Posts Tagged ‘Schedule’

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3rd Polyphasic Attempt: Day 14, 15 and 16

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

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3rd Polyphasic Attempt: Day 12

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

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3rd Polyphasic Attempt: Day 8

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:

  1. I could use my phone/laptop alarm as per usual.
  2. I could use my girlfriend’s phone on vibrate to wake me up.
  3. I could use my headphones to play the alarm and wake me up.
  4. I could go sleep outside, far away from waking anyone up.
  5. 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 :D

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

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3rd Polyphasic Attempt: Day 6 and 7

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Well, I wont lie. Day 6 was a complete flop. Typically (some might say ironically), just as things are going well I oversleep on my core nap. I was terrified when I woke up and I realized that I did oversleep. My initial reaction was “Oh my God! I overslept for 2 hours… really?… two hours?”. It was shocking to realize that already my body is adapting to this schedule. Perhaps it was just a fluke, but I don’t remember the last time I woke up at 4 am when not being polyphasic, and I still don’t think I woke up then.

I find that this is rather promising, as my body was clearly compensating for lack of sleep, but awoke me without any alarms very early. Usually when I oversleep, I go till about 8 or 9, and then feel like death. When I woke up I did feel more tired, but that quickly passed. While it was disappointing, it does allow me to see errors in how I do my polyphasic sleeping. One (and most likely) reason for me to oversleep, apart from general sleep deprivation, is that I had my headphones plugged into my laptop. Subsequently, the alarm was not heard… or perhaps it was just muted. I have no idea.

Which sort of brings me to my next thought. I tend not to gain consciousness right away… hmm. It’s a hard feeling for me to describe, but I think it’s essentially memory loss. You probably know what that’s like, hitting your head, drinking too much, not paying attention when someone is talking to you… Well, it’s probably more like the last one. I sort of remain unconscious, and go on auto-pilot, shutting off alarms. That’s the weird thing. Something in me must be awake and living, but I really can’t remember anything. I go to my computer and all the alarms are off, and my phone is either turned off or had its battery removed. It’s the same thing that was happening on Uberman, just to a lesser extent. I’d really like another polyphaser’s experience on this, because I’m sure it’s common. I’m putting it down to sleep dep.

So, apart from that slight mishap, I am going solid and strong, all naps have been taken… Ah. I did however become preoccupied with things that I was doing at home, and had my nap about 30 minutes late… Yes, I do know that I am stupid. Additionally, I was out with friends, and I had to take a nap on a bench near my local trainstation. Trains are really loud. I think I only got a few minutes, but when I take each nap, it feels like I’ve slept 12 hours straight, so I have no idea. I guess I’ll put the oversleeping down to that.

And yes, here I am, in the middle of day 7 and 8. Everyman is officially 100% easier than Uberman. It may not be as cool, but it sure is one hell of a lot less exhausting. I get tired occasionally through the day, sure, but I am adapting. In Uberman each wave of tiredness was like getting hit over the head by a large blunt object. Each nap that I am taking now, I almost don’t see the need for an alarm. I wake up at about the 17 minute mark (I also slept for this long on good days on Uberman) and get up, refreshed.

Last night was rather simple. I do put it down to my friends a bit, because they also came and woke me up slightly before my 2am alarm. So, I have had 3 oversleeps in 7 days… Hey, that’s not half bad, considering the first two wont happen again. It was rather amusing, me getting up while they were going to bed. As I am typing this down, they are all asleep (3 of them), dead to the world. I am allowed to wake them up at 9:30, and it is 8:27 right now. Guess I will go play some computer games :D

Raap!d

PS. Oh, I should probably add this. I am starting to get more cognitive abilities back now. I finished my holiday specialist maths last night… Well, it may need checking, but I am rather optimistic :)

PPS. And I also forgot to add that I will be doing my best to gather some data from my overall sleeping hours, and see how I go. People like graphs, so I intend to make some :P

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3rd Polyphasic Attempt: Day 4 and 5

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 :D

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 :]

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3rd Polyphasic Attempt: Day 2 and 3

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

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3rd Polyphasic Attempt: Day 1

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Well, here I am. I said I would be back, and here I am.

It’s now about 4:40 am (on April 9) now, and I can proudly say that I am officially polyphasic again. Yesterday I woke up around 5 am just to get my 6:30 nap, and since then everything has been going as planned.

But I’d better get into all the juicy details now, shouldn’t I? I have just started Everyman3, and I must say that I am terribly excited. Having so much free time is damn addictive :) . In case you don’t already know, the Everyman sleeping schedule differs from other polyphasic sleeping schedules as it has a ‘core nap’, that is, a nap (usually taken at night) that generally lasts for anywhere between 1.5 hours and 4.5 hours, as well as having 2 – 5 naps around the clock. Due to this, there is quite a lot of variation between different Everyman schedules, but the proven schedules are the 1.5 hour core with 4 – 5 naps, 4.5 hour core with 1 – 2 naps, and a 3 hour core with 3 naps, which is the schedule I decided on.

So, my sleeping schedule is as follows:

  • 20 minute nap at 6:30 am
  • 20 minute nap at 1 pm
  • 20 minute nap at 5:30 pm
  • 3 hour core at 11pm

…which obviously gives me, once again, a huge amount of excess time. As I usually need about 9 hours of sleep to feel alive the next day, I am saving about 5 or so hours of time, which is still fantastic. While already Everyman doesn’t have the same feel to it as Uberman does, it’s still rather pleasant. With Uberman time just seemed to extend forever, whereas on Everyman it feels more like I decided not to go to sleep for a night. Wonder if I’ll feel like that tomorrow night.

So yeah, this is just a brief update. I’ll try my best to update this blog daily, I’ve been rather neglecting it as of late.

Not much to say right now about the schedule. At the moment, I just feel kind of tired. Apparently it is no where near as hard as Uberman, which is promising, and doesn’t quite leave me an outcast to society like Uberman did. Still, we’ll see how I go. I still could crash and burn if I am not careful, and due to me starting my schedule so late in the holidays I will need to make sure that oversleeping is a thing of the past if I want to maintain Everyman.

Once again, wish me luck.

Raap!d signing off.

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The wait is almost up.

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

It has been a depressing 10 or so weeks. Really. School is such a drain, and I know it really shouldn’t be. I’m one of these people who likes to learn new things, and does think that the education system is more for teaching than meeting potential friends. Still, Year 12 has been bad. Not the ‘oh no, a test is coming up!’ kind of bad, but more the ‘oh God, that test has ruined my TER completely!’. Admittedly, I have been doing pitifully this term. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy… but it’s really not that hard either. It’s just a matter of putting in time and effort, of which I seem to be lacking. It’s more the motivation in doing things. Everything seems like a drain.

Now, before you start to think that I’m some whiny teenager who claims he/she is depressed, mentally oppressed by all these harsh external forces, let me assure you that you are horribly mistaken (Personally, I hate that attitude so much. “Oh no, my life is so terrible because I live in a nice neighborhood with a nice house and a nice family. It’s the ones who don’t talk about being unhappy that are depressed… blah, I really need to learn not to go off on tangents). My problem is more the structure of my days, and what goes on in them.

I want to be organized, so much so that I have made over 30 or so to-do lists for this year alone. Still, I can never seem to work towards them. It’s pitiful. There is one goal that I am going to achieve though…

And you guessed it. Fully functional polyphasic sleep.

I just can’t keep away from the thing. Everyone I know (except for my other half, which I love dearly) is absolutely against me. Well, perhaps not everyone, but the majority at least. My parents, (some of) my teachers, my friends and some people that I never really talk to tell me that it’s a stupid idea, that I’m stupid, it’s too good to be true… and so on and so forth. And hey, some of them really do deserve to hate me for polyphasic sleep.

My phone alarm is one of the most annoying sounds that any human can perceive. You can look over it in the day time, but this alarm has woken up my friends so many times when I have been polyphasic and at their house that they absolutely hate it, and me for causing it. They also hate it when they try to wake me up in one of my more stubborn naps, and are greeted with a long string of curses that I swear I didn’t say.

Also, from what they see, it seems like it isn’t working. Well, yeah, definitely not 100%, thats for sure. My previous 2 attempts at Uberman have gone belly-up, and while I can blame it on various external factors (Staying at friends, dodgy alarm systems, parents etc.) it really comes down to the fact that my willpower really isn’t strong enough to overcome the pain and agony of Uberman… which is terrible, as I do love it so. Once I’m up, I’m up. It’s just the struggle of getting there.

So, why the long winded post? Well, you see, my school term is almost up… just in time for another polyphasic attempt! Polyphasic Attempt No.3! But this time, I will be lowering the bar (at least for now) so I can adapt before school goes back. So, back to basics, I will be attempting the Everyman-3 Napping Schedule, which involves one core nap of 3 hours, and 3 naps of the usual 20 minutes, bringing the total sleeping time of one day to a small 4 hours (yes, I know that I lose 2 hours by not doing Uberman). I can’t wait to get started.

Despite my bad track record with polyphasic sleep, I have been more happy than ever while doing it. That’s what my friends miss. They miss the fact that I sleep less than half of what they do, that I have more hours to do anything that I want. That I feel good when I wake up from my naps. That I like being alone to do whatever I want in the late hours of night/early hours of morning. Most of all, it’s different. And the good sort of different :]

Expect my first Everyman post to be coming in 2 -4 days. Wish me luck!

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Uberman Schedule On Hiatus

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

This very long delay in posts did not represent me falling off the face of the earth, or any other tragedy. However, it may disappoint you to learn that I am back on a monophasic schedule, 100% thanks to my parental units. I suppose I cannot blame them for thinking polyphasic sleeping harmful, but they did not mind it until they realised I was going to be continuing it through school. Subsequently, my Uberman Polyphasic Experiment has been put on a temporary hiatus, until I can find another work-around.

Despite this, my motivation and love for polyphasic sleeping has not diminished in the slightest (I still need to have 1 or 2 naps everyday), and I am seriously considering going to Everyman for the time being.

So, sorry for letting you all down for the time being, but know that I will back up again soon, sleeping less than clinically recommended =)

Raap!d

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2nd Polyphasic Attempt: Day 12 and 13

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.

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