DAY 8 June 24, 2008 Tuesday
3:30 am – Rank: 1
I didn’t fall asleep, though I think I could have if I’d laid there longer, which kinda feels like normal or monophasic sleep.
7:30 am – Rank: 4
I was out like a light. Waking up was hard.
10:30 am – Oh shit…
ONE WEEK SUMMARY
Well it’s been about a week since I started trying this sleep schedule. I think it can best be described thus far as bumpy. I’ve certainly messed up a few times by oversleeping sometimes by choice, other times simply because I didn’t wake up to my alarm. There was, however, a couple of days when it felt like things were starting to work. I think day four and five felt really good. I was able to fall asleep almost immediately and would even wake up just before my alarm would go off. It felt like my body was trained and knew what to do.
The thing that has interfered the most with my napping is obligations I hold in life right now, such as finding an apartment or being at home with my family. You wouldn’t think it would be hard to snag 20 minutes of privacy here and there, but as it turns out, needed a very specific 20 minutes is apparently asking for too much. My sleeping pattern got pretty thrown off the day I went home.
AWARENESS AND FUNCTIONALITY
For the most part, I feel fairly present and aware when I’m awake. Every now and again though, something will happen that makes me think maybe I’m not as awake and aware as I think I am. For instance, I went running around 1 am just yesterday, and I was about halfway through my run when I noticed that there was only one song left on my playlist. I figured I’d wait until I ran out of songs before picking something new. About 25 minutes later when I finished my run, I realized that I never picked and new music. I hadn’t been listening to anything for the last 20 minutes or so. That’s really unusual for me because I usually get bored without something to listen to, and the fact that I didn’t even notice didn’t sit well. I’d spent the last part of the run listening to my thoughts and milling things over in my mind. It was sort of like I was dreaming, I could barely feel that I was running at all. I think on the whole, I’ve been much more in my head since starting polyphasic sleeping. What I mean by that is that I’m much more aware of what’s going on in my head that usual, and as a result, less aware of what’s going on around me. My body is happy to stay in whatever state it’s in. If I’m sitting, it’s happy to stay sitting. If I’m running, it’s happy to keep running. I probably could have run twice as far as I did completely on auto-pilot and not noticed the difference, all the while with my brain just buzzing along in the background in a sort of dream-like consciousness.
MENTAL CAPACITY AND MOTIVATION
I can definitely tell that I’m functioning at a much lower mental capacity that normal. My brain is slower and less interested in figuring out complicated things. It’s felt like my head is being held in a vice for the past few days. It’s not painful, but I can feel pressure just behind my temples, and when I’m especially tired, the pressure increases. It clouds my thinking sometimes. I’m also pretty sure that my short-term memory is not functioning as well as normal either. I’ll think of something I want to look up online, and then go do simple task, like going to the bathroom or getting a drink, and when I return, I can’t remember what it was I wanted to look up, only that there was something. I tend to remember in about 10 minutes after I’ve stopped thinking about it, but I can’t seem to access things in my short-term memory as easily as normal.
My motivation is taking a serious hit too. Every time I wake up, I just want to lie back down and sleep. I try not to think about how hard the next few days are going to be because when I do, I just want to give up. A friend of mine who has successfully sustained polyphasic sleeping for an extended time tells me that I’m about to hit “the wall” where things start getting really hard. He said things started feeling good for him around day 14 or 16, so I’m going to try to stick it out for at least that long.
BLACKOUTS
The scariest thing that’s happened so far was blacking out. I’ve never blacked out before but I’ve heard stories from friends who have gotten far too drunk. I woke up at about 5 pm and couldn’t remember when I had fallen asleep… or how I’d gotten into my bed since I remembered curling up for the 7:30 am nap on the floor. Shortly thereafter, I remembered my friend had called me at about 9 am, but I still couldn’t remember when I went back to sleep. My tired mind soon forgot about the discontinuity and it wasn’t until nearly 9 pm when I found a post-it note with some phone numbers on it. Seeing the post it made me remember calling someone about an apartment somewhere and I remember that the person I spoke to gave me another number to call. That’s all I remember. However, in the call logs on my phone, it’s recorded that I had a four minutes conversation with this first person, a two and a half minute call with the second number that was given to me, and a three minute call with a friend. I have absolutely no recollection of making these last two calls… They were made around 10:50 in the morning, and I have absolutely no idea what I was doing between 9 am and then. I didn’t leave my room or anything, but that’s a large chunk of time to be missing… This whole blackout thing may be due to the fact that a couple of my naps got messed up the day before.
DAY 7 June 23, 2008 Monday
3:30 am – Rank: 3.5
7:30 am – Rank: 4
I was very tired at about 5 am but luckily I found someone to talk to which help stay awake, though, I did slept through alarm, and can’t remember too much of what happened when I woke up.
9:30 am - ??? Rank: WTF
I woke up at 5 pm in my bed… I remember falling asleep on the floor. I have no idea when I was awake and when I fell asleep. I feel like my head is in a vice, and I’m wondering if I should give it up =[
I blacked out a bit this morning. I have a few numbers logged in my phone that I called as part of my apartment search. I didn’t even remember calling any of these until I found a sticky note with some phone numbers written down. I don’t remember calling the last number at all, and it’s logged as a more than two minute call. I can barely remember any of the conversation from the first few calls as well. That’s pretty scary… I don’t remember talking to these people… It’s really making me consider getting back on a normal cycle. =[
I suspect that this major fuck up occurred because yesterday’s cycles got pretty messed up.
7:30 pm – Rank: 1
Trying to get back into it…
11:30 pm – Rank: 0
Skipped due to long sleep this afternoon and due to debate about continuation of polyphasic sleep. It's been a rough day for polyphasic sleep. =[
Day 6 June 22, 2008 Sunday
3:30 am – Rank: 3.5
Very groggy after waking up, takes 5-10 minutes to be fully awake I was completely out of it for about two hours after waking up.
7:30 am – Rank: 4
Still exhausted after, facing drive home, may need to sleep slightly longer on next cycle…
9:45 – 11:30 am – Rank: 0
Very tired before going to bed, decided to sleep longer due to the need for vehicular operation
2:50 – 3:15 pm – Rank: 0
At home, family doesn’t understand when I say don’t talk to me while I’m napping, not much sleep gotten this round.. The timing of the nap got thrown off because my parents wanted to leave for a party right in the middle of when I would be napping…
7:30 pm – Rank: 4
sleep went well, felt pretty groggy when I woke up
11:30 pm – Rank: 4
fell asleep slightly early while watching tv and got horrible crick in neck, still feeling groggy when waking
DAY 5 – Saturday June 21, 2008
3:30 am – Rank: 3
I don’t know if I was actually asleep or not… I think I was dreaming, but not coherently. I think sometimes I’m asleep, but conscious of it… At any rate, I felt more rested after this nap, so maybe it’s working?
7:30 am – Rank: 4
I was worried I was going to oversleep as this is the cycle I have messed up the last couple of times, but I was able to get up alright. I’m pretty damn tired right now though…
11:30 am – Rank: 4
On couch in the library, much more relaxed this time, didn’t hear anything weird, was very tired prior to nap but felt much better afterwards, also YAY! 24 hours with no mess ups!
3:30 pm – Rank: 4
I crashed out pretty quick, woke up 1 minute before alarm, felt like I slept much longer than 20 minutes.
7:30 pm – Rank: 5
Best nap yet! I fell asleep fast and woke up a few minutes before alarm went off. I think this is what polyphasic sleep is supposed to feel like.
11:30 pm – Rank: 5
all good, also 36 hours without messing up!
DAY 4 – Friday June 20, 2008
3:30 am – Rank: 3
Sleep 10-15 minutes in, stayed in bed until 4:10 due to alarm malfunction
7:30 am – Rank: 0
OVERSLEPT, until noon ><, I hit snooze a few times and then it was 12… At least I didn’t oversleep as long this time? Drank coffee after waking.
3:30 pm – Rank: 3
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I was dreaming when the alarm went off. More coffee consumption.
7:30 pm –Rank: 2.5
I slept on the floor of the library bathroom because I had a shift in the library, I was worried someone was going to walk in and be like “what the hell are you doing here,” so I was somewhat distracted while trying to sleep. I was also hearing noises that sounded like someone talking, or like I was hearing a conversation through a door. I’m not sure if it was my imagination turning some clunking noise into words that sounded like “beb beb” or there actually was someone around. The prospect of hearing things was a bit un-nerving, but I’m going to pass if off to a tired and distracted state of mind.
11:30 pm – Rank: 2.5
I don’t think I fell asleep but laying down was replenishing at least.
DAY 3 – Thursday June 19th 2008
3:30 am – Rank: 4
So tired ><
6:30 am – 1 pm Rank: 0
OOPS Overslept… see notes
7:30 pm – Rank: 2.5
Next attempt to get back on track, fell asleep
11:30 pm – Rank: 1
no sleep =(
Notes:
I was really tired around 5 am this morning and could feel my mental ability diminishing. As expected, my motivation started giving out, and I was having doubts about this whole thing. It seemed like a polyphasic sleep schedule was going to mess up my eating and exercise habits. I have a fairly high energy existence, and this morning the thought of trying to run 4-5 miles seemed way too daunting. I was also feeling rather ill because my stomach was filled with way too much coffee and a good amount of blood. I got hit in the nose pretty bad while playing soccer and I think it’s either broken or fractured, so blood was dripping down my throat for several hours. Needless to say, I was cranky and unmotivated, so, in my typical lack-of-will-power-manner, I just went to bed thinking “screw it”.
I felt groggy when I woke up again and started slipping back into my old habit of sitting around doing nothing and thinking about things that make me miserable. I really want to make this sleep cycle work. I think it would be a really interesting thing to do and a great story to tell. I was ready to give it up last night, but I can feel the empty and meaningless feelings coming back. I’m pretty lazy and unmotivated when it comes to doing things for myself, and it was nice to feel like I was working towards something for once. I’ve decided to give it another shot and not give up just because I messed up once. Apparently most people mess up quite a few times when first getting into it, so I’m trying to be forgiving about it.
DAY 2 – Wednesday June 18th 2008
3:30 am – Rank: 1
No sleep
7: 30 am – Rank: 3
Sleep about 10 minutes in, hit snooze twice (+20)
11:30 am – Rank: 4
Fell asleep quickly
3:30 pm – Rank: 4
7:30 pm – Rank: 4
11:30 pm – Rank: 4
Summary of a nap: I lie down and after a few minutes can feel myself drifting off into a half-awake-half-dream state. Then I feel like my body starts trembling and shaking (probably due to the massive amounts of coffee I’ve been drinking) and the next thing I know, my alarm is ringing. I don’t remember actually falling asleep. Also, my stomach hurts from all the coffee I’ve been drinking to stay awake during the interim between naps.
DAY 1 – Tuesday June 17, 2008
The last time I had a full night’s sleep, or slept monophasically, was on the night of the 16th to the 17th from 1am to 10 am. I decided to try polyphasic sleep at about 9 pm of the evening of the 17th and figured the most convenient time to sleep would be at 3:30, 7:30, and 11:30. That goes for both the am and pm hours. I’m sleeping for about 25 minutes each time for now. I may later reduce it to twenty.
The first time I lay down for a nap was at 11:30 pm on the 17th, and I didn’t fall asleep, though that wasn’t terrible surprising. I tried again at 3:30 am that night… and still no sleep. The first time I fell asleep was during the 7:30 am nap and it was probably about ten minutes in that I actually fell asleep. I was pretty tired at this point, and ended up hitting the snooze button a couple of time which added about twenty minutes of time.
Ranking System
I’m going to rank each nap I take on a 0-5 scale.
0: Implies complications prevented nap.
1: No sleep.
2: No sleep, but somewhat refreshing.
3: Sleep 5 or more minutes in, broken-up or conscious sleep.
4: Successful sleep but somewhat tired upon awaking.
5: Sleep shortly after lying down, awoke refreshed.
Last monophasic sleep – 1am – 10 am June 17th
11:30 pm – Rank: 1
First attempt, no sleep (not surprising)
Polyphasic Sleeping : What is it?
The normal sleep pattern of one approximately eight hour session per day is somewhat inefficient. Basically, you can get rid of inefficient sleep by sleeping only six times a day for twenty minutes at a time. This type of sleep is called “polyphasic sleeping,” also known as “Superman” or “DaVinci” sleep. You train your body to immediately start a REM cycle the moment you fall asleep such that you only need to sleep in several sessions for a total of two to three hours per day. The most common convention seems to be a twenty to thirty minute nap every four hours.
Why the hell would you want to do that?
Most people look at me funny when I tell them about this schedule, but it sounds like a fantastic system to me. Having twenty-one or twenty-two hours of waking time per day? Imagine how much you could get done! However, it does sounds like a pretty hard thing to get into because the first couple weeks, while you’re training your body, you feel extremely sleep deprived. Some people probably wonder why the hell you would ever want to start a sleeping pattern like this, but sleep manipulation is something I’ve always found interesting, and I’ve wanted to try this ‘Superman’ sleep schedule for a while, a convenient opportunity just never presented itself. I started it on something a whim and mostly because I have the time to try something like this at the moment, but I have several other beneficial reasons too.
Potential Benefits
A cure for insomnia?
Sleep has been a tricky thing for me ever since life got a little bit during college. I developed terrible insomnia, which of course makes a normal sleep schedule even more inefficient because you waste so much time trying to fall asleep. Also, lying awake because your mind is buzzing with usually pretty miserable thoughts is awful and annoying as hell. It seems like all the things that are bothering me can’t be pushed out of my head when I’m trying to fall asleep. I often feel progressively less tired after lying down to go to sleep. If polyphasic sleep can make me fall asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow… well damn, that would be amazing, not to mention a nice work around for the incessant buzzing going on in the back of my mind.
More Time
Needless to say, gaining about six hours or more per day would allow me to get so much more stuff done. I’ve recently had this problem where I do a lot of nothing and end up wasting a good amount of my time. Polyphasic sleep would probably force me to be more productive because if you’ve got to be awake 20+ hours a day, you might as well find something to do or else you’re going to die of boredom. I’d have to find something to do with myself in order to not fall asleep.
Lose the emptiness
Another problem I’ve had lately is that I get to the end of my day and feel like I haven’t accomplished anything or that there hasn’t been any meaning to my day. So far, my observation with polyphasic sleep is that you don’t really have defined days, just time when you are awake and the short times when you sleep. Hence, the emptiness I sometimes feel at the end of a day is negated due to the lack of a normal ‘day’ structure.
Mask the loneliness
For eighteen years, I slept with a warm cat snuggled up next to me and for certain periods thereafter, I slept next to another person. I definitely sleep better when cuddling up next to another warm body. Right now, that’s not something I can count on having. But hooray! If I only sleep 2 hours a day and in short, instantaneous-sleep, naps at that, then I won’t notice the lack of another presence next to me.
Long work days? No problem!
I start a real world job in about a month. (Scary… ) Anyway, it’s entirely possible that I will have to work days that are more than eight or nine hours. That’s just the unfortunate nature of the beast in some science jobs. I think I will be less unhappy with 10+ hour days if I can go home and still have another ten hours to myself to do whatever I want.
Spend time with self
I’ve felt very disconnected and apathetic with respect to myself lately or just not had any real sense of myself or what I want to do with my time. I’ve found that staying awake more on the polyphasic sleep forces me to spend time alone and actually do something productive with that time. In a sense, I am forced to ‘hang out’ with myself, something I’ve been avoiding recently. It’s only been about one day and I already feel more connected to myself. Hopefully, I can continue to establish and strengthen this connection and not let it fall by the wayside.
An exercise in will power
Polyphasic sleep seems like a pretty tough thing to adjust to, and I have very little will power when it comes to things that are difficult. I usually throw in the towel pretty quickly when things get tough and no one is relying on me. My will power decreases even more when I’m sleep deprived so… this will be good for me? I’ll be pretty pleased with myself if I manage to get this working because I know it’s not going to be easy.
An interesting experiment
I’ve been monitoring my sleep for about two and a half years now, and I find all the different ways I’ve messed with my sleep up until now pretty interesting. Why not try the extreme? Seeing as I have a month to do whatever I want before life starts, I might as well try this polyphasic thing now. I don’t know when I’ll have a convenient chance to try it again in the future, and if it works out well, I think I stand to gain a lot or at the very least and interesting experience.
