Posts Tagged ‘Sleep’

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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 13

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 :P ). 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

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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 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 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 14, 15 and 16

Monday, January 11th, 2010

I am struggling right now. Not just struggling, but really stuggling with my pattern. Recently I can’t seem to stop myself oversleeping and more events are conflicting with nap times. These last three days have really tested my resolve, as they are some of my worst. Apologies once again for the posts clumped together, but the reasons for this are oversleeping and a broken internet modem.

Day 14

The great thing about not getting around to posting each day on time is that you find it really hard remembering what you did that day. On day 14 I was at a friends, like always. Holidays are the best time to go live at other’s houses I’ve found. I crashed that day at 6:00 am for about 3 hours, which wasn’t so bad, but didn’t help for what was to the day after. Also, on day 14 I found that I was more tired than usual, and more susceptible to falling asleep. The rest of the day was alright however, with all my other naps feeling slightly shorter than usual.

Day 15

Ah yes, this is where it gets bad. Really bad. I felt really tired at my 4:30 am nap, and my mobile phone ran out of batteries. This combination with the addition of me sleeping comfortably ontop of my bed ensured that I overslept for hours. Approximately 6 hours, which made me feel like death when I woke up. That in itself wasn’t the worst of it, but more the fact that I needed to attend a friend’s birthday party that day. The party went from 4 till 9pm, cutting into two of my nap times (5 and 9). It was a pool party, and due to the hot weather, it was a complete success. What was less successful was my 5 pm nap however, in which I needed to retreat to a deserted corner and close my eyes. Perhaps I slept, but I doubt it. I wanted to, but when you are covered in cold water, sitting on hard ground with people yelling ‘Marco Polo’ and loud music playing, well, there really wasn’t much hope. While you may think that it would all even out because I slept for so long in the morning, it just made everything worse. It felt like returning to the monophasic all of a sudden. I realised that I have been letting my guard down about napping, allowing exceptions to all my nap times, which is causing my struggles keeping myself awake.

I went back to my friend’s house at 9 pm, which was alright because it was a long drive home, allowing me to get a fair amount of sleep before arriving. Other friends decided to come over, and we all went down to the beach. Ocean water at 12:30 at night is seriously one of the best things in refreshing you, even if the salt burns your skin. I couldn’t take my 1 am nap on the beach.. I had no towel, and it really wasn’t comfortable enough. So I took my nap at 1:30 back at my friend’s house, which was better than nothing, despite friends forcing me to get up (which I thank them for). Not too bad from then on.

Day 16

Day 16 was a huge pain. I managed to keep myself awake barely through the early hours of the morning thanks to my friend staying up with me watching TV series… which is a shame because I went and ruined it all by taking my 1 pm nap without my phone, because it died, and expecting either my lappy or my friend to wake me. Turns out that my lappy failed to have an effect on me, as did my friend (because he fell asleep too. I suppose I can’t blame him. Monophasic is hell like that =P). The rest of the day was alright, but didn’t really make me feel any better about a 2 and a half hour sleep.

So, it’s been a struggle maintaining this, almost all thanks to friends. I suddenly and sharply understand why polyphasic can be a huge problem for some social people. Napping can become really inconvenient. I mean, I’m not a particularly social person, and I make close relationships with friends, so it’s not particularly hard to go off to nap somewhere in private.

…but I can see the problem tomorrow (today). Due to my compulsary Australian Studies subject (which was completely pointless, didn’t teach me anything) that I had to complete, I couldn’t do Chemistry. However, Chemistry is a two semester subject, but Australian Studies is only one. So, they say I can do Chem in year 12 if I do a summer course (1 1/2 days to do 2 semesters work… really shows how hard the education system is working), which is great. But my nap times conflict with it quite painfully… It’s going to be another one of these obstacles to overcome. Once overcome however, there shouldn’t be anything to stop me from continuing my adaptation. And from now on, I plan to treat my naps with more respect. We’ll see how fast I adjust now =)

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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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