Posts Tagged ‘Oversleeping’
Saturday, April 24th, 2010
Sorry in advance about not updating my blog on a daily basis. It will get back to that stage, be patient. So, what happened the last 3 days? Nothing good, that’s for sure.
Recently I have been struggling with my polyphasic sleep, oversleeping two nights in a row. Additionally, the oversleeps are so long it’s practically 2 monophasic days with naps in them, as the 2 am to 6:30 am awake time was being completely taken over by sleep. As you can imagine, it has not been pleasant.
Still, I’m learning things from this. The reasons as to why I have been oversleeping are my parents and family. I know that my dad is catching on to the fact that I don’t sleep properly, but I don’t want him to find out I’m polyphasic again (hence bad consequences). Because of this, on day 14 I decided to sleep with the lights off and in my bed. Bad idea. Awoke at about 6:15 am, feeling terrible. Holding off falling back to sleep for 15 minutes nearly killed me.
The next night I didn’t sleep in my bed, but I still ended up oversleeping badly. This time it was because we visited my grandma, who is in hospital right now. Unfortunately, by the time I got home it was 11:30 pm. At night I am highly dependent on getting a large amount of rest from my core naps. So, sadly enough I slept through my alarms… or should I say became semi-conscious and turned them all off? I don’t know. But I do know that I felt terrible afterwards.
The human brain is a cruel thing. When you try to make (dramatic) changes to your sleeping pattern, the brain doesn’t know what to do, and subsequently doesn’t get enough rest. When this happens, you get tired, as the sleep deprivation is a technique that the brain is using to get you to go back to sleep. With polyphasic sleep you can fight off sleep deprivation, but if you do make mistakes in your schedule and oversleep, you will become even more sleep deprived. This is because the brain thinks “Well, obviously this whole let’s-get-you-tired method of getting enough rest is working, so I better do it to a higher intensity.” Due to this, you may hear many polyphasers (including me) saying that they feel worse when they have had a full nights rest. This is because the brain is trying to make you readjust to your old sleeping habits, and makes the sleep dep symptoms worse when it realizes that it’s working.
Anyway, there is some good news to report. It’s 3:02 am, meaning that I managed to awake after my 11 pm nap. Hopefully I will be able to continue the schedule with no problems (but I doubt it. I have many events coming up soon), but that might be wishful thinking. Still, the fact that I can still get up at 2 am is something to be marveled at. 
Anyways, better put this awake time to good use. Assignments and revision, here I come.
Raap!d
Tags: 14, 15, 3, Attempt, Day, Everyman, James, Jimmi, Nap, oversleep, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raap!d, Raapid, Schedule, Sleep, Sleeping, Tired
Posted in 3rd Polyphasic Attempt | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
You’ve got to be kidding. I awoke at 4:40. Goddamnit! *insert various foul language here*
Seriously, I have been going fantastically for 3 days straight, and then brought right back down. This is my no. 1 problem with polyphasic sleep: For the adaption, it’s relentless. You screw up once, it brings you back 2+ days of adaption, which is really hurts my motivation, making me cold, bitter, and just generally angry at the world. I suppose the issue is that it’s down to you failing, rather than anyone else, making it harder to bear. Still, early days yet. I don’t want to be in limbo much more, and I know it’s going to effect me detrimentally sometime in school, so I better adapt fast.
The main issue is my parents. They are 100% against the idea of polyphasic sleep, and think that it is unscientific/illogical/stupid. Subsequently, they try and keep me away from it (which I just can’t seem to do. Seriously, I can picture myself on my 15th or so polyphasic attempt before getting it right 
). So, I tend to be holed away from the world at night, in my dark room (which is killing my adaption, I just know it) watching movies, doing work and playing computer games. I want to go out and get some exercise, but I know that I would get a serious talking to if I tried :[
Anyways, once again I have no idea what happened when I was sleeping. I just woke up at 4:40, with my alarm program turned off and my phone alarms disabled. Why does this keep happening? I really need to get a new method of waking up. I’m thinking the water pistol wake up alarm sounds pretty awesome, but as far as I know, no-one has made it apart from the person in the HowTo video. Bleh, I’m sure I’ll think of something.
Anyways, I haven’t given up yet, that’s for sure. I just hope I can get back on track before I jump off the polyphasic wagon altogether.
Raap!d
Tags: 13, 3, Attempt, Awake, Day, Everyman, James, Jimmi, Nap, oversleep, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raap!d, Raapid, Sleep, Sleeping, Tired
Posted in 3rd Polyphasic Attempt | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
And I’m still alive. Alive and kicking actually. It was a real challenge getting up from my core nap, which was no surprise. I was happy though, as I got up and after about 30 minutes of awake time, I was feeling alive again. I feel like I am making good progress on Everyman right now, as I have not overslept for 3 nights in a row now. It may be wishful thinking to hope that I make it to the end of the week, but it feels more possible than ever before.
I had some serious sleep deprivation today, the most which I have had over this entire attempt. It started in probably the early morning, and progressively got worse. I managed to put off my nap until the appropriate time, but it was a challenge. I suppose I really haven’t been tested by Everyman until now, where I spent most of the morning trying to watch movies or play computer games while poking myself with a pin. I find that a pin works rather well to jolt you back into the land of the living, but you eventually get used to it. To counteract this, I suppose I could poke myself harder, but I don’t really like the idea of that.
I was practically narcoleptic in the morning, and I was trying to do anything I could to stay awake. I ran and jumped around, had a cold shower, had some tea (and burnt myself, which in turn probably helped a lot) and forced myself to eat breakfast standing up. That’s the thing about sleep deprivation, it really can’t get you until you are sitting down. Lying down is just asking for it. I started waking up mentally about an hour after my nap, just in time for my first day back at school. Now, being sleep deprived at school is less than fun. People tease you when you micro-sleep, teachers find you annoying, you don’t retain any information, and I thought that this was exactly how today was going to be… but it wasn’t.
Well, it was like that for a bit. We had an assembly in the morning, with many students and teachers welcoming everyone back and speaking motivationally. I’m sure it was very interesting, but I really don’t remember much of it. Luckily I was sitting behind many people, so my micro-sleeps where only detected by one of my friends, who hit me whenever I started to drift off. It’s surprisingly effective.
Apart from the assembly in the morning, I think that I did very well. On Uberman at school, half the time was spent in complete agony trying to stay conscious. Here, it was just a little nagging thing in the back of my mind. So, school went on, and I hid myself away from everyone else at lunchtime to have my nap. I naturally assumed it was going to be poor quality sleep, but it wasn’t. Also, nobody disturbed me. Today was full of surprises :]
So, here I am, updating my blog before doing some more work.. and then it’s off to dreamland for 3 hours. I am desperately wanting to get through this adaptation period, and I know that if I can just resist oversleeping for another 4 more days, then I will have no problem… it’s just a matter of willpower now :]
God, I really don’t want to screw up now…
Raap!d
Tags: 12, 3, Attempt, Day, Everyman, James, Jimmi, Nap, narcoleptic, oversleep, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raap!d, Raapid, Schedule, Sleep, Sleeping, Tired, Uberman
Posted in 3rd Polyphasic Attempt | No Comments »
Monday, April 19th, 2010
I really need to get around to updating this blog more frequently. That’s the thing about a polyphasic sleeping blog; it needs to be updated daily so that people can see how I am going currently, and so that I don’t forget what happened a few days ago. I suppose that I am taking a much less rigid approach to polyphasic sleep now. I don’t mean how I nap, or how serious I am about polyphasic sleep, just more on the information side. I suppose that I feel I can put this blog off because I already know what’s going on (and it doesn’t get that many hits anyway ). Also, I haven’t been keeping any records of how long I have been sleeping for, but this shouldn’t be a problem as my oversleeps are stored in my blog anyway.
Alright, so Day 9 got off to a very heart -crushing soul-wrenching start. I overslept to 6:30 am, which is now my worst oversleep in this experiment. I do have many things I could blame it for. Adelaide, which is the capital of South Australia, is where I reside. On my 9th polyphasic day, we had our first earthquake in over 20 years. The earthquake (more like a tremor) was only about 3 on the Richter Scale, so it was nothing serious.
However, it did make me rouse (I shouldn’t say wake up, as I sort of flopped around for a bit and started drifting off again) about 30 minutes into my nap. After the earthquake, which felt like a really loud train in my sleepy state, my dad came and talked to me about it briefly, and then a friend called me. So, by the time I went back to bed it was 20 minutes later. I think that this was probably the main reason as to why I didn’t wake up when my alarms went off. Additionally, I was exhausted from getting poor quality sleep the day before, so it shouldn’t be surprising.
Day 10 was fine, despite the fact that I was tired as all hell. As I found out in my Uberman schedule, once you oversleep, you feel so much worse. Essentually the theory is that the brain isn’t going to change how you sleep unless it 100% knows that you wont go back to sleeping normally. Until then, it will make up tired and sleep deprived. So, when you oversleep, your body detects that the tiredness is working, and then makes you tired for the next day to try and get the same result.
And here I am on Day 11. I had my 6:30 am nap about an hour and a half ago, and I’m feeling pretty good. Well, no, not really. I feel good because I got pretty much all of my holiday homework done in the early hours of the morning. Being productive is always a good thing
But now I feel really exhausted and sleep deprived, yawning and longing for sleep. Generally if I’m tempted to go back to bed again, I usually try to get me as far away as possible from any soft distractions… Oh god, I am starting to fall asleep now. If I can just get through tonight, I am sure that everything will be fire.
Until then, I really need to go. Apologies for my bad spelling.
Raap!d
Tags: 10, 11, 3, 9, Attempt, Day, James, Jimmi, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raap!d, Raapid
Posted in 3rd Polyphasic Attempt | No Comments »
Friday, April 16th, 2010
Well, I’ve passed the one week benchmark, and I am officially on Day 8. Today I made an interesting discovery in terms of my own polyphasic sleeping patterns and habits: Sheer willpower works.
Well, of course this is the case. “After all, isn’t adapting polyphasic sleep just a test of mental strength?” you say. Well, yes, it is. What I didn’t realize was how easily I am able to control my sleep deprivation, and not let it take hold of me. For those who know me personally, you would know that I am a pessimist. For me, every cloud is ominous, with no trace of a silver lining… well, I’m not that bad. I guess I just tend to look on the bad side of things. When I was on Uberman, it was always short lived joy as I knew that with every successful day, chances I will have an unsuccessful day the next.
With Everyman, however, I feel as if I am adapting successfully. Once again, I don’t have a great track record. Out of now 8 days, I have overslept for 3 of them. Still, this is already blowing away my terrible Uberman results. I feel far less tired than I would be on Uberman, and I seem to be waking up from my naps. Because of this, I have become somewhat optimistic. Despite the chance of me failing and becoming severely sleep deprived for a few weeks, I can say quite happily that I am becoming a Polyphaser.
Last night a stayed at my girlfriend’s house. My girlfriend knew about my polyphasic schedule, so that was no problem. However, I couldn’t wake up her mum, who is a light sleeper. Despite her mum being very nice, I don’t like people getting annoyed at me. We looked at possible options:
- I could use my phone/laptop alarm as per usual.
- I could use my girlfriend’s phone on vibrate to wake me up.
- I could use my headphones to play the alarm and wake me up.
- I could go sleep outside, far away from waking anyone up.
- I could go sleep monophasically.
Well, obviously 1, 4 and 5 were out, as I couldn’t wake others up, it’s becoming winter and terribly cold, and I was not going to give up my polyphasic schedule anytime soon, if I could help it. Her phone was not charged, so the only option was to use headphones. So, I put my headphones on, hooded jumper over the top to make sure it doesn’t fall out. We decided that I would wake her up after I got up, so I sat propped up against the foot of the bed, and went to sleep. I told myself over and over that I must wake up at 2 am, otherwise my girlfriend would hate me…
And what do you know? I woke up 
I suppose an incentive to wake up is good. Before the core nap I felt terrible, but I still managed to rouse. The room was pitch black, and my alarm wasn’t that loud, so not really my idea circumstances. Shows what motivation does to your willpower. We then watched more movies, and went for an early morning walk. After all of this, I still feel great. I mean, I don’t feel particularly tired, despite sleeping awkwardly and being sleep deprived. It’s surprising what a little motivation can do to your sleeping habits. I was sure I was going to oversleep.
Turns out that I do have a bit of willpower. Hopefully I will be able to make it through tonight, breaking through the adaptation period into the sweet sugary goodness of real polyphasic sleep.
Wish me luck,
Raap!d
Tags: 3, 8, Attempt, Day, Everyman, James, Jimmi, oversleep, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raap!d, Raapid, Schedule, Tired, Uberman
Posted in 3rd Polyphasic Attempt | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
Sorry, as usual about not updating my blog as much as I could, but I suppose it’s the sleep deprivation that makes you so inattentive and bored. Subsequently, I’ll keep this post rather short, as I am rather tired and my bed is looking more and more attractive…
…Nah, I have at least that much self control to stop myself. So, what’s the news? Well, here is a surprise: Nothing is going wrong. Yes, I know that sounds rather unbelievable. For my last two core naps I haven’t overslept at all, and I can feel my sleeping pattern adapting to Everyman. Additionally, my naps have generally been of excellent quality, making me feel wide awake and energized as soon as I wake up. Things are looking good…
But, knowing me, I will manage to find some way of ruining this. I am so frightened of oversleeping now that everything is going so well… But yes, the trouble with sleeping to long in my core nap has now completely dissolved, probably due to me never waking up at 2am in my life
I’ve already had to start napping in public, something that always reminds me of polyphasic sleep, as I had to do it all the time on Uberman. But however, the disconnect is really not there. As I explained in my last post, I feel less like some sleepless freak, but rather someone who only sleeps for a few hours each night. I tried to get all my naps to be in the most optimal times so that it wouldn’t conflict with general life, and it really seems to be looking good. I’m surprisingly optimistic right now, but I’m keeping my mouth shut in-case I shoot myself in the foot.
One of the really interesting things is how easy it is to adapt to. Now, while most polyphasic information on the internet claims that Everyman polyphasers take longer to adapt to, they forget to mention how easy it is in comparison with Uberman. Uberman honestly feels like someone isn’t allowing you to go to sleep for days on end, and every now and again they will tease you by letting you sleep for a few minutes. It’s brutal, as I hoped you would gather from my previous attempts. Compared to this, Everyman is simple. The sleep deprivation feels about the same as going to bed late and waking up early, which is bearable, and (for the time being, at least) doesn’t make me feel like a zombie, which I am oh-so grateful for
Now, not trying to be an atheist preaching to a minister, I think that this has real potential. Unfortunately, time once again is a constraint. I just hope I am at a functional state by the end of this week.
Bring on Day 6!
Raap!d
PS. Oh, just realized that I hadn’t completely finished Day 5 by the time of writing this, but I feel that I should be able to post about it when I get through the core nap. That’s the issue with polyphasic sleep, you have no idea what day you are on :]
Tags: 4, 5, Attempt, Everyman, James, Jimmi, oversleep, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raap!d, Raapid, Schedule, Uberman
Posted in 3rd Polyphasic Attempt | No Comments »
Sunday, April 11th, 2010
Bleh. Here I am again, half-successful polyphasic sleep. For the past two days I have been staying at a friends house, and I have found out from this that Everyman is far more accessible to people as it doesn’t isolate you from society in the same way as Uberman does… Well, I should probably rephrase that. Everyman has less naps in the day time, allowing you to do things for longer periods of time.
The great thing about my polyphasic attempts is that they teach me so much about my body. I am on school holidays at the moment, so I would go to bed at about 1 or 2 in the morning on average. And this means that I am having trouble falling asleep at my 11 pm nap. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel tired and needing sleep, but I just can’t fall to sleep as easily. Apart from the core nap my schedule is moving in the right direction.
But here is the major problem: I can’ t wake up.
No, I seriously can’t. For the last two days of polyphasic sleep, I have awoken at 5 am instead of 2 am. No, my phone and computer alarms have the correct times… I seem to be doing the whole unconscious behavior thing. When I do finally wake up, I find that neither of my alarms are ringing, and that my computers volume is muted. The major issue with this is that I can’t recall me turning off any of my alarms.
… So I am at a obstacle already. At least in my last 2 attempts I woke up, even if it was to just fall back to sleep. This time I just can’t be woken. I suppose this is due to the fact that I fall into deep sleep, and need to be pulled back into wakefulness. Perhaps I’ll tape my phone to my body. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.
But yeah, the flip-side of this is that I really am not tired. And hopefully I wont once I get rid of another 3 hours of sleep.
Until next,
Raap!d
Tags: 2, 3, Attempt, Day, Everyman, James, Jimmi, Nap, oversleep, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raap!d, Raapid, Schedule, Sleep, Sleeping, Uberman
Posted in 3rd Polyphasic Attempt | No Comments »
Friday, January 8th, 2010
It’s a shame that I need to constantly keep apologising for delaying my posts, but this time there was a good reason. The past few days have been far more eventful socially than I had previously expected. On day 12 I had a small gathering of friends meeting up at my local national park, which was nice. What was not nice however was the fact that I barely managed to get 5 minutes of sleep. Due to the hot weather, friends waking me, distracting me and deserting me, I really couldn’t sleep. I was really tired, but sadly none of them realized that I desperately need the sleep. That was at 5 pm. After our little gathering was over, some of us decided to stay at a friend’s house, and we ended up attempting a walk to a nearby beach. A beach about 8 km away, but due to one friend’s relationship issues we ended up walking to his girlfriend’s house… he said it would take like 15 minutes. It was more like another 5 km. As soon as we arrived, his mum came and picked him up, telling him that he couldn’t hang around. So, this pointless journey took us late into the night, took way too long, but more importantly: I missed my nap. This has been the first nap which I have missed (when being awake that is), which I regret, despite the fact it was rather unavoidable.
So, on day 12 I got about 95 minutes of sleep, which is obviously not healthy for my particular schedule. I fell asleep at about 6:00 am on day 13, and managed to get up 4 hours later. This was caused by the lack of sleep, and partially due to the inappropriate large volume of certain beverages consumed. Woke up with a bit of the fog of brain, but overall pretty good. It is now the end of day 13, and all my other naps have been on schedule and restful.
There are a few things that I have learnt from these past 2 days:
- Missing naps, while bad for you, is not the end of the world. You can still bounce back if you are adjusted enough.
- Prolonged exercise has minimal effect on napping.
- Be careful drinking when polyphasic. It causes you to struggle with nap times, makes it very difficult to get up, and causes oversleeping.
Well, there really isn’t much else to say. Moral of this story: Don’t miss naps. It hurts.
Until tomorrow, Raap!d out.
Tags: 12, 13, 2, Attempt, Awake, Day, James, Jimmi, Nap, oversleep, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raapid, Schedule, Sleep, Tired, Uberman
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Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
Today was not a good day, due to me oversleeping for about 4 hours. However, it is real eye opener to another foolish mistake that I make regularly, and has only aided my resolve in not oversleeping. So, today all naps were on time and rather restorative, as per usual, except for an additional nap at 6:30 am. I put my head down on my pillow. Very foolish.
The reason for this crash was because I gave into having an extra nap. I’ve read that some people can add in extra naps when they are tired, but I find that they only lead to me oversleeping. Also, when I do give in to sleep deprivation and have my extra nap, I almost always oversleep, but tend to wake up if I go to sleep at the nap times. Not only is this a sign of me adjusting, but it shows that I am not used to having any more naps, and that they just pull me back into a monophasic routine, which I obviously don’t want.
So, I plan on not giving in to sleep deprivation. No more extra naps. This way I will cut down on my oversleeping, and even if I do oversleep, at least it is at the correct sleeping times, making the damage to my schedule minimal. Unfortunately, half of the reason for these extra naps is boredom. Now, I love having extra time, but when you are sleep deprived I can barely concentrate, and find that I get bored easily. So, I need to find more things to do each night, which is why I really need some people to talk to, either in real life or online, to keep me from slipping back into sleep.
Anyway, that’s about it for day 11. I feel alright, but slightly headachy, starting from my oversleep. However, I’m pretty sure it’s caused by not enough liquids. Time to get some water =)
Tags: 11, 2, Attempt, Awake, Day, Information, Jimmi, oversleep, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raap!d, Schedule, Sleep, Sleeping, Tired, Uberman
Posted in 2nd Polyphasic Attempt | No Comments »
Monday, January 4th, 2010
Here I am, 10 days into the Uberman schedule, which is already half the time of my previous one. And guess what? I’m starting to love it again. Ok, sure, I’m really not a big fan of being exhausted all the time, but it feels like its starting to wear away, and the benefits are showing themselves more and more. My mood has probably increased somewhat, and my difficulties in getting to sleep have completely gone away.
Today I was back at a friend’s house again, although this time we were sleeping in bright rooms. Oh, and by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’, as he decided not to go to sleep for the whole night. With my friend staying up the whole night too, I obviously didn’t oversleep, and was rather entertained playing computer RPG’s. This obviously lead me to the conclusion that more people need to be polyphasic, as we can help out each other while having fun etc etc, but the downside is that nobody can be bothered. So, hopefully when I adjust people become more interested and give it a try. Until then, I’ll just have to hope my friends will stay up all night with me.
I did oversleep today, which was disappointing, as I was doing so well, making a perfect day turn into an unsuccessful day. I overslept for 2 hours at my 1 pm nap, which is unfortunate as that is when my friend also fell asleep. My alarms either failed to wake me, or failed to work, but I awoke feeling much worse than before, and I have been struggling the rest of the day. Still, I have very high hopes in keeping awake tonight.
Summary:
Well, I said on Day 10 that I would give you some actual data, and graph it so that you can get a better idea on how I am actually going right now. So, here is my latest graph, and my first one for this attempt. Note that the orange line is the target line at three hours alseep. For it to be counted as a successful day, the hours slept line must be under it.
As you can see, after a bit of a bumpy start, my time asleep has been getting smaller and smaller, which is excellent. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any good free graphing software, so I wont be able to do lines of best fit or anything at the moment. I will try to find one for the 20 day summary though.
I also found it interesting to compare my first Uberman attempt with this one:
As you can see, I am doing far better in this attempt, which is reassuring. Also, it feels like I am adapting quicker than the time before, which just reinforces the notion that the more strict you are with the schedule, the quicker you adapt. This could just be a fluke though, or it could be because I had attempted the sleeping pattern before. Regardless of the reasons of the better results, I am glad to see that I am on the right track. Despite me not being able to adapt as quickly as others, at least I know that I am getting there. Well, that’s about it for today. With some extra luck, hopefully I will be adjusted in the next 10 days. Who knows?
Data
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Day |
Total Hours Slept |
Target |
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Mood |
Tiredness |
Fog of Brain |
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Day 1 |
2.67 |
3 |
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7 |
5 |
4 |
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Day 2 |
7.5 |
3 |
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6 |
8 |
8 |
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Day 3 |
9.08 |
3 |
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4 |
10 |
10 |
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Day 4 |
4.58 |
3 |
|
6 |
7 |
6 |
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Day 5 |
3.42 |
3 |
|
7 |
6 |
5 |
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Day 6 |
4.92 |
3 |
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6 |
9 |
8 |
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Day 7 |
2 |
3 |
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8 |
6 |
4 |
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Day 8 |
6 |
3 |
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7 |
7 |
6 |
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Day 9 |
2.3 |
3 |
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7 |
7 |
5 |
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Day 10 |
3.83 |
3 |
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8 |
8 |
6 |
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Tags: 10, 2, Attempt, Day, Information, James, Jimmi, Oversleeping, Pain, Polyphasic, Raap!d, Raapid, Results, Schedule, Sleep, Statistics, Summary, Tired, Uberman
Posted in 2nd Polyphasic Attempt | No Comments »