Planing for Second Go

I’ve decided to do some proper planing for this next attempt. I will have a stricter schedule, make a cycle to cycle activity list and I will go further into details when writing the blog.

When I say details I am meaning that I will:

Make short diary entries for every nap.

time how long I sleep: Relevant to see how duration affects results, something I am interested in since my last try resulted in short naps with no restorative affects.

how I feel before and after my naps: Are the naps giving me the desired result/rest?

Eating and exercise: Energy input + output, how it can affect naps

I might find some more points to make notes about as well. The important part is to make observations and document them. Since I’ve been calling it an experiment, I should treat it as one.

It will allow me to see how I progress and give some pointers to myself what to do or not to do on a hypothetical third attempt, or for anyone reading this before having a go at it themselves.

Polyrestart

It was day 7 yesterday, I had been napping for 7 days…up until day five I didn’t have a single oversleep or missed nap or anything of the like….however after a 40 minute oversleep on day five it started becoming obvious that something wasn’t right. I didn’t have any more oversleeps, I didn’t miss any more naps. I slept during all my naps. I’d wake up before my alarm, often 10-15 minutes after laying down. The problem has been that I haven’t been getting any rest from my naps, after one day of this I thought it was only temporary. However, upon reaching the end of day 7 without any restorative naps for two days I decided that a restart is needed.

I found it quite surprising to have this happen. I’ve read about other people’s problems with keeping the schedule and all that. Most people start oversleeping regularly because of one slip. I never heard of anyone losing their 5 day progress to a 40 minute nap.

I will have another go very soon. Depending on how much time is needed to come back to monophasic schedule for the restart, it might be ok to start already this week, towards the end of this week…landing day 3-4 on sat-sun, or maybe waiting until next week.

It is very clear to me that any oversleep at all will cause way more havoc than I thought it would, so I will start compiling a list, the big fat list, of things to do while sleep deprived. A list to keep me off my bottom during the early hours of the day. The experiment is shaping up to be an even more interesting one than I thought. I did get many new exciting things to think about on the first run, and now on the second run I can compare the things I experienced with the first attempt.

What would be great is having someone to do it with, considering stories like Puredoxyk’s where the having a partner seems helpful in making sure you keep on schedule.

Polyphasic Day 6

As the previous posts show, I was quite scared there for a while. I was afraid that I had wrecked the whole schedule, making all the effort I put in for nothing.

Things have turned out differently, it doesn’t seem to have affected my adaption…I am falling asleep and getting up before the alarms and I’ve had REM on most of them. The last one I had at 2 am was strange, I keep falling asleep and waking up without having any sense of how long I’ve been out for. The first naps I had on day 5 were in such a way that it felt like ages. I am guessing that it is happening at random at this point…might have something to do with how tired I am feeling and such, but considering the way I am sleeping I would be led to believe that there’s nothing that should be considered a permanent setback to my REM sleep.

I am not so naive that I think I’ll just walk away with a failure like the one I had yesterday. The next week will show how the schedule will work when pressured, and any unfortunate side effects of my mishap will probably make itself known within the first couple of days. I have been feeling a bit sleep deprived the last 12 hours, but nothing as bad as day 3-4…If I must go through another set of hard days like these I will make sure to be better prepared.

I will have my first regular day back to Uni tomorrow….it’ll be interesting to see how I am going to function in a lecture…will I be able to take notes and follow the lecturers train of thought? Even if not, it’ll still be a good opportunity to have a go at some more social interaction…I’m feeling the need for some more human contact, it’s not really bad or anything…but I wouldn’t mind it. Uberman might make my days open for social happenings while my nights could be study-oriented. I am going to contemplate some more on how I am going to use my extra time….

Naptime dilation

The first nap I had after this mornings accident was very short. I didn’t think much about it, figuring that it might be that I was anxious about not being able to sleep or not dreaming.

However, the nap I had at 14.00 was also out of the ordinary (compared to what I’ve experienced during the last week, most of this stuff is pretty far out to some). I laid down and fell asleep within 1-2 minutes,  then I woke up ten minutes later…it felt as if I had been sleeping and dreaming for several hours, actually at first when I woke up I thought that I’d overslept. When I saw that only ten minutes had passed I decided to lay back down and try to relax for a couple of minutes. I fell back to sleep, had another session of vivid and long lasting dreams, and managed to wake up before my alarm went off.

This never happened before today, could it have been triggered in any way by my mishap earlier this morning? Is it the brains reaction to the previous days of sleep deprivation? I am only left with questions at this stage. These dreams were fantastic! I lived through a whole life in a single dream! Details have become blurry since I didn’t write any of it down when I woke up, but as an experience this has been the best one I’ve had in several years, it’s as if it has loosened a valve inside my body and all these fantastic things keep happening inside my head, broadening my understanding and thought.

Safe or not, I’ll still walk the walk..

I did manage to take my morning nap in a regular fashion, not oversleeping and actually waking up before my alarm went off. I am still feeling a little sleep deprived and things are as they’ve been the last two days. I am hoping the incident hasn’t caused me too much trouble. I have decided that if this happens again within 24 hours I will have to restart the project in a couple of weeks time, considering that I’d have to get back into a monophasic schedule before moving on to have another go.

I will learn from my mistake though, from now on I will have a active preemptive policy instead of a passive one…I think that the passive approach is what got me in this situation…reading during the night is obviously not a good thing, not yet anyway. I will make sure to get all of my naps right during the day, make a big fat list of things to keep me busy during the night and then just throw myself back into the race.

If I can save my adaption is something which will be clearer in a couple of days time. If I am able to fall asleep and hit REM on several consecutive naps, I am going to call it a save.

Good Stuff!

After having an incident of some lost time this morning I am fairly certain that I might have fallen asleep in the uprightsitting position. I hope this hasn’t had too much of an detrimental effect on the progress I’ve made…apparently sitting is not something I should be doing in such an situation…

I’ll check back in after my next nap to do some damage report…

Polyphasic day 4, the end….of day 4 that is

Haha, almost scared myself there! No, but seriously…I have had a great day, experienced several different ways of going into a nap and different ways of coming out of them as well.

As I believe I posted earlier today I had my worst run-in with sleep deprivation yet. I had a hard time concentrating and spent my time from the 2 am nap until 11 am being in the narcolepsy dangerzone. I had to really put in an effort not to close my eyes in the shower, thinking I might fall asleep standing. Me head was throbbing and my muscles were soar and stiff. I was starting to think that I’d have to go out for a walk, then I suddenly saw me as myself in this situation, not the confused person-personae I was in. I have since been thinking about all the experiences I’ve had the last 4 days….it’s unbelievable! The range of emotions I have felt has acted as some kind of opening into a world I haven’t been entering as much as I’ve been wanting the last couple of years.

I have had amazing dreams during these 4 days, I have actually been able to remember almost every single one of them…which compared to the amount I’ve remembered during my lucid dreaming project is so big of a step forward that it goes against all reasons not to continue doing it.

I have felt sleep deprivation for the first time, and because of it the naps I have been having today were “ohh so much sweeter” than previous ones. The thing is that I’ve fallen asleep fairly quickly, had dreams and woken up ( 3 times I have woken up before the alarm) without any hassle. I have been progressing on this schedule in ways I had only thought were possible for certain lucky individuals. Since the progress towards adaption has gone at such a quick pace, I can only imagine which insights and experiences continuing the schedule might bring.

I will not claim to have adapted fully yet, but I do believe I’ve had progress…having kept some records of my naps I have seen how the success rate has grown during the last few days. On the first day I had 3/6 naps where I had problems falling asleep…not being able to tell if I’d slept at all. On my second day this was reduced to 2/6 , while also having my first poly-scheduled dream. On my third day the uncertain sleeps were down to 1/6….finally having had all my naps for day 4 I am proud to say that I’ve had none of these today, having had dreams in almost every one of my naps. What lacks is a stabilised result of rest, still having naps from which I wake up and feel unrested. I suspect it might have something to do with the length of my naps, but this is something I won’t try to change until I am on my way into week 2 or 3.

I am insanely motivated to continue this fantastic journey, not because of it being a certain means to some end, but because it is the schedule in itself that is the ends I am trying to reach. The journey is so rewarding that the extra time I get to use on my other projects (ones which have helped greatly in preparing me for this one) and my studies comes only as a bonus.

Having read Puredoxyk’s Ubersleep and several accounts of other people’s lives on the polyphasic wagon, I will try to make further progress in this rewarding project in hopes of seeing and experiencing some of the great things myself.