Alright, so a couple of weeks back I decided I would attempt polyphasic sleep. The hardest part is getting past the initial 7-10 day adaptation period. One of the biggest problems with people who are attempting to do this, is that they oversleep which basically screws up the whole thing and extends how long it takes to adapt. Well, unfortunately for me, I have still not fully adapted to polyphasic sleep, because I keep oversleeping every 2-3 days. This has been starting to get very frustrating, as I have been pretty unproductive for the last 3 weeks or so, simply due to the fact that I am too tired to really do any brain intensive task.

What I have come to realize after oversleeping yet again last night... Read the rest of this entry »

It has been a while since I last posted anything about polyphasic sleep or my attempt at increasing productivity. Well, there has been a few things going on but let me just sum it up.

Well, for the polyphasic sleep... Read the rest of this entry »

Today went well, I didn't feel like a zombie. What I did was take an extra 2 naps during the 1-5am. This is what Steve Pavlina had to do, so I'll just keep to it until I get more fully adapted and able to wean myself off of it.

After waking from my naps I didn't immediately feel that great, I was pretty tired and felt like going back to sleep. Once I got up and got going I felt perfect fine however, (which is actually how I feel after waking up each morning during normal sleep anyway lol)

Some people say that they wake up feeling fully refreshed and energetic but I haven't gotten that yet. So far I'd say I am not really getting any benefit from Polyphasic sleep, while at the same time I have to say that I'm not actually doing it all completely right (lots of oversleeping etc…) so I still can't give accurate thoughts on it. It's getting a lot easier as I go on though, so things should start to work out a bit better by next week for sure.

Arg, I completely passed out this morning after attempting to keep myself awake. I didn't even wake up until 9:30am. It was my fault however, because I was trying to sit at my desk and do some work. I will really have to get up and move around a bit during the 1-5am period until I am adapted. If I keep this up it will take me forever to get fully adapted haha. Anyway, here we go again!

I skipped the 1pm and 5pm naps since I was really not tired at all. I had a good 9pm nap. I'll be sure to work very hard at staying up during the 1am-5am here in a bit.

Day 10:

Today didn't really go well for polyphasic sleep. I suppose I felt a bit off still from what had happened and ended up sleeping through when I got to my 1:00am nap (the part that is the hardest). I did try to do the naps that day, but only fell asleep during 1 of them because of the fact that I had slept so long already.

Day 11:

I woke up today at around 7:30 (after going to bed at 1am) and I feel pretty much like I slept WAY too long (you know the feeling you get when you oversleep) I really wish I would have just woke up, but hey you can't change the past. The last 10 days were really up and down for the sleep experiment, but I think I made some good progress.

I plan to really get this thing down these next 10 days and really get it to work. I lied down for every nap today, however I did not fall asleep…I just wasn't tired. I also realize that I have a lot of things racing through my mind. I may need to sit in silence for a while and quiet my mind. I haven't been meditating lately, not sure why…but I think it is starting to show.

Wow this is just extremely frustrating. It's 7:41, I overslept BIG time on my 1am nap. I really have to figure out why I cannot hear my alarms sometimes. I honestly don't know what to do, my alarm stops ringing after about 1 minute…and I can't help that. I'll have to find me a new alarm that doesn't stop going off. Damn. Well, all I can do is keep trying. I just hope that this doesn't make things take EVEN longer for me.

I can say that this has so far been very challenging, but a little failure isn't going to stop me. I'm just going to put even more effort into making sure this all works out. At least I have learned a few things.

End of Day Roundup

Man today was a crazy day. Besides sleeping in, when I went running I started to get real itchy, and then I started breaking out in hives on every part of my body. I was swelling up pretty bad even on the inside of my lips. My mom works in the ER and sometimes tells me about people who get hives like that and their airway gets swollen shut and they die, so I went to the ER as soon as I could.

They really couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, so they gave me a bunch of Benadryl and basically made me stay there for a few hours and sleep (meh). When I was released they put some more in me which pretty much knocked me out for a while when I got home. Overall I'd say today was pretty bad for the experiment, but I will be picking everything back up tomorrow…especially since I am starting to experience REM more and more frequently.

Once again, no problems during the dreaded 1-5am period. In fact I actually recalled having a dream during the nap, (which is a good thing) I just don't recall anything that happened during it, (working on that)

2:20pm

Oh goody, some progress! I woke up from my 1pm feeling better than I have since any naps so far...and it's the first time I can actually recall any of my dream. The other times I only remember that I had one, but don't remember any of it. Perhaps what was happening is before I was just BARELY going into REM sleep and so by the time the alarm went off I didn't actually have a dream per say, but now I am getting more REM. I will say that the dream was rather short, and it got cut off by my alarm.

I feel even better about this experience, because it does show that although I am adapting…that just because I have entered REM it doesn't mean I am completely ready yet, because I am most likely not switching to REM right now. That could explain why I am slightly okay, but not completely refreshed each nap. It would also explain why I felt like hell during 1-5am and ended up oversleeping for 1-2 hours twice during the past few days. I suppose my body just forced me to catch a little bit of extra REM to get up to speed.

Let's hope this trend continues!

9:30pm

I wasn't able to fall asleep during this nap, I think because I drank a Red Bull earlier. Not a smart choice. Hope it doesn't mess anything up later.

Okay, everything worked out great today! I did not have any problem during the 1-5am period, besides feeling a bit drowsy. Overall there was not too much to say about today, just the usual.

5pm nap:

Well crap, I somehow slept through all of my alarms on this nap. That was totally unexpected. I slept until 7:30pm. Not good. Oh well, I'm only human. On the other hand, I have a funny story! I was sort of getting up and doing a few things..and at about 7:55 I get a call from my mom. At this point I totally freaked out because (for some reason) I thought it was 7:55am instead of pm. The reason this would normally be a problem is that I usually take my sisters to school in the morning, and so I figured my mom was calling to figure out why they weren't up yet. I ran into my sisters room and flicked on the light. WTF! SHES NOT HERE! So now I am freaking out because my sisters aren't home. I don't know what is going on! Oh hell, I realize it's just 7:55pm. Haha, the days and nights just meld together now.

Anyway, I am slowly feeling more normal. Hopefully I don't sleep through on any of the next few days. Also I still haven't really felt the whole "rejuvenated" feeling yet that some people report having after a nap. Every time I wake up it takes me a couple of minutes to get adjusted. I usually get up and stretch and jump around a little bit to get myself fully awake.

1:30 - 5:00 am:

This had to be an absolute nightmare. I could not stay awake no matter how hard I tried. I took 3 extra 30 min naps here just so I could pass the time…even the time I was awake was almost painful, I tried moving around but I was so tired that my head hurts. This sucks bad. I tried to just sit in a chair and veg for a while but my head ended up falling over and I slept for about 10 minutes in a very painful position now my neck hurts. I wonder if I am just not getting any REM at all during this time. I don't recall having dreams at all.

Rest of the day:

Well the rest of the day was fine. I felt pretty much normal. I also had a dream during my 5pm nap, although before I could write it down I had already forgot it. *shrug*

Final note:

Okay, time to get prepared. I am about to go into the hellacious 1 - 5am stretch. Can I make it? Omg I hope I am more adapted this time, I don't want to go through another stretch like this morning. Well, I'll just have to keep myself active and away from the computer if it happens again. I'll try doing some exercising and I'll jot down thoughts on my whiteboard until it is over with.

1:30 am:

I am feeling quite a lot better than the previous day. I have no strong pull to crash out, and I in fact feel a bit motivated to get going with various ideas and projects. Currently my mind is still feeling quite heavy…or cloudy…or foggy…something like that. Hard to explain really but its slightly unpleasant. I am certainly ready to be rid of that, but I am sure it will dissipate as soon as I get more and more adapted.

7:30 am:

Uh oh, bit of a setback. After waking up from my 5:30am nap I for some reason decided to take a 2nd one (while still sleepy from waking up) and I actually fell sleep WHILE setting the alarm, so I ended up oversleeping that nap by an hour and a half. Currently after awaken from 2 hours of straight sleep I am feeling as horrible as I did yesterday again. I keep nodding off while just sitting up. In fact I just nodded off for a minute while writing this…hah. Well, hopefully that doesn't prolong my adaptation too much. We will see.

9:30 am:

The 9am nap brought me back to feeling like I did before the 5am nap. This is so weird lol. It's like flipping a switch saying okay for the next 4 hours you will feel like doo doo and then next nap its like "okay, you can take a break and not feel so bad this time." Sorry for the rambling, I'm pretty much out of it. At this point I just can't wait to get over this whole thing. I'm glad I am motivated, otherwise I can see how at this point most people would quit and beat themselves up. Not me! NO SIR! Rahhhh…heh, okay.

1:30 pm:

Alright, I am seeing definite signs of improvement here now. I woke up 5 minutes before my alarm would have gone off (which is good because I forgot to set it haha), and I feel pretty good. My mind doesn't feel so heavy and groggy anymore, although there is still a slight notion there that I am not to my full capacity yet. Overall I have good energy and alertness. I am not constantly falling asleep while just sitting here…which is good lol. I will finally begin doing some productive work again now.

5:30 pm:

I woke up to the alarm. Feeling okay. A bit less sharp than the last nap but not by much. One thing I haven't experienced yet is any real vivid dreams…in fact I can not even remember having had dreams except for 2 this entire 6 days. I am sure I will eventually start to experience them in more detail though.