The Beach (formerly known as The Pond) to receive a tour of their show room. The price is very appealling $460/mo with all utilities included, including cable and internet. On the downside, however, the rooms seemed a little small to me, plus Janson was concerned about the no-pets-allowed policy and the problem of being able to play music.

We came home sooner than I expected, but yet I was still a few minutes late for my 5:30. I napped from 5:39-6:09. So far my first two naps I was unable to fall asleep for the first ten or more minutes, and when my brain actually did begin to shut down I still wasn't able to go very deep.

Before starting this new routine I understood how strange it is in concept, which, by the way, doesn't seem so strange at all to me (as Steve elegantly put it, "Weirdness is relative"... beautiful), but more and more I'm starting to understand how strange it is to crawl in bed with my clothes still on with the intention of staying there for 30 minutes. Sometimes as I lie there waiting for my mind to drift into the sleep state I am faced with the temptation to open my eyes and glance at how much time has past, but -- I've been practicing stiffening my resolve and having faith in the knowledge that eventually my alarm clock will sound and the soon I accept this fact the quicker I can relax about it and go to sleep.

My schedule so far hasn't been nearly as rigid as I would have like it to be, but for the most part I don't think my chosen schedule has been too extreme as to cause me to fail completely. I'm willing to guess that how I set up today may even be the ideal settings for my initiation period. So far I've had a 5hr interval in the morning (12:30pm-5:39pm), then a 4hr (5:39pm-9:45pm), then clost to another 4hr (9:45pm-2:00am). My next naps are at 5:00am and 8:00am, which are both 3 hour intervals of nap periods. I think this is a good idea based on Steve's experience with needing some extra sleep during the early morning hours. Once I can get onto a more regular schedule, or maybe even just tomorrow I will consider adding an additional nap during the night instead of shifting nap times to be closer at night. We will see.

I wish I could have the luxury and safety of preventing myself from driving or having any work related obligations, but alas there are just some risks/challenges I'm willing to make/take. Fortunately my job doesn't require any intensive physical activity, nothing more than occasionally lifting a heavy printer at least. And the drive to work is relatively short and easy to manage. Also, even though I may be a bit on the crazy side, I'm not a complete lose cannon. I can easily determine if I'm way too sleepy to drive. I'm brave, but I still have enough humility to call in to work if I'm not going to be able to make it to work or the rest of the day. In other words my safety is of high concern to me, and yet I accept all responsibility of the consequences of the risks I take in life (shouldn't we all?).

Hopefully the inconveniences I am faced with in conquering this new challenge will only serve as hurtles that, once overcome, become even greater sources of strength later on. Just as a mental exercise for me I'll try to name of challenges to my ability to successfully adapt to this sleep style. 1. Inexperience - I list this one off partly due to the fact that Mr. Pavlina listed Experience as one of the reasons for his personal success in the adaptation. 2. I'm not a vegetarian (yet). - Once again this is another reason Pavlina listed as possible contributing factors for his success. The day before I started the polyphasic sleep pattern I decided that I would have faith in Pavlina's research on how diet and sleep are related and that making changing in my diet would very likely aid in becoming a true polyphaseur. From this I decided I would finish off whatever meat products I had left and eat healthier foods. I also considered my motivation for become vegetarian. While I disagree with any mistreatment of animals whatsoever, I have little qualms with the actual idea of eating an animal. Essentially I have decided that my primary motivation is to become healthier, and not being a financial supporter of any of the companies walmart buys it's meat from that choose to mistreat their animals is just an added positive side effect of my vegetarianism. [Edit: A second major reason for becoming vegetarian is to instill even more self-discipline upon myself.]

I'm surprised at how talkative, verbal I feel. I'm not positive that this is any sort of side effect of polyphasic sleep. It seems to early to be experiences any of the positive effects. In any case it's nice to have something immediately keeping me busy until the next time I nap, which I am already looking forward to.

I'll report back after Day 2 if not sooner. (If I can't make it through the 2nd day, things may be worse than I assumed, and I may need to work up a new game plan).

ps. I know that there is a good likelihood that there are many grammatical errors and other typos. Please excuse these, and just assume that you actually already know what I am trying to say. Thank you.

1st nap

2008-06-02T12:21:00.003-05:00

Well, I completed my first 30 minute nap. I'm not sure I ever actually fell asleep. The first 10 minutes were spent mostly getting comfortable. Then I noticed just how busy and chaotic my mind actually was with a song playing continually in the back of my head or taking notice of all the external sounds. It felt more like a deep meditation.

The last polyphasic sleep blog of Steve's that I read pointed out that almost none of the 20 year old college students that have tried it adapted successfully. Well, I'm going to take this as a challenge. My goal is to do this at least until the last day of July, the 31st.

Even if I completely fail, I think I were have a much better understanding of the size of this commitment. Certainly I can understand that it IS a big commitment, but perhaps I will not truly appreciate the size of this challenge until I experience it first hand. Also, even if I fail the first time, I will definitely try it again until I succeed.

Wish me luck! I'm going to make this more public than I originally intended. I usually like to keep my personal disciplines secret, private, mysterious, so as to not fall into the trap of bragging about myself and to weaken my power.

Good morning!

2008-06-02T10:36:00.000-05:00

I just got out of bed. I'm eating a bowel of the cheap brand version of Lucky Charms, which I think I actually like better.

So. This is the beginning of Day 1 of polyphasic sleep. Last night I decided the schedule that would work best for my job situation would be naps at 12am 4am 8am 12:30pm 5:30pm and 8pm. This way I only need to take 1 nap at work during my lunch break, and the rest can be done at home. Even though I just woke up I'm going to take my first nap at 12:30pm largely for the purpose of practicing and getting into a new habit, a new routine.

Besides polyphasic sleeping, I have a list of things I have decided to accomplish today.
-Go to the bank and deposit some money
-Pay for rent online
-Wash Laundry
-Look around for prospective houses/apartments for next fall

Well, off I go to the bank.

New New New

2008-06-01T23:53:00.000-05:00

So. I'm back at it. Blogging.

I deleted those old blogs the previous version of me wrote. I didn't really like them. This is a new blog, a new beginning.

Tomorrow I plan on beginning polyphasic sleep, and soon to follow after (after I eat meat I have left) vegetarianism. I never thought I would be a "vegetarian", but I thought about it and realized that my current diet has very little meat in it to begin with. My typical meals during the day are cereal, PB&J sandwiches, and dinner varies. Many times I don't eat dinner, but when I do it's often ghetto spaghetti (spaghetti with no meat). So I believe the transition will be as smooth as becoming more aware of what I am eating.

My inspiration comes from my recent discovery of Steve Pavlina's blog (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/) on polyphasic sleep. Just as a side note I want to point out how immediately I felt amazed by thy guy. Largely because I feel I have found someone so very much like I am. He has the open mindedness, the curiosity, the desire to improve his self, and many other character traits that I believe I have. Though I also think he is a much better writer than I am, which brings me to my next point -- the purpose of this blog.

One major motivation for me restarting this blog is that I want to learn to express myself with words better, and to learn to use word better just in general. I feel that last sentence was rather awkwardly articulated, which I find amusing for the sake of what I was trying to convey... Maybe I'm being to harsh on myself.

Besides improving my writing ability, and truly the initiator of restarting this blog is plan to (like Steve did) to document my experience and testimony with becoming a polyphasic sleeper, as well as my transition into vegetarianism.

Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin and are among the people I admire the most, and I believe both have experience polyphasic sleep and vegetarianism. I don't know any of the details of how long or when they tried this disciplines. I hope to one day be as great as they were or greater. But that's really just the ends to the means. I know, of course, that I should not seek the ends, and I don't believe I do or ever will. I don't actually want to be great. I want to do great things. What I mean I that I want to do what I think most people want -- unleash my fullest potential. Hold nothing back. I feel I've been holding enormous amounts of my ability back, mostly due to fear (a horrible disease of the ego, btw). I believe those who have done the greatest, become considered "great" people, did what they did with an enormous amount of courage. And lately I have felt much more courageous. Courage itself is something I have been working towards releasing.

...

It is much later that I would like it to be. I think now is a good time for sleep. My last monophasic sleep cycle... I have no idea if I have courage to follow through with this one, but we will. Difficulty is relative anyway.

p.s. I feel that the post time is a little deceptive. It says 9:53PM, but the actual time right now is 1:23Am.