Polyphasic or bust

That's a wrap

2010-04-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

Yay, fun stuff. Time for another break though.

Part way in I swapped the 1am nap and 4:30-7:30 core with a 1-4 core and 7am nap. Then the 4-nap everyman3 was a bit too fluffy with that many naps so I didn't get as much rest as desired. I switched to standard everyman3 with core from 3-6. Though I liked having core at 1-4, I couldn't make my naps fit that. This went fine, but now I have other life priorities over funny sleeping experiments.

Till next time,

;hunter

Oheyder

2010-03-19T02:46:00.001-07:00

Recording an everyman start again. Yay. Jvogel from #polyphasers on freenode has been doing a modified everyman for 8 months that I'd like to try. It's everyman3 (3 hour core and three naps) with an extra nap, for 4 naps total. My schedule is 4:30-7:30, 11, 15:30, 21:30, and 1.

;hunter

Same old sameold

2009-10-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

Well, just as is typical during adaptation my schedule is thrown off once again. Poor napping conditions are hindering my ability to feel like anything I could call "adapted", but at least I'm not failing.

Naps on time, or 10 minutes late/early to try to deal with social changes. Core overslept a few times, but not more than one rem. Sticking to it is the plan.

Oh, and how about this. A beautiful model that has been doing uberman for almost 5 months. And like most people who discover polyphasic sleeping is a bit of a geek.

;hunter

Mehlert

2009-10-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

Been going pretty normal as far as oversleeping and dozing off goes, but also normal in that I get more time without being more tired. I was hoping this would be a better adaptation after having done it a few times, but I was given an anti-allergen that I didn't know would make me sleepy, so after naps it would take several hours to shake off sleep. It was horrible and I'm sure I dozed off for a few minutes in between naps, but I stuck with it and that's gone away.

I normally nap at 11pm and core from 4-7am, but I slept 3 hours at my 11pm nap, so what I usually do is just start a nap 20 minutes before core ends and continue as usual. I've done this twice before both during and after adaptation and it doesn't seem to mess anything up. Anyway, it's bad that I overslept but good that I only slept 3 hours without an alarm, so it shows I'm on track.

Sticking with it, since there's no reason to quit.

;hunter

This just in...

2009-10-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

Update and report on naps.

Evening nap (18:00) yesterday went well. I slept a short period, though not as deeply or quickly as the morning nap.

The night nap (23:00) I didn't sleep at all because I made the mistake of lying on a bed so my body thought it was time to ruminate over the days proceedings and take 30 minutes to go to sleep.

Core started 20 minutes late because someone on IRC asked a very interesting CS question and I just had to answer, so I put my core end alarm 20 minutes later too.

Feeling a bit sleepy, but nothing like I would feel if I slept only 3 hours monophasically.

I think I'm going to have to adapt to 4 meals a day again. It's just too hard to make it through the night without getting hungry.

;hunter

We're back.

2009-10-15T00:23:00.000-07:00

I'm in India for a few months, and I decided on a whim to try polyphasic sleep again while I was here. Everyman3, with sleep scheduled at 4-7, 12, 18, and 23. I wrote a quick schedule here with how long I'll be awake each time so I can see how balanced it is, and an alternate schedule for a friend that works better for him, plus allows me to check up on him.

I got 6 hours of sleep last night in preparation. I was planning on 8 hours but I was kept awake by miliaria (heat rash), and due to my grogginess I think I woke up a bit early during N3 sleep in the morning.

First nap was great. I laid down and almost immediately felt the familiar twinge of losing consciousness. I still have it! I slept from approximately 12:08 to 12:15 (guessing, since I didn't take my eyemask off). I stayed there until the alarm went, and now I don't have the grogginess of this morning.

I'm not as sure about being committed to this attempt as the previous ones because I don't have pressing matters, so we'll see if I'm still enjoying it as much in 3 days. :P

Thu Oct 15 12:53:15 IST 2009

;hunter

Wheeee

2009-06-04T23:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, that was about 10 weeks of mostly-successful everyman. I'm getting my motorcycle permit, and as much as I hate to admit it I'm not *always* fully rested and aware of my surroundings on this last polyphasic sleep, so I'm taking a break for a few weeks to get comfortable on the motorcycle. I pulled out a few days ago and have been sleeping 6 to 8 hours a night with no problems at all. I would say I was not lacking in sleep, and this shows that it doesn't build a sleep-debt.

Be back in a few weeks. Sorry Jorel, I guess I'm only "long term" in the sense that I'm not dying when I try it, and that only comes with practice.

;hunter

"I'm still alive"

2009-05-05T13:14:00.001-07:00

(If you don't recognize the title then you MUST go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI )

Sorry, I was trying to update once a month to stay on Jorel314's list but forgot with midterms and everything.

I'm still going everyman, and it's great. In the average week I sleep normal naps at 9:40, 16:00, and 21:40, and try to do a 3-hour core starting at 3:00. I end up doing 4.5hr core two days/week and maybe a 6hr core one day/week, but gain about 15 to 25 hours (out of a max of 28) per week so I count that acceptable (I tend to sleep in if I don't have pressing matters). I think my "long sleep" is more like 80 or 85 minutes instead of 90, so I've been dialing it back a little to try and eliminate the super-groggy mornings. Maybe I'm one of the people who needs 6 REMs...

Back in a month, or see you on #polyphasers.

;hunter

Oops update

2009-03-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

Relating to my last post, I did uberman from Dec 20th to 29th, and everyman from Dec 30th to Feb 4th, for a total of ~45 days. I stopped because of a poor weekend, poor napping conditions, and missed naps due to midterms. I started again on Mar 16th (as soon as I felt safe with finals) and it has been going acceptably well. I feel like I all of a sudden need less sleep, for no reasonable explination, even polyphasic.

I've found that keeping track of my sleep schedule and recording my actual sleep works much better in Google Calendar than blogging it. I sort of blog it in a way since I try to add a short note to every entry. You can see it at hunnur.com (it's the red blocks) and if you click the records you'll most likely get whatever I spewed right after the nap, or if I didn't record until later anything I could remember. I'll be updating there instead of here, but I'll still try to make posts here for jorel314's blog.

Polyphasic or bust!

;hunter

Pushpop

2009-01-15T18:35:00.001-08:00

Short update, because there's not much to say. Everyman is going great, but I think my core cycles are more like 75-80 minutes long than 90 so I'll shorten my core a bit.

Lots more people in irc://irc.freenode.net/#polyphasers than last time, which is nice.

;hunter

Prepare to make the jump

2009-01-01T05:16:00.000-08:00

Okay, time for an update. I did uberman from the 20th to the 29th, then began the transition to everyman on midnight of the 30th. My core is 2am to 5am, and three 20 minute naps at 10am, 3pm, and 10pm.

This uberman adaptation went so well that I can really see how messed up my original attempt was. I had the totally wrong mentality about getting my naps mostly on time vs. exactly on time, and where I was sleeping played a big role in it. This time I have gotten them all in bed and on time, and I feel much better. By the time I switched to everyman I was sleeping deeply for all of my naps, feeling rested most all of the time, and not oversleeping.

Everyman so far seems much more convenient than uberman because there is no 6pm nap, there is greater spacing between naps, and moving naps is much more flexible. I haven't moved them yet, but I can tell that uberman allows none of that, and people report everyman is more lenient.

I have had trouble getting up and staying up from my core (I start dozing off in my chair) but I have made it these three days with no major oversleeps and it's only getting easier. Switching from uberman meant that I start out being able to get sleep during the naps, but I think the core overdosed me on REMs and caused some vibrations for the rest of the sleep schedule, but they are receeding.

This next quarter I may have a problem with my physics class which runs TTH from 14:00 to 16:50, so I'll have to see how taking a 20 minute nap in the middle of class works. (I didn't have problems with it before in physics ;) )

I am only posting a little information here because most of the details get spewed into #polyphasers on irc.freenode.org. There are a lot (10 or more) people on there who are also doing polyphasic sleeping. It's been really nice to have people to talk to in real time who are also figuring this out.

;hunter

Neophasic

2008-12-21T03:33:00.000-08:00

As mentioned, I have plans to do everyman. With further reading it appears that long-term (one month plus) überman sleeping patterns are near-unheard of, while there are many long term (and currently ongoing) everyman sleepers in excess of one year.

My wife was very much against me trying polyphasic and only let me because she could see it was something that I really wanted to do[...].

After a couple weeks on the schedule she got to be a huge fan of it and is now my best supporter, she gets very annoyed when I mess up my schedule and miss naps, etc. She has said many times that she has seen a complete change in me since I started polyphasic, I used to be useless in the evening but now I am alert at any time in the day and happier since I finally have time to work on my own stuff.

Also just so you know, I am a pretty long term polyphaser, I have been on the Everyman schedule for about a year and three months now. - Marcus Weidner

Rather than attempting to start everyman from scratch and endure the initial month of warmup, I decided to use my practice at uberman and transition to everyman after a short acclimation to uberman. I believe this will be simple to do as many oversleeps of the uberman schedule parallel everyman, and will shorten adaptation to only the length of uberman, which is about 10 days. I also only have about 14 days total before school starts again.

This time around I've decided to count days starting at midnight instead of 6am like in my previous posts. I've entered the 2nd 'day'. This point corresponds to nearing the 3rd day of my original attempt and just as I had hoped the second adaptation period is easier than the first. I haven't overslept yet (by this time I had a 3 hour over sleep originally) and I have made all of my naps comfortably in bed and on time (previously I had slightly sporadic naps and several were uncomfortable, like in a car).

Much of my excitement and textual output has been spent in irc://freenode.net/#polyphasers which is why I have not posted much information here. The polyphasic sleepers there with me are Loïc, Netopalis, Bobrobyn, and Kurou.

Note to other poly-sleepers: Dymaxion is not real! Don't bring it up if you can help it, and never paint it in a positive light. We need to work to get this 'deadman schedule' out of common usage because many newbies are attracted to it like flys to a flyzapper. They attempt it because it looks the most attractive. They fail and falsely assume that polyphasic sleeping is impossible.

;hunter

Day 25

2008-11-11T10:05:00.000-08:00

Ah, I'm back monophasic for a few days. It feels so good and is easier on everyone's schedules, though I don't want to stick with it.

I want to try everyman in a bit, with a 2-5 or 3-6 core. The problem is that a 2-5 core puts naps right in the middle of class on T/TH, and on Fridays I'm busy from 2-6 (Which was okay with Uberman and moving the 2pm to 1:40pm). Even moving the core to 3-6 means I still have a nap at 4 on Friday, but also introduces the problem of 11am Sunday instead of 10am.

I play bass for my church pretty much every Sunday, and if I nap at 10am then I miss the end of the service, but it doesn't interfere with people. The second service starts at 10:45am and music goes until 11:20 or so, but during second service I have class then. I may have to wait until this quarter is over.

See you later.

;hunter

Day 23/24

2008-11-10T02:30:00.000-08:00

I would say that I am adjusted now, in the sense that I can maintain the uberman schedule without needing extra sleep, and it now I'm experimenting with messing my schedule up and then returning back to it.

The previously mentioned 6:20am to 10:20am nap was joined by a 2pm to 5:30pm napping as well. It felt like I slept for days and was wonderful. I also slept from 2am to 7:30am on Sunday morning, and even though it wasn't as restful as the Saturday morning/afternoon naps it was still nice.

Basically I didn't have more activities planned that I had to do, so I indulged in a little free sleep. Kind of like a hobby :).

Going back into the week on Sunday night and I'm back to staying awake when I should (I never stopped napping at the correct times, I just stopped getting up when I should). Maybe I can get everything done during the week, then grab some sleep on the weekends if I feel like it. Not saying I need it, but not sleeping longer than 20 minutes sure throws a new light on a little extra sleep.

;hunter

Day 22

2008-11-08T10:56:00.001-08:00

Last night was a little different. I made my naps on time, but because I didn't have anything that I wanted to get up and do I added extra sleep.

- 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, and 2am were all on time or started 20 minutes early to make way for the day.
- 4am I added an extra nap for the fun of it.
- 6am I slept until 6:20 as usual, but when I woke up I decided that I'd rather sleep more than do anything I had thought of, so I set my alarm for 8 and went back to sleep.
- 8am I woke up, but I forgot that this was a poor choice for a length of nap (they should be multiples of 90 minutes) and accidentally fell back asleep until my 10:20am alarm. For once I'm not that mad about oversleeping, though.

;hunter

Week 3: Are we there yet?

2008-11-07T18:56:00.000-08:00

Pretty much I'm steadily averaging one or two hours of extra sleep per night whether it's from oversleeping, accidentally napping, double napping, or whatever. Some nights I've made it just right, and some nights I've slept more than 2 hours extra.

My supposition is that, because I often wake up at 3:30 instead of 2:20 and my alarm is still going off, having an mp3 as my alarm is not as effective as an annoying sound. I can still use the mp3 during the day probably, but I need to change the night alarm to a normal sound.

Also, about the oversleeps, I should probably go back to a daily post about sleeping so I can keep track of the success. I tend to forget when I messed up.

I may be running out of the "fluff" that I like to do, so my schedule may eat all of the "quick energy" and then start burning all of the "fat" that has been saved up in the form of more productive work, similar to the idea of exercise. That would be cool. I never thought about having so much extra time a day to be like exercise for time management.

;hunter

Week 2: Ne trinkas kafeino trinkaĵo

2008-11-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

There is not much from day to day to say about the sleep that is different anymore, so I'll move it to a post a week, sometime fridays.

;hunter

Day 14: Argv

2008-10-31T06:50:00.000-07:00

I overslept again from 2 to 5:30. I laid down for a nap on the futon instead of a chair, had the lights off, and had the phone right next to me instead of farther away. All mistakes.

The rest of the day went well though. I was getting a lot of homework done and felt just fine, and probably even better during the night, relatively. Not much else to say, but this is frustrating.

;hunter

Day 13: Temper temper

2008-10-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was class at 8am then studying for my midterm at 2pm. After being so tired the previous night (where standing up barely helped not falling asleep) and then a really slow morning I was worried, but that appears to have passed! I finally haven't overslept for a few nights (3 I think) and last night was easier than any others were without oversleeping. Maybe I will finally get to a mental condition to do homework during the night.

The naps during the day went well, the couch was comfortable, and I got homework and my midterm done. The nighttime naps just seemed to pass by without much todo, though I think I dozed off for 5 minutes around 3:30. I spent the time studying Esperanto, recompiling and configuring my window manager, watching a movie, and listening to music.

;hunter

Day 12: Blurring the lines

2008-10-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

Class has started loading on homework again, but if last night is any example then I still can't work on any mindstuff at night (except for linguistics for some reason). I've been working on Esperanto and it should only take 3 or 4 months to become fluent. I rewrote my keyboard map so I can write ĵĉĥĝŭŝ in the language, and threw in some other things while I was at it like €¢♥¥‘’“” and all the áàãä type letters using deadkeys.

Naps at school were easy enough. There is a back room with a couch that I have access to, but the couch isn't that comfortable (it's a little short).

This is a short update because it's so late. (Note that this covers the 28th.)

;hunter

Day 11: The only way to travel

2008-10-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

[[Oops, forgot to post this on time.]]

Today I was groggy pretty much the entire day. Probably a good sign, albeit a week late. This schedule is known for it's difficulty during adoption and today sure lives up to it. I think I got to sleep on time for all naps, but I've had 2 oversleeps this day...

Yes, trying to sleep on a plane is bad news. The first plane-nap was the 2pm, and I slept until 3:30 when the plane was about to land. I had the phone on vibrate and in my sleeve but I didn't notice it until about that time.

For the 6pm, I gave my phone to Cale (who was sitting next to me) like I should have during the first flight. At 6:20 he woke me up and I didn't fall back asleep. I has just had an extended rest (from the 2pm) so it probably wasn't that hard to stay awake except for the oppressive atmosphere of a plane which makes me want to go to sleep.

The second oversleep was from the end of the 10pm until my 2am alarm went off. Once again I'm at home and Sarah (my cat) was in my lap and I didn't want to get up... so I didn't wake all the way back up before dozing off.

The 6am went perfectly. Duh, I just had 4 hour of sleep before that :/. I went into it sleepy and on time, dreamt, and woke up without much effort. I had added my 6 alarm to my laptop to go off at the same time too, but it wasn't needed. I found out that my laptop clock was about 20 minutes off anyway.

I still stay up about 18 out of the 24 hours on average, so I can't say that I'm failing, but it would be nice to have a pure 20-hour schedule and not continually have to berate myself for sleeping extra. It would also be nice to not be sleepy for the 4am stint. It's back to school for me in the morning, so we'll finally see how this works with a schedule where oversleeping means missing class or something. The added rigidity should be very helpful at maintaining the schedule I want during the day, though my night time naps will still be too open.

;hunter

Day 10: Collapse of the eigenstate

2008-10-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

Insofar as I have meant to, the naps went according to schedule and there was no extra oversleeping.

The problem is that because last night is the rollback for DST in every country except Canada and the US I somehow got confused as to what the local time was. I think several of my naps today were an hour off. My 10pm was at 9pm, and with the 2am is rolling around after 5 hours awake, I am definitely having nodding problems and was sorely temped to insert another nap at 4am. I can tell I'm starting to nod off when all of a sudden I realize that the person I'm talking isn't there. As the night wore on my productivity went from studying linquistics and writing code to holding my arms above my head and waving them around. The most dangerous moment was when I tried reading my bible at about 4:30 and almost fell asleep. The naps have not felt as refreshing today as usual. I wonder if that means that my oversleep threw off my REM.

I also had a Coke at dinner because this is our last day in Mexico and the Coke here is so good, but my 9/10pm nap wasn't very good.

;hunter

Day 9: Tables and trays to their upright positions

2008-10-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

Finally, a 24 hour period (from 6:30 to 6:30) with no oversleeps. I ended up sleeping on the floor in my brothers' room with the alarm placed far enough away so that I would have to get up to get it. I didn't want to wake them up so that forced me to get up and turn the alarm off before it went on for very long.

Daylight savings took place right in the middle of the night, but instead of waiting an extra hour then, I delayed adjusting my clocks until after the 6am nap, which means I had a 5 hour stretch between 6am and 10am.

This is getting into Day 10, but because there was a 5 hour stretch I decided to take a 20min at the time 2 hours after the 6am and 3 hours before the 10am. This worked out to 7am new time. Unfortunately I made this decision while lying on the couch after just having watched an anime. I figured with it becoming daylight outside there can't be much else to go wrong. Yeah, I slept the 3 hours until 10am. I take it as a good sign that I didn't sleep during the night, but I still drive myself crazy with not being able to catch myself making a bad decision to sleep when I shouldn't. I'm skipping my 10am because of this.

Now, I resolve that I will not sleep any unplanned periods before our plane takes off tomorrow. I should make that resolve for the plane too, but I don't think that I would be able to keep it. I'll see if one of my brothers or my dad will be seated next to them and try to strike a deal with them.

When I was monophasic I wasn't really sensative to light or noise when I was trying to go to sleep, but I still like to be in a quiet place with a pillow over my head for polyphasic.

;hunter

Day 8: Clean up this town

2008-10-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

Because the time is running out for this trip it is probably important that I complete the remaining days without mistakes. From the beginning, doing the uncomfortable yet guaranteed methods seemed like overkill. Anyone wanting to try polyphasic sleep should know that you can't only be uncomfortable by lack of sleep; you must also count on creating an uncomfortable environment for the wee hours of the morning, because when naptime rolls around you will crash like penguin in a thumb operated hang glider. Failing to wake when you should will only prolong your sleep dep and frustrate you enough to at least think about giving up, no matter how strong your resolve to succeed. It's very nice to have this blog and the people who doubt that this will work to goad me into continuing.

We played in 15-foot waves for the second day in a row. They are pretty exhausting and sure make the naps worthwhile.

The 6am through 2am naps where all right on time, and I was happy to finally hake made it through the 2:20am-6am period awake. I had set two alarms but only needed one, and I got up and walked around twice.

I had also set two alarms for the 6am nap, but I still had problems. I turned off the first one without getting up and I didn't hear the second one, so I slept until 8:45. Sigh. At least it was the 6am (which I don't have as much trouble with) and it was only 2 hours. Tonight I will add headphones and sleeping on the floor. I haven't been able to talk my brothers into it, but maybe I'll do it without their agreement.

;hunter

Day 7: Get out the big guns

2008-10-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

As far as the naps go, the 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm were on time and of the right length. I also slept on a lounge chair on the beach from 12pm until 1pm, which didn't seem to affect the following naps.

For the 2am nap I slept until 3:30 (with my alarm going off the whole time) and then because I hadn't trained my wakeups I fell back asleep before I could figure out where I was.

I don't remember my 6am alarm, but I slept until 7:30. Blah.

Basically, for the coming day I'm going to have to be strict during the daylight and get out everything I can think of during the night.

Here's a list:

Change my alarm since I sleep through the current one now

Turn the volume up (I had only been using 80)

Add my laptop as a second alarm

Use headphones on my laptop (I have Sennheiser 595s)

Sleep on the hard floor or a thin rug

Practice my wake-memory

Get a human alarm (I wonder if I can talk my brothers into this)

I have 3 more nights before I have to get back on the plane. I need to pull through all three of those nights without messing up or else I will be sorry. Make no mistake, I still want to get this and I don't think it's too hard or that I'm going to fail and give up.

;hunter

Day 6: Rejuvination

2008-10-23T05:34:00.000-07:00

[12:34am Thursday (CDT)] As of yet I have not entered my 2am nap. I wanted to write a little before hand to solidify in my mind my goals and plans for tonight.

Getting up after the nap is finished is key

Remaining awake during not-naptime (or !naptime) is the goal

If I feel noddy-drowsy then I have to get up and walk around for at least 5 minutes

I will walk around for at least 10 minutes following each nap.

Now, because walking is not going to hold my attention, I have my ipod and some audiobooks to keep me company. I've always imagined myself walking around every night and every day and confusing the mexican staff, but so far I've only spent my nights in the room or on the balcony.

I have had way too much Coke since coming to Mexico (because mexican coke is so much better), and today especially. My last nap or two were not fully restful because I did not get to sleep until late in the period, and even then it wasn't deep. It's as if I've lost the art of falling asleep. My method before was counting from 0 to 10 and back to 0 repeatedly at varying speeds. This keeps the forefront of my attention busy and distracts it so the rest of my mind can shut down. It worked really well up until trying to fall asleep on Sunday night (Day 3). Normally, I do this until I start mixing up the order of numbers or skipping/repeating numbers, or forget to count entirely. I know that this is when I'm about to fall asleep, and usually takes somewhere between 1 and 5 minutes. The problem is that if I have caffeine or a lot of noise around me then it doubles the time this takes, and also makes a constant chatter in the back of my mind that doesn't get distracted or shut off by just ignoring it. Essentially the chatter keeps up even when I'm ready for sleep and forces me to remain in "unsleep".

As a side note, supposedly there is chatter going on in our minds constantly and processing information while we're awake, but we're so used to it that we don't even notice it. When the uberman schedule is adopted, much of our "chatter" thoughts are replaced by "sub-language" thoughts. That is, as the brain quickens it begins to think in terms of the ideas being percieved rather than in their linguistical equivalences. This helps speed of thought

...and 2am was a success, almost. A new beast has reared its head. The alarm went off at 2:20 and I woke up and thought "Huh. Why is it going off now? I never even went to sleep" and then I reset the alarm to 2:40 and went back to sleep. I got up at 2:40 just fine and figured out that I had slept both times. Gotta not do that again. I walked in a circle between the two hotels which took about 15 minutes. Dad is still up working on emails.

...and 6am was even better. It was also normal sleep, but I wasn't disoriented upon waking. Perhaps this schedule can be rescued from the gutter and not be thrown off too much by the oversleeping. Just have to get it in control through force. But on the other hand, I can't get too confident in the fact that these went well, because overconfidence is what lost me the other night.

;hunter

Day 5: Uh oh

2008-10-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

The 10am, 2pm, and 6pm, 10pm naps went pretty much as planned except for sleeping light, but I started dreaming a little. Good signs for coming REM sleep.

It's beginning to be that without even looking at a clock I can tell when my next nap is coming up. I hadn't looked at a clock since my 10am nap ended, and then I ate food and played in the surf. As 1:45 rolled around my body says "It's time". I hadn't remembered to keep an eye on the time and was glad that happened then instead of 2:30 or something.

The 2am nap had trouble. My alarm went off at 2:20am as usual, and I shut it off and fell back asleep. I don't remember turning it off, but I don't think it was playing continually either. I slept until the 6:20am alarm and then got out my computer to blog about falling asleep (I usually write the post between 10pm and 6am and I hadn't yet) and ended up falling asleep while sitting up until 7:30. Great.

A few problems. Usually what I do after waking up is walk around or something physical to make me wake all the way up. Last night I don't think I did that. Also, I've only been using my phone for an alarm, which works fine during the day, but I may need a back up for the night sessions.

I don't know much about how a night of sleeping in affects the following days, but it can't be good. I'll stick to the schedule and see how much it takes to overcome this. If I schedule out what I should do physically for 30 minutes after the nap and follow that for a few nights then it may help. I guess I've found "the wall" that people talk about and I had been missing thus far.

A word of warning is that if the naps leading into the night are not full and deep sleep, make sure to take that into account as a signal of upcoming oversleeps. Set extra alarms, lights, chant "I will not over sleep before bedding down, whatever. Puredoxyk's book has a lot of tips that I should revisit, having only skimmed over them the first time as I thought "I just won't oversleep."

;hunter

Day 4: Flop

2008-10-21T06:47:00.000-07:00

[ [ Check out jorel314's polyphasic posts for interesting and recent information on the polyphasic world and a list of other currently-polyphasic bloggers. His consolidation of information is quite useful to the community. ] ]

Now we get to learn how well trying to adapt to Uberman works when you are put in an environment that is inflexible time-wise and restrictive space-wise -- I have a 2-leg flight from Portland to Mexico with an ~50 minute layover.

As mentioned in my previous post, I had to sleep in an airport on the benches for the 6am, and was not able to fall all the way asleep except for short periods (lets call these unsleep naps). Little did I know that this was only the beginning of a long line of such naps.

Pretty much, the plane ride was a disaster. Being confined to a small area and then forced to move herd-like at specific times does not promote positive sleeping habits. The first plane ride began almost immediately after the 6am nap (which I took 10 minutes early to make room for the bording schedule) and took until about 9am. I unluckily got the middle seat and couldn't do my usual stretch routine to keep myself awake, and had to combat drowsyness 98% of the flight (the 2% that I didn't was when the stewardesses were handing out drinks. Orange Juice for teh win). I did end up sleeping some amount of time (I would guess an hour, but I don't know when I actually fell asleep) by accident and this caused the next two naps to be unsleep naps too. For future flights I would suggest starting a conversation with the people sitting next to you, but my circumstances this flight were not the most promising. On one side was my sister who went to sleep as soon as she got to her seat, and slept the entire flight (hibernator habits like these just accentuate my position and give me a little love-boost for Uberman). On the other side was a little old italian-looking lady who followed the Emergency Procedures booklet with rapt attention, catholic-crossed herself multiple times during takeoff, and clutched her purse for the entire flight; I wasn't much interested.

The second leg of the flight (after the layover) began at 10:11am, so I had to delay my 10am nap by about 10 minutes. I use my Blackberry as my alarm, and since cell phones are not allowed in flight I put it on vibrate and hid it in my sleeve. This nap had less unsleep than the first (meaning I spent more time unaware of my surroundings) but it was still not nearly satisfactory. The vibrating-wrist trick worked, more or less. The rest of the flight I was able to stay awake by reading dry yet interesting books (because I tried fiction too and it phails at keeping Hunter awake), filling out paperwork that said I wasn't bringing illegal drugs and wasn't trying to steal the job-market, and by leg-drumming/head-bobbing to good music.

We had shifted into a time zone that was +1 hour from PDT so I had the option of sticking with my old time, or syncing with the local time. Uberman seems to be much more flexible than people say it is, so I decided to sync when a chance for the 2pm nap came up after renting a car and before arriving at lunch. This nap also was strongly unsleep. Whether this was caused by being crammed 4-wide in a 3-person back seat, by the constant chatter (and frequent mentioning of my name which tends to instantly ruin any focus I have on sleeping) of my siblings, or by the shifting of 1 hour I don't know.

I swam in the ocean and had no trouble staying awake (finally!) until my 6pm nap which was another experimental flop. I tried lying on one of the lounge chairs on the beach without earplugs or anything. The sibling-chatter and other distractions made for another unsleep nap. I'm unsure as to how good or bad the unsleep naps are. The 4 hour period following unsleep is usually more drowsyness-ridden, but I don't feel all that tired and any physical activity will dispel the drowsyness for a short while. I don't notice any other changes. Learning from my previous experiences, my 10pm nap was on a couch in a quiet room. I slept for the whole thing.

The waking time leading up to the 2am nap carried the usual and expected increasing sleepyness as the night wore on, but all of the proceeding paragraphs were written during this time and I was not nearly so tempted to drop off as I had been earlier. Unfortunately when it came to the nap it's a different story because I slept until about 3:30am... Can I not go a day without messing up the schedule?! My alarm was even running the whole time. I guess I didn't have my phone close by enough.

Drowsyness continues up to the 6am, but I found wireless and interesting enough topics to keep my interest. Good news to report is that I had had my first dream that I remember. That means REM is happening. I wouldn't be surprized if the REM has been happening and I just never remembered the dream, or the unsleep messed with that.

In summary, today had some lapses in-between naps, and it had some poorly scheduled naps. Next we see how this affects my adaptation period and if my nearly pain-free adaptation is all just an illusion. ('Pain-free' because most of my waking time is spent feeling energetic and capable, and there are only few negative effects on my typical wakeful attitude. Never mind that I've messed up a few times; those do not govern or represent the majority of my polyphasic experience.)

Also, I can confirm that flamingos stand on one leg while sleeping.

;hunter

Day 3: Wiggle

2008-10-20T03:56:00.000-07:00

The 3rd day (counting from 6:30am on Friday the 17th) is probably actually easier than the other days. The mistake rest on day two seems to have only made only the next few naps difficult and nothing else. I can't get over how conscious I am, because I was expecting to be nearly laid out on the floor with exhaustion and barely able to carry on a conversation. Instead I would say I am nearly normal except for slight motor-skill inaccuracies. I even drove Austin home from my house after the concert without a problem.

As I had discussed previously, I went with a group of 12 other people (some I knew well, some were satellite friends) to a concert opened by The Reign of Kindo just to see Kindo. After they were done we skipped out on the rest of the bands and talked to the members of Kindo for the duration. Sadly, we ran into the 22:00 hour and I cut short our talk. I probably could have just slept in the car by myself and let them keep talking, but I am paranoid about overstaying my welcome as my you've-overstayed-your-welcome detector is faulty, so I called them off.

My nap on the ride home was not very effective because of the noise, motion, music, and chatter of the car, as well as my good friend Lizzie enjoying talking to me and prodding me even when I was "asleep". I didn't actually get all the way to sleep, but I did get rest while sitting with my eyes closed. I must remember to bring earplugs on the plane.

I've begun feeling this specific twinge of sleep a minute or two after I lie down. It doesn't feel anything like what happens in normal sleep. It's something like the 15 minutes of "drifting off to sleep" of monophasers, but compressed into 2 seconds. Interesting.

There may be more to say for today, but we have to leave in 15 minutes and I have to grab a few more things.

;hunter

Edit (Mon Oct 20 09:09:43 PDT 2008): I was not able to blog the 6am nap because that was taken at the airport. I did almost the same thing as I did in the car, but better. I didn't fall unconsciously asleep, but I still had a lot of the effects of being asleep. I dropped to the sleep level, dreamed or saw colors, didn't respond to outside stimuli, felt rested, but still could listen in around me.

Day 2: The Slough

2008-10-19T07:21:00.000-07:00

If I consider my last 6am nap, it appears that I should forego my bed because it only makes it take longer to get to sleep and more effort to wake up. I wonder what I would put in place of my bed if I was to rearrange my room without it like I did last year.

Though even after moving out of my bed, I have already overslept once. I took my 2am nap in my chair with my cat on my lap, but I didn't get up right away after the 20 minutes was over because I didn't want to disturb her. I ended up falling back asleep until a little before 5; the 3 hours of sleep means that I got some REM and will have to wait even longer for the adaptation. I was hoping something like this didn't happen until the plane ride. "The Internet" says that if I oversleep at all, I shouldn't try and skip naps or anything to "make up" for it. Continue as usual just as if nothing ever happened.

As far as the day went, I ended up being super productive, if only because I did stuff to keep from being sleepy. I worked inside on the house/kitchen/bedroom, loaded and shipped 2 trailer loads of hedge off to the dump, and various computer stuffs. I made all of my naps within +/- 10 minutes and got up on time except for the one (I'm trying to make it sound positive, but I'm still miffed).

Overall I felt less tired than I thought I would, which is probably an indicator that I am also going to be progressing slower than I thought.

;hunter

Day 1: Trepidation

2008-10-18T06:49:00.000-07:00

I sat back and watched the world go to sleep, and knew that tonight I would not be joining them.

Friday morning started at 6:25am which gave be about 7 hours of sleep for my last full night's sleep. I was feeling a little excited and freaked out before going to bed and that didn't change by the morning. I was hoping that I would settle into the idea of basically not sleeping, but I know that's not going to happen until after I'm physically adjusted.

I did the naps through the day to get a feel for it more than anything else. I wasn't really able to sleep during those times, nor did I need to. Today I worked, did homework (done!), did the braindump, and the other usual plans of a Friday night, plus I played Setters of Catan with a group of Cats until nearly 2am. It wasn't until about this 2am nap that I started missing being able to sleep. It hasn't gotten any better of course, and I was just barely able to pull myself out of bed at 6:25. I feel like the degree to which my willpower is wilting should merit some interest for its strangeness, but I can't muster up enough willpower to care :P.

I guess the way I'm counting days now is that they start at 6:30. I'll need a frame of reference since the whole divider between the days (which was my 8 hours of sleep) is now gone. I was finally able to find a decent alarm for my blackberry, so now I don't have to worry about my laptop freezing or running out of battery or being too big to have, or sleeping through the Blackberry's puny default alarm clock.

I think I should read more out of Puredoxyk's book today and see what treacherous hazards I have coming up.

;hunter

Twas the night before Christmas

2008-10-16T23:53:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my last full(ish) night of sleep. I'm apprehensive and kinda freaked out. Gotta soak it up and revile in it. Make it more real.

I've finished the homework for the coming week for two of my three classes. I'll try and get up at 6:30, get to school to find my laptop charger, get my homework done and turned in, do ACM, Braindump, then home to pack.

;hunter

Quandry

2008-10-16T01:50:00.000-07:00

I had decided on starting my Uberman sleep periods at 10am on Friday, but this past Sunday I was reminded that we have the "24 hours of prayer" from 9am Saturday to 9am Sunday, and I wanted to sign up for this. I don't exactly want to be beginning my fuzzy-minded period when it's time to meet... which is what would happen if I were to sign up for some time Saturday night (Dad is 4am to 5am). I don't especially want to delay starting until Saturday, and I think I will still be fine if I begin on Friday and sign up for the earliest time slot on Saturday.

Now on to things I can actually do on the trip.

As far as I know, reading will be neigh impossible within a day or three. I won't have the internet for various bits of interesting games, information, and reading, and some of the commonly mentioned activities on other ubersleep blogs will also be impossible because I won't have a place for cooking, I can't clean the house (in Mexico), and I can't build stuff. The books that I would like to read will probably put me to sleep, but I will have audiobooks, and of course my bible. I can always take the Rubik's Cube (I want to learn CFOP), and practice other forms of physiological endeavours. Of course I will have lots of music. As I've said before, writing may turn up something interesting, so long as I actually do it.

Hmm. It appears that my list of things to do has given you more to fill your time with than it has given me. I do hope that they have wireless.

Schedule for now: Find a suitable and portable alarm and finish the rest of my homework before Friday, then pack as best as possible Friday night.

;hunter

Looming on the horizon

2008-10-11T23:59:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I will start napping this Friday. It will give me the most amount of time in an environment where there are people to challenge me, as well as being absent of the most luring of temptations towards leniency that will crop up once we hit the beaches. I will have a full night of rest come Friday morning, but I might as well start napping through the day to "test" locations and availability in preparation when I get back from Mexico. I can start packing Friday night to avoid the potential stupidity of sleep dep later on, (I'm sure everyone knows how disappointing it is when you find on a trip that you've left some of the important items behind) as well as begin the real napping on into Saturday. I should make sure to have some paper and pens close at hand in case I get the impulse to write or draw. They may be pretty humorous later on.

I've also started working on a list of projects to fill my time, though most of them depend on an internet connection and so will have to wait for my return. I'm going to need a second list specifically for the time in Mexico, because even thought you might not believe it, midnight swims in the ocean will not stay intriguing forever.

I'll put up my list tomorrow, but I wanted to get this off of my mind before sleeping tonight.

;hunter

Making concrete

2008-10-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

The best blogging resource I've found is that of Steve Pavlina (see the list of his log at the bottom of that entry). I have decided to do the Uberman schedule (6x20min) because this appears to be much more flexible than I had previously thought. Now that I've finished his log, I'm going to read Ubersleep which I purchased in pdf form. It is a book written by Puredoxyk, who is the person responsible for making polyphasic sleep more popular in recent years.

The Uberman schedule is based on the fact that in a normal monophasic sleep pattern of 8 hours one will go through 6 REM cycles. When doing the Uberman, for the first few days (3 to 4) the person trying it will become sleep deprived because their body does not naturally enter REM within a 20 minute sleep period, which forces acclimation to entering REM as soon as falling asleep. With 6 naps a day, this becomes the normal amount of rest of a monophaser, and because REM lasts about 16 minutes will easily fit into a 20 minute chunk.

It is popular to set the alarm timer (or two or three depending on what you need) to 25 minutes to allow 5 minutes to fall asleep. Setting to more than 25 usually is too long because you do not want to enter the deeper sleep that comes after REM; it will leave you groggy.

Another option that I've heard about for the adaptation period (you won't need it later) is instead of only sleeping for 6 naps, you can sleep 8, 10, or even 12 times in a 24 hour period. As long as the naps are far enough apart to guarantee that you become fully awake (equidistantly far apart for maximum benefit) then this allows the body more chances to attempt to enter REM. I don't know if this hastens or prolongs the training period, but when it's 3:30 in the morning and the next nap isn't scheduled for another 2 and a half hours you can be sure that I'm going to try an extra nap :).

Next is to decide on the date to start. Pavlina started on the thursday night of October the 20th, 2005. This is really close to my date, which is kind of interesting. My vacation is a plane ride to Mexico on the 20th, the beach of Mexico from the 21st to the 26th, and a plane ride back home on the 27th. I have a Saturday/Sunday weekend for the 18th and 19th. I'm planning on going to a Reign of Kindo concert on the night of the 19th, and it's 7pm to whenever (probably 9:30 or 10) which means I will most likely have to take a nap some time during the duration of the concert so as to avoid not getting home in time for a nap and having to do it in the car. I am hesitant to shift my naps up or down more than 10 minutes from their scheduled time, which is another problem. I have a few options for starting times.

I could start Thursday, similar to what Steve did, and probably be into REM naps for a bit by Sunday night. This means that work Friday will suffer, which I was hoping to avoid.
I could start Friday, and be somewhat dead at the concert, but with REM starting to pick up. It would be nice to be around people to give me motivation to not fail, but it would probably not be fun for the people for me to be around.
I could start Saturday, and basically guarantee that I will be dead at the concert with no REM, and probably be unable to pack for Mexico effectively that weekend.
I could start Sunday, be fine for the concert, be packed correctly, and die on the plane. Attempting the adaptation while confined to a 3x5 foot box would not be enjoyable, and I have no idea how nap time would line up with we-have-to-hurry-to-the-next-connection-or-we-will-be-late time. Traditionally I stay up almost all of Sunday night and sleep most of the duration of the plane flights. I sleep well on planes and the droning engine makes me drowsey.
I could wait until we actually get to Mexico, and completely lose my will to forcefully shut myself away from the food and ocean so that I can deprive myself of sleep. This may also create problems of bumping into the tail end of the trip. I hope to be fully adapted before I leave for home.

I'll be pondering this for a bit. We'll see.

;hunter

To start off: why?

2008-10-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've been attracted to the idea of polyphasic sleep for a while now. Recently I've invested too much time reading into all the blog posts, articles, and testimonials on the subject and I feel that I could put this to work at some point in my life. I also have a week of vacation coming up, and my schedule has holes in just the right place to accommodate a rough 2-6-10 schedule. Perhaps this is the time in my life to complete this goal.

To start sleeping in this broken fashion will not be cake. I will not be able to will myself into obeying my mind simply by telling myself what to do, so I wanted to blog the experience to get it more "out there" accountability-wise (even if no one follows me) as well as develop some muscle memory ahead of time.

Two points for tonight. My schedule at the moment, and my prep training.

I normally sleep from 1am to 8:30am for a total of 7.5 hours of sleep. I enjoy the early morning hours as well as the late evening hours when no one is up yet/still, but my days tend to drift away from the early mornings. I am as of yet undecided whether to do uberman (6x20minutes 4 hours apart) or everyman (1x3hrs, 3x20min ~6 hours apart). Uberman fits my schedule better (I know, it should be the other way around with my schedule fitting my sleep) but it's also more daunting. We'll see.

As prep, besides doing the naps and shorter night, I am working on creating muscle memory at the sound of my alarm. The snooze button is not feasible so I gotta get that out of the way. I wrote a computer program that plays an mp3 (World's End Girlfriend - 100 Years of Choke) in increasing volume at some specified time (I have all 7 days set to 6am (I can set specific times for each day)). For naps it is able to work in a timer-like configuration so I can run `alarm 20` and it will go off in 20 minutes.

I would like to add detail and linkies, but it's past my bed time ;)

;hunter