whoops

so apparently they have been posting and just not telling me.....tricky tricky

whoops

so apparently they have been posting and just not telling me.....tricky tricky

the end, or is it the beginning

I just wrote a ridunculously long post about why im ending it and my thoughts on ending it and it wouldn't publish so here is a condensed version of what i can remember:

1. Science doesnt support it....yet
2. Im too young and still growing
3. I dont make effective use of my time right now
4. I dont have a flexible enough schedule
5. I currently sacrifice too much trying to nap at schedule times
6. Sleep become job-like, another stressful task that you HAVE to do, rather than it being the free, joyful, relaxing and restorative activity i think its meant to be. (If i successful use my day i will want and need a nice long sleep).
7. We don't live in a polyphasic world, and generally if you wanna live with this world and the monophasic sleepers of this world you have to succomb to their ways.

Notice that none of my reasons had anything to do with polyphasic sleep not being a valid and potentially fruitful idea. The hardest thing about giving up is having to swallow my pride, bite my tongue, and listen to all the ignorant fellas (who don't know a thing about polyphasic sleep, muchless sleep in general) say "I told you it wouldn't/doesn't work" (really all they have to do is look at me and this comes across). As I said earlier in this blog, after my first crash (if i would have gotten through those couple naps i might be singing a different song), I believe more in the possibility and benefits of this sleep schedule now then before i started. Another hard thing for me to swallow is I started this blog with the hope that i would aid the polyphasic sleep movement and give people a detailed example of how it can work and be successfully done; I finish this blog realizing I have only helped the otherside, given them one more example of how it doesn't work. Which of course is not right, becuase it was I who didnt work on it.....right now, and even though the experiment in some ways was a failure I will say that i had a lot of fun trying the schedule, and got a lot of stuff done during it (and that is supposed to be during what is the hard, adjustement week). Im still open to hear your comments, questions, concerns, advice on polyphasic sleep and sleep in general........Peace

the end, or is it the beginning

I just wrote a ridunculously long post about why im ending it and my thoughts on ending it and it wouldn't publish so here is a condensed version of what i can remember:

1. Science doesnt support it....yet
2. Im too young and still growing
3. I dont make effective use of my time right now
4. I dont have a flexible enough schedule
5. I currently sacrifice too much trying to nap at schedule times
6. Sleep become job-like, another stressful task that you HAVE to do, rather than it being the free, joyful, relaxing and restorative activity i think its meant to be. (If i successful use my day i will want and need a nice long sleep).
7. We don't live in a polyphasic world, and generally if you wanna live with this world and the monophasic sleepers of this world you have to succomb to their ways.

Notice that none of my reasons had anything to do with polyphasic sleep not being a valid and potentially fruitful idea. The hardest thing about giving up is having to swallow my pride, bite my tongue, and listen to all the ignorant fellas (who don't know a thing about polyphasic sleep, muchless sleep in general) say "I told you it wouldn't/doesn't work" (really all they have to do is look at me and this comes across). As I said earlier in this blog, after my first crash (if i would have gotten through those couple naps i might be singing a different song), I believe more in the possibility and benefits of this sleep schedule now then before i started. Another hard thing for me to swallow is I started this blog with the hope that i would aid the polyphasic sleep movement and give people a detailed example of how it can work and be successfully done; I finish this blog realizing I have only helped the otherside, given them one more example of how it doesn't work. Which of course is not right, becuase it was I who didnt work on it.....right now, and even though the experiment in some ways was a failure I will say that i had a lot of fun trying the schedule, and got a lot of stuff done during it (and that is supposed to be during what is the hard, adjustement week). Peace, and im still open to hear your comments, questions, concerns, advice on polyphasic sleep and sleep in general.

the end, or is it the beginning

So i woke up this morning after my 6:25. I was a little tired but nothing to bad. Mainly, based on a few things i had read, I decided to quit this attempt at polyphasic sleep. There were a number of reasons. There are a number of testers after failed attempts that mentioned how they weren't even getting full use of of their day before and need to first concentrate on doing this and getting other parts of their life in order and start being completely healthy before they start. Another problem right now is the schedule. I could probably make it happen, but im already sacrificing a lot and eventually there are situations im going to run into where naps will be impossible or i will have ot consistently go more than 4 hours wihtout one. Not having freedom with my sleep goes a long with this and is another major factor. I discussed a few posts back that this is what i was missing the most, me being able to decide when i needed to go to bed.....and me sleeping in every once in a wihle if needed or just laying in bed thinking. The free relaxing thought beforehand, the dreams during, and the absense of an annoying alarm clock after words all make a good 8 hour sleep worth it. (now it can be somewhat successfully argued that once switched to full uberman my dreams would be there and the annoying alarm clock wouldn't, but i still wouldn't have the freedom and time to just think before i went to bed) The problem is that under the Uberman schedule, sleep becomes job-like. All the joys of sleeping are traded in for this structured view of sleep that sees sleep as just a nother necessary task that you should control, rather then a calming, restorative, relaxing break from it all. Another reason, going along with scheduling concerns, is simply becuase I constantly have to deal with a monophasic world and polyphasic sleep is simply just not accepted.....yet. Obviously there needs to be much more research and attention paid to this, I just dont feel like im the kid that should be doing that. I don't have a flexible enough schedule to adapt and im still young (20) and dont need to run the risk of doing something like this when my body is still growing and changing. In general no matter what age, you are taking a huge risk and although i do personally strongly believe that a polyphasic sleep schedule is healthy and possibly the science hasn't proven that you aren't slowly killing you brain and body. This a huge reason for me quiting, I decided that i shouldn't gamble with my health and mind when there is very little if any science backing this. You could mention that Leonardo and Buckminster lived long fruitful lives on the schedule, but you'd also be assuming that we have extensive knowledge about everything sleep related with them......and we really dont have a clue, just guesses, atleast in the case of leonardo..... and Buckminster, if his story is true, only did it for a couple of years. Obviously someone has to take the risks, either and preferebly in a sleep laboratory, or on their own and then force sleep researchers to take a look at them a few months or years into his schedule and compare it to a regular sleeper. This, right now, is not me. Maybe when i am over 25 and have total control over my schedule and am leading a really healthy, organized lifestyle i will give it another try.

What sucks for me the most is i set out to make this blog in efforts to prove the cycle's validity and provide a positive push for polyphasic sleep, but i end it having aided the other side of the argument, giving them one more failed internet blog. This is the hardest part for me to give up. I really have to swallow my pride and bite my tongue because i have that "i told you so" coming from the ignorant souls who now nothing about polyphasic sleep or sleep in general. As i said before though, i believe stronger in its possibility and potential fruitfulness now after i have given it up then before i started.

3

can't really remember much of my 2:25 nap....and i just woke from it. Im guessing that means that i caught some sleep during it. I thought though i was awake already before my alarm started going off.

2

my 10:25 was unsuccessful, i am somewhat disapointed with myself that i didnt do more to make sure i got some sleep, but idk if it would have even helped since i am pretty much wide awake.

1

after two oversleeps in two consecutive nights im going to just start my numbering over i guess.

I really focused on doing everything i could to make sure i got to sleep at my 6:25 and surpsingly i did. I can't really determine how much sleep i got exactly but it felt like maybe a total of 20-25 minutes, i might have woken up a couple times in there though too.

I hate myself

i did it agian....i slept through my 6 oclock til 12......I know i can make this happen....i tihnk i failed this time because i didnt have the motivation i had the first week and i probably thought to myself....well i slept through once, might as well again.....Im going to really focus on organizing my life and activities creating lists of things to do between naps so that i can have a reason and need to get up. I also am going to try to get a nap in at at 6 and if unsuccessful there i will start at 1o for sure.....i know i tried this yesterday but i wasnt that commited to it i didnt force myself to get tired by relaxing and reading or studying or doing some other sedentary activity an hour before my nap......I'm going to try exercising a little more today, but making sure i stop within a hour and a half of my nap so that i can have time to wind down... I am going to schedule the first nape 30-35 minutes depending on how hard it is for me to get to sleep.....and then like last week taper it down according to how long i think it will take me to go to sleep.....I'm not going to take core from here on at all unless i am forced to skip a nap. then i will take core as soon before or as soon after i can....depending on what is closest to night time i guess......i might eventually do core but am going to see if i can't make it atleast 10 days without core....Im considering this a challenege to see if i can eat right, drink right, exercise right, study right, and of course sleep right

32

another unsuccessful attempt at a nap, im not even a little bit tired though so no worries i guess i will get back to sleeping at my 6 oclock nap

29, 30, 31

i have decided that i will number my post based on the four hour cycle, since this will almost always be when i will be aiming for a nap.

I tried to start right away wiht the next cycle at 2:45, i didnt really expect to get any sleep and i didnt, but i still lied down in my cave for the time and closed my eyes, hoping it would rest me in someway and help set my rhythm.

I didnt have high expectations for my 6:40 nap either but i actually managed to get 10-20 minutes of sleep.

I wasn't able to get any sleep at my 10:30, mostly because i remembered when i laid down that i had an assignment due before midnight. I still laid down for the whole time and maybe got a few minutes of sleep.

Im not too concerned with my slow "restart" because i feel awesome and im guessing i got like 6 cycles in this morning since im guessing my sleep cycle had already condensed considerably.

Sleeping Rhythms, Internal Clock, No im not a scientist, but i did stay at a Governor's School last night.

Interestingly enough when my clock error is taken away i woke up EXACTLY when i would have worken up for my 10:00 nap, this was without being in any sight of a clock (i think that maybe the reason people say they can wake up minutes before their alarm goes off each day, is not necesarily b/c of rhythms, although im sure that has a lot to do with it, but also becuase they are aware on some level what time their alarm is set and they need to get up and then when they are sleeping, even though they don't remember they were glancing at the clock and on a subconscious level aware of what time it was......probably just a nother one of my faulty unscientific theories though) and even if i could have seen a clock it would have been the wrong time. I'm not saying that that proves anything but i think it makes me believe a little more in the rhythms we have, or maybe there is just a good internal clock that was telling me to get up and go to spanish, which if this is true, i will have to adjust it to allow for some study time next time.

Polyphasic Sleep did not fail, I failed

I know you shouldn't care what others are going to think about you or in this case about the sleep cycle, but i think that is impossible and stupid. With taht being said i think it is important for anybody reading this who is trying to formulate a judgment about the effectiveness of it that i don't feel like in any way this cycle doesn't work. Among other things it was my lack of discipline and self-control that made me unsuccessful.....It was I who failed. Up until last night it should be noted that i had been really pretty productive, moreso than usual, and was feeling really good except for a few stints of extreme tiredness here and there......and that this is how i felt during what is supposed to be a hellish adjustment period. It should also be noted that this crash i dont beleive was something that was slowly building up all week as it all became worse and worse as each day passed on the cycle, my experience was quite the opposite, i had been feeling better and better and this was the reason for the crash, because i felt like i had already conquered sleep and got really lax and carefree about it. The cycle could handle the many abuses i put on it earlier times in the week, it just couldn't handle all the abuses that i gave it all at once, together. I feel like the sleep cycle is more possible, more beneficial, and much easier now than before i started the cycle on Sunday. Also I should define what i mean by failure and success. A reason i wanted to do the cycle so exactly was to prove to doubters and to help encourage the science/research and experimentation of polyphasic sleep. Up until this morning, just a little over four days into the cycle, the most i had slept at one time was somehwere under 28 minutes and the difference between two nap starting times was always atleast 3:50 hrs and not more than 4:15 hrs. the fact that i can't say that anymore is why i feel like i have failed. So in a way i feel like i have failed this part. I am still going to continue the cycle as well as the blogs. I am treating this morning as a learning experience, one that i really learned alot on, and one in which has motivated me even further to take it seriously and be more disciplined in following it. With that being said, i will also allow myslef atleast once maybe twice a week and only if i feel i need it, a core sleep of about 4 hours and no i dont think the last two sentences are contradictory.

24, 26, 25, and one huge 27/28 = most disappointing last 12 hours.

so i very successful took my 6:55 nap, and felt really refreshed and ready to go. Just about the same way i have after all my 6 oclock's. It wasn't a really long sleep probably around 15-20 minutes though. I played a really hard basketball game where i got banged up a little from 4:30-5:30....i guess i couldn't control myself and indulged in the hard physical activity that i had been trying to ignore all week long......i really have no self control when it comes to playing a sport, i think the first game was already over before i allowed myself to think about it, nonetheless though i got a decent nap. after that and before my 10:50 nap i did a number of things that would prove to be detrimental. I spent almost the whole time talking to somebody and moving around. At 10:30-10:50, due to my job i was busy doing a room check and then a room inspection. When doing room inspection one of the kids pointed out he had candy-corn soda. no thats not a mistake, nor is it two different things. Well anyways I had stopped drinking any and all caffeinated beverages two summers ago since i had become somewhat addicted and had been using it as a drug way too much. Well anyways, it sucks to be a guy, because like basketball i didnt even think before i was taking a couple drinks of the soda because they were afraid to and dared me, well i think i heard a double-dog dare which makes it more justified. What is my problem? That isn't even a good dare. The problem of course is that it was like 10 minutes before i was going to take my nap, and if you haven't had caffeine in approximately 16 months a little bit goes a long way. Yet, another problem was that my parents out of love, gratitude and a hate of polyphasic sleep (jk) sent me a bunch of halloween candy in the mail, and i of course had eaten a bunch of it from the 6:55-10:50 nap. My very poor logic and justification of eating the candy was that if i ate most of it before an hour from the start of my nap, which i dont even know if i did that....then i would likely be crashing from my sugar high right when it is time for me to be tired for my nap.

Anyways, about the 10:50 nap, yeah, it didnt really happen.....I stayed in my bed for the period i was supposed to take the nap and then worked on some breathing while in the gravity pose as i heard some phony article say that it was worth 6 hours of sleep to do for 15 minutes. i did it for 5 minutes hoping it was worth 15 minutes. Me and all my faulty theories....I wasn't really too concerned....I realized that it would probably hit me hard but i accepted the challenge and figured it would be a good test, well as you will see i failed..... from my failed 10:50 til my nap at 2:40 i ended up watching a movie for the 4th straight night.....I really needed to be studying for my spanish test, and the plan was that i would get all of my studying done before my 2 oclock nap and just focus on making myself alert and doing some final review until my test at 11:00AM.....the movie ended up taking me til nap time and i still hadnt started to study. I woke up from the 2:40 right on time, definetely having gotten the full 25 minutes of sleep. I had so much difficulty getting up from it though and once i was up it was just a continued challenge to stay awake. In an effort to wake myself up a little bit to maybe allow myself to do some studying i walked around the halls a few times, but eventually when i realized that, although awake i really couldn't function at all, i convinced myself that i would make up the 10 oclock nap i missed becuase i really needed to be able to have time and a mind to study for the spanish test. I managed to have stayed up until 4:40 or so and then set a 5:07 waking time (i was being greedy and wanted a couple extra minutes). I'm pretty sure i woke up from this nap and atleast walked around a had a few conscious thoughts, but i must have turned off my alarm and fairly quickly went right back into bed and didnt wake up until 11:06......which i just found out was really 10:50 or so, but sometime during that whole cutting off and setting alarms process last night i changed my clock til 15 minutes later.....actually what sounds right, however i really was so brand dead last night i cant remember, is that i woke up from my wake- up nap and decided to take a fifteen minute refresher nap, since i allways seem to wake up good from those and instead i must have changed the time on my clock....the more i think about this the more i think i remember this happening, but it could be that i want to remember something like that which would put more of the blame off of me.....anyways i thought i was really late for spanish then and so i raced over and thought i was 20 minutes late, which only till about ten minutes ago did i realize i was only 5 minutes late, which makes sense because they hadn't started the listening section of the test which is usually done about 5 minutes into the test, which i guess i justified at the time, as they were waiting for me which is arrogant and self-centered, yet i hadn't and don't miss classes and we do have a small class so i entertained that as a possibility. Either way im pretty sure i failed the test, which kind of sucks alot, even though for some reason i feel fine right now and today, and i should be pissed and throwing things because i was really adamant about making a strict polyphasic sleep cycle work, proving that it does (and this does not prove that it doesnt work, see next post) and i may have ruined any chance at getting an A in spanish, which really is a big deal to me. A couple other reasons that i think i "crashed" this morning are because i had gotten really overconfident with the schedule, and felt like i had really mastered it and that it was super easy and i could do no wrong, i became slack, and it wasn't jsut the things i did because of this attitude but the attitude itself i think also hurt, i became less careful. Another attitudinal problem was that i wasn't fully committed to believing that straight polyphasic was the best thing, A. to start out on, B. for me, right now, and C. whether or not a 3 to 4 hour sleep would be OK. These doubts along with my underlying feeling at times that it was better to do a modified with core sleep or some other sleep i think had a large part to do with why i failed.

23

Thursdays, as i had expected will be the hardest days for me to schedule. When i have my ISO (international student organization) meeting that means i have to somehow squeeze a nap between the end of my first class 10:45 and the ISO meeting 11:15. It gets worse though becuase the meeting won't end til 11:30 at the earliest and so its not feasible to have one after, and i have class from 12:30-3. Today my first class luckily got out 30 minutes early so i had time as tlaked about in the previous post to get a nap in. But then i didnt get back from my 2-3 class until 5 minutes to 3 so i hit the set my alarm and woke up at 3:27 and assume that i got somewhere between 22-27 minutes of sleep. One thing that amazed me was after being so tired this morning even after i had so successfully followed the previous 2 and 6 naps that when i "messed" up my 10 nap as previously explained, i actually felt more rested this afternoon.

So my split between nap starts was approximately 4:15 not too bad but i was really hoping it would never have to more than 4:05. This nap went well i got probably 25 minutes. I woke up not really understand what was going on and tried to set my alarm clock for a nother nap right then, but luckily my sense kicked in before i got back into bed. I think for now i am going to shoot for 20-25 minutes at my night/evening naps and 15-20 in my morning naps since these are the ones where i can't aford to feel any more groggy and tired that i already do.

22 (slowly my title's are shrinking)

I planned my nap at 10:42, so that i could make sure to get to a meeting i need to by 11:15. I had just called this high school where i am supposed to be one of my two internships this semester and told the lady's voice mail to call if she got it within the next twenty minutes. Stupid me only realized later that i was the only one who knew that twenty minutes later meant 10:33 since i forgot to leave a time i called. Anyways this was hte 50th time i have called her, and was stood up once when i drove 30 minutes to the school to meet her at a time she left on my machine, so i really wasn't expecting her to call back. I guess the 50th time is a charm though becuase at 10:54 she woke me up. I could have unplugged my phone, but i had feared i would have forgotten to plug it back in. Anyways I actually was able to answer it and then go back at get another 10 minutes or so before my alarm at 11:07. I ended up then in essence getting like a 10-15 minute nap a two minuet break and then a 10 minute nap....really hope this doesn't screw up my "rhythm" i doubt it will. The other thing i fear may screw up my nap rhythms is all this "microsleep" ive accidently been having during classes. It's like if i close my eyes im straight asleep for like less than 10 seconds. then like 30 seconds later it happens again. I have been excusing myself from class to go splash water on my face and do some kind of jumping jacks/shadow boxing so that i will have some energy coming back which helps atleast for the next ten minutes of the remaining 50. I can't wait for someone from my class, preferrable the teacher, to walk in and see me staring fiercely in the mirror, my face dripping with water, bouncing around and shadow-boxing -- getting myself pumped up to go back in and survive the lecture.

twenty first

Got my twenty and then some, no more than 25 though probably. I really really was fighting the cycle on this one though, i did not want to get up....When i did i could barely walk without stumbling and it wasn't until 2 hours or so later i though a bunch of cold water face splashes, and brisk walks that i snapped out of it, sadly however by the end of my 9:30 class, which got out 25 minutes early, i couldnt control my eyes from shutting again a bobbed off a few forty times in this class. Wouldn't ever be a problem if i went to anywhere but Coker where the average class size is lik 12 and there are no classes supposed to be over 25.

Not Sleeping Kills

articles to counter the last....well kind of

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/19/1034561356377.html

http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/10/1034061260831.html

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t356433.html

pretty much i am now really afraid of playing video games while on this cycle

Sleep Kills

interesting article that i found, i dont know how much truth there is in it though....It amazes me how little is known about sleep and different sleep patterns, it really makes me wanna become a sleep researcher myself, i guess i would be a chronobiologist, more technically. anyways here it is:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1928

Twentieth

went good, slept straight and solid probably 20-23 minutes. Feeling a little groggy, a little moreso tha yesterday maybe which saddens me. I have previously been taking like up to a half an hour waiting for a nap to begin, but im going to start gettin out of that habit so hopefully i can get myself to convert uch quicker from doing something active and productive to sleep, especially since situations sometimes call for that.

Nineteenth Nap

went good, probably under 20 minutes because of kids in hall being loud.

the insanity kicks in

So i was practicing piano today after my 2:00 (Im not very good yet, only my second semester learning) and it wasn't like a hallucination or anything supernatural but i like felt and was seeing battles while i was playing my pieces like the melody was vulnerable and being attacked by the lower, darker sounding harmony. I felt like compassion and hurt for the top part of the music. Not in like a really serious way, like i understood that they were just notes but it was like how in dreams sometimes things don't make any sense. I think that's what it was it was like i was dreaming at the same time i was awake kind of, maybe, sort of, possibly.

Anyways now that i have lost all credibility in this blog (as if my grammatical errors haven't already done this) and i can now easily be dismissed as insane, im going to stop and go talk to my new friend, a 6 foot bunny rabbitt named Frank.

Eighteenth - i'm getting slack

I had my frist real "close call" as far as oversleeping. I managed to be pretty exhausted before my 6:35 nap, which i was glad becuase when you are only giving yourself a 25 minute window every 4 hours to sleep, you wanna make sure you are able to sleep. during those 25 minutes. So at 7:00 when my first alarm went off i must have really been getting good sleep becuase i managed to stay half-asleep and get out of my bed and turn off my alarm. Somewhere during all this i decided that i hadn't slept at all (even though looking back i think i slept probably over 20 minutes) and that someone else did the sleeping or something (don't ask i think it was part of a dream or something) and I reset both my alarms to thirty minutes later believing that it was now my turn to sleep i guess. I must have fully woken up on my way back to the bed and realized what i was about to let myself do and went back and changed the alarms to 11:05 and 11:07 for my 10:40 nap, got changed and went to the YMCA. My explanation of what happened is that my body is starting to adjust to the cycle a little bit and i had entered a deep stage by the time my alarm went off. So as i will spin this to sound like a success, i was shocked at how close i let myself come to screwing up how good i was doing. I really was feeling that the cycle was pretty easy to get up to, i mean once i am up i definetely have had some rough, tired patched, but getting up was never even an issue until today. I think i should get this alarm clock that i saw when first researching polyphasic sleep this time around. The Alarm clock is like a robot and it will hide on you after you set it and then like run away from you so you have to like find it and chase it around. I thought a good alarm clock would always be one that sprayed ice-cold water in your face when it went off. I'm probably the only one that thinks this would be a fun, good idea though.

Seventeenth

Can't remember anything unusual about this nap, i think it may have been interupted slightly here and there by kids in the hall (not the TV show) but i felt pretty good afterwords so im guessing i got around 20 minutes.

Sixteenth - I really dont know

I really can't remember what happened at my 10:25 this morning, i think i recall it being fairly successful, probably like 20 minutes of sleep and i vaguely remember getting up right before the alarm went off then starting to dose back off when it did go off. I was really exhausted this morning...I really fought through tiredness at my 8-9 oclock teaching internship (dont worry i wasnt responsible for the learning of America's future learners, i was just observing - the teacher did however tell the class that jerusalem wasn't created until 1948 and is just a nother name for the holy land, or palestine, as well as saying a number of other obviously false statements that i could go on about forever). After my 10:25 nap i was still in a dead tired state and caught myself several times in my 11:00 class dosing off ever so slightly.... doing the head bobs that im sure we have all experienced (wasn't as bad as the monophasic sleeper sitting in front of me though he did dosed off and then jumped and hit his desk when a spanish tape woke him up). After that class i made sure to walk around as much as i could before my 1200 and drank some water and splashed some in my face which suprisingly got me through that class nicely and i was doing even better in my 1:00 class. of off to catch my 2:30.

Fifteenth - IDK

Well my nap was similar to many previous ones, i got some where between 10-22 muntes of sleep. At one time i think i woke up and kept thinking about how i needed to go back to sleep and how much i was missing out on my breif amount of sleep. This is a wierd event, but has hapened before. I usually then go straight back for what feels like 1 minute before the alarm goes off, but my sleep times have to be pretty far off becuase i never can tell how much i am actually asleep or not.

In Response to Skeptics

Alot of Polyphasic sleep cycle skeptics hint at or say (wikipedia.org) that the reason that the schedule works is becuase it is all in their head...users want it to work so bad that their wishful thinking gets them through it and/or that adrenaline is being released that is causing them to be alert on so little sleep.

I guess my response to this is, so what? I mean why not use the power of positive thinking? and if in some wierd way the sleep cycle causes a release in adrenaline then why don't we harness that, embrace that and add it as an advantage?

How different things are

It may seem obvious to some, but i guess i never realized how incredibly different everything is on this schedule. Things i didnt expect or think about before i started are everywhere. Like i have a hard time remembering what day it is and what day certain events happened. Each day is very noticeably longer for me. There are other things like I watched Snatch tonight 11:20-1:20 and i think the lack of sleep was getting to me becuase before and right after my 2:25am nap i was thinking everything in scottish and british accents, it was a little annoying after a while. I have also experienced some pretty abstract thoughts and find myself sometimes thinking in images moreso than words. Something i wish i could fully develop and control, however now when i do it it is really unclear and random.

The thing i miss most (besides a really deep sleep during a couple of those tired waking cycles) is the time where i am lying in my bed not really trying hard to fall asleep but just letting my mind race until i go to sleep. This winding downand reflection time has allways been where i come up with my best ideas and think the clearest. Now everytime i go to bed i have to really make sure i get to bed quickily. Not having the freedom with when i will fall asleep or when ill sleep period is something i didnt anticipate however i should have.

Fourteenth - Another below avg performance

I don't think i could have gotten much more than 15 minutes at my 2:25 nap. Suprisingly however i feel the best after this early AM nap than I did the first two days. I have gotten a lot accomplished too, and i think effectively. I guess this helps prove it is better to undersleep a little then oversleep a little; an idea that goes against what you would think.

Thirteenth Nap - disapointing

Wasn't able to get the full twenty minutes got anywhere between 5-15 minutes. This was largely due to it being over "room check" where kids on my dorm hall run and scream up and down the hall and slam the doors that are right outside my room. I think I will move my nap to after this time from now on. Generally however i still feel fine and have found that undersleeping leaves me less tired that oversleeping, i imagine though it would catch up to me after a few naps only lasting 5 minutes.

Twelfth Nap - Feelin Good

Had a great nap....shortened my time from pillow to wake up to 25 minutes 6:25 - 6:50 becuase i felt i was getting to bed a little quicker, previously i had scheduled for 30 minute time slots. I probably got somehwere just under or around 20 minutes this nap, but woke up a lot more refreshed and ready to go, maybe becuase i had a soccer game to look forward too, even though everyone went inside by the time i got out there....oh well.

About an hour or so after my 2:30-3:00 nap i started to feel a lot more awake and mentally able, and now since my 6:25-50 nap i am feeling even better. I know that two days in a row doesn't make a pattern but it seems from my 2:25 AM nap til my 2:25 PM nap all i can think about is sleep and i have to literally hold my eyelids open so that i don't crash, but then right when i decide that i hate myself and everything about polyphasic sleep and i am going to drop it that night i make a turn for the better and from the 2:25 Pm nap til the 2:25 AM nap i am as good as always. If this is just a psychological thing too hopefully i can someone convince myself that i can be alert the whole day.

Eleventh Nap - same ol, same ol

Probably got roughly 23 minutes of sleep in this nap. My naps recently have been getting deeper. I am now always waking up and having no idea what time it is and what i am supposed to be doing. I definetely still feel like i am fighting sleep (ever since waking up from my 6:30am this morning). I definetely think i am going to start eating, drinking healthier. This will mean for me not eating as much ( A BIG FACTOR i think in my recent tiredness as i have noticed back in my monophasic sleep days that I overate a lot and this allways made me feel tired and like a piece of waste, plus let's face it eating is just a bad habit us humans have developed over the years, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breatharian. ) I will also be trying to eat healthier foods, elminating the 3 cookies per meal min. i seem to follow, as well as drinking juice more often.

Getting Better, I won't give in yet

After getting through (just barely) my 12:30 class where we watched a ridunculously long video, and feeling overall a lot better than i did after my last waking stretch, where i thought i was going to fall asleep at any second, and also finding out that my big midterm project that i haven't started is postponed til next tuesday, i have decided I will not give in to this (willingly) until Sunday night, at which point if i still havent made too good of progress on my midterm and am feeling to tired to work on it i will maybe go to core sleep. Interestingly enough my vision is what has been hit the hardest. I was looking at the video in class and it split into two TV's and moved apart than came right back together. I've also noticed some drag with my vision.

Tenth Nap

Woah, i felt like i was going to pass out and fall asleep without prompting myself the whole time from 6:45 til 10:35 (when i stated my next nap). This tiredness maximized in my 9:30 class which thank goodness ended at 10:20 instead of 10:45. I have never, ever, ever been as tired as i was then, i literally could not keep my eyes open for longer than 30 seconds. This was so miserable i decided then that i should go to a core sleep....modified polyphasic sleep cycle atleast a few days a week, or just give it up all together. After this nap, however i feel a little tiny bit better and am going to see how I do at my 12:30 class today and the rest of today. If it doesnt get considerably better i will probably try to get 4:30 hours tonight and then compliment it with 4 20-25 minutes throughout the day. I did change this last nap to 25 just because i knew i would fall asleep right away and i think the grogginies may have been in part becuase i slept too much. Anyways as long as i am able to get this really big midterm project done by thursday and study for my Spanish Test I will be home free i think and be able to keep the schedule.

Ninth nap - groggy

I knew i was going to sleep well at my 6:45 nap, i may however have slept too well and been too close to a half an hour of sleep becuase it was really hard to get up. This nap was definetely the hardest for me to wake up from. I spent a long time in the shower just making sure i stayed awake. Luckily it is a cold day out and im generally two cold to fall sleep most of the time. I was trying to practice my piano just a bit ago, but kept nodding off, as i am doing now trying to write this. I guess i can just hope for my 10:45 (or so) nap to go smoothly and get back on track. This is definetely one of those times where i am wondering what was i ever thinking.

Just to give you seekers both sides

http://www.tech-recipes.com/blog202.php

This is an article i found on Ubersleep.com, another polyphasic sleep blog, which is much better than mine. I really don't know anything about websites and organizing them the way he has done.

Nonetheless my response to the above article bashing polyphasic sleep: The article mainly attacks sleep deprivation, not really at all what polyphasic sleep is about. His comment about car accidents really doesn't hold water since a true polyphasic sleeper won't be awake for more than 3:40, and if needed they could pull off the side of the road and take their 20 minute nap. Until they compare a successful polyphasic sleeper to a "normal sleeper" as far as age of death, weight, and health concerns we should not settle for substituting sleep deprivation as the same thing.

The SWS comment does however concern me a little, and missing the overall physical replinishment that comes with 8 solid hours of sleep is an obvious con to polyphasic sleeping.

The thing with this article that bothers me is that it is by someone who hasn't tried it, and probably knew he didnt like it two minutes after hearing about it. The author is obviously passionately opposed to it, calling it stupid and saying its bull, and when this passionate-defensive attitude comes in, truth is what loses. On the flip side, many polyphasic users including myself have the same problem on the opposite end of the spectrum, we get excited and passionate about it working and we want to ignore the potential bad aspects. I want to say i have tried to look at it unbiasely and fairly and decided that even with the many possible con's, just the possibility that it might work out and have half of the positive effects that people say it does, is worth it for me. If it fails, i'll just chalk it up as an experience, a good story, and a test of my will power.

Eighth Nap - I knew the high would end

Well it took me the better part of five minutes to figure out how to spell eighth, which explaines my mental ability right now. I was really feeling tired and ready for my 2:45 nap but for whatever reason i could not get any shut-eye. I maybe got Ten minutes max but I might have not gotten any, I really couldn't tell, i just know it wasn't much. My success on the schedule is going to lie heavily on my ability to consistently get rest during these nap times, and i think that pressure, and me trying to force myself to sleep, have hurt the cause. Although i defientely am tired, and am looking forward to the 6:45 i really am not doing all that bad.

Seventh Nap - Getting Cocky

Well the successful completion of my seventh nap marks the end of one day on the polyphasic schedule. One of the wierd things about the schedule of course is that it doesnt feel like its been one day it feels like it has been much longer. In a way i am having 6 days each day. I think this has helped me, atleast the first day, get things accomplished -- I am able to compartmentalize what i need to get done.

Overall I am feeling really good and besides having a little trouble with tiredness earlier today i have had no real noticeable effects of missing the sleep. I think i slept at this nap, i really only remembering trying to get to sleep for what seemed like 5 to ten minutes and then also remembering being confused when the alarm went off like it wasn't the appropriate time, but of course it was. Either way I feel fine and am feeling pretty confident about my results so far. I realize i have only been on it for a little over a day, but the fact that i am still able to do homework with effectiveness and have yet to not wake up at my first alarm I think are encouraging signs. A friend claims that my success is entirely psychological -- I want so bad for it to work that i am convincing myself that im not tired and that it's all in my mind. I could agree to some point with that, and just hope that i don't lose this mindset then.

Sixth Nap - A Learning Experience

So my nap was supposed to be scheduled around 6:30-6:35 and go til 7:00 to 7:05 as i am gradually changing the time to fit the fact i have a class tommorow mornign that goes til 10:45. The problem is that just about 4 days a week all fall there is a soccer game at 6-7:15 that i rarely miss playing. I decided i could have my nap at 6:40 and played until 6:30 but realized i couldn't cool down and tire until 6:43 when i hoped in to bed and then eventually probably went to sleep around 7:00 and woke up wiht my alarm (that i reset before i went to bed) around 7:10 or so. Obviously the time change shouldn't be a huge deal, but i wish i would have gotten more sleep. After my 2:30 nap i felt tired and groggy and didnt think i was going to make it but come 3:45 or so i was as energetic as ever and i felt just as good as always playing soccer. Even now after only getting probably 10 minutes at my 6:40 nap i feel great, I guess we'll have to see how long that lasts.

Fifth Nap - Success, i guess

I was really tired after this nap, but felt it had been my most productive nap yet and i probably got around 25 minutes of sleep. I made sure i didnt have any music on which i think helped.

Fourth Nap - Argghhghhh

Well i was really feeling up for my 10:25 nap (meaning i was feeling really tired). I went to walmart this morning beforehand and bought a Relaxation CD that i decided i would play on my Alarm Clock CD player rather than head phones b/c they are un-comfortable and too loud even at the lowest level. This was a bad idea as the music i think kept me up more than it put me to sleep. The nap started just like the succesful 6:25 nap but i "woke" up at 10:40 after probably 5-10 minutes, and thought that my nap was over and got out of my bed only to realize i still had 15 minutes. I think what happened maybe is a new song that was different, louder, or less relazing came on and woke me up. I managed to go back and lay down and catch a nother 5 minutes or so. Even though i only got a separated 15 minutes the second nap i really am not feeling too bad at all. I seem to be just as industrious as usual, and although i definetely do feel tired and if im listening to a lecture for 50 minutes i will have to hold my eyelids open, I still feel that it won't be too bad if it stays like this.....i doubt however that it will stay like this. I have been wondering how much positive/negative thinking has to do with how successful someone is with this, my guess is a lot.

Third Nap

I was literally couldn't wiat for the 6:25-6:50 nap to come. I think the first serious wave of tiredness hit me at 445 and stayed with me off and on until i took the nap. I felt a lot of pressure to get some sleep this time becuase i was so tired and had contemplated doing a 35 minute time in case it took me 15 minutes to get to sleep, but i didnt. I tried the music thing but gave up on it relatively quickily. I remember having some trouble getting to sleep and then i remember the alarm going off. I thought it was too soon and didnt want to respond, and thought it was maybe the one i set to signify the start of the nap that went off late or something. I got out to see it was the 6:55 alarm but apparently didnt believe it becuase i just turned it off and went back into the fort. Luckily the 6:57 alarm went off before i dosed off again. I am guessing i got about 25 -30 minutes of sleep. Although it was tough at first convincing myself not to go back to bed, i eventually did and after a shower i was good to go.

Second Nap - Frustration

I didnt get any sleep at my 2:25 to 2:55. It went by a little faster though and i might have caught small amounts of sleep. I am not worried however because i've been on such a late schedule and have gotten enough sleep the last few days that im sure my body is just still juiced up on that. Before the nap i watched TV but then tried to wind down with some reading to hopefully induce some bit of tiredness. My idea with the CD player failed when i found out right before my nap that i didnt have enough battery power. Hopefully just the act of stopping everything, closing my eyes, and laying down will have some kind of effect and help move me towards getting set into a rhythm even if i havent slept the first two.

Claudio Stampi - Why We Nap

The following are some quotes i pulled from the Claudio Stampi book "Why We Nap: Evolution, Chronobiology, And Functions Of Polyphasic And Ultrashort Sleep." This book if your not familiar with it, is pretty much the only real official published research and discussion on Polyphasic sleep. I didn't buy the book which is a hard to find and costs around 155 probably if you can find it, but i drove an hour and a half to a library that had it and spent the better part of two hours reading what i thought where the relevant sections to the polyphasic experiment i would be trying.

"In summary the research and issues.....pose a challenge to the concept that adult humans are irrevocably tied to a rigid monophasic sleep-wake system. Rather, they argue in favor of the hypothesis that, if need be, adult humans may adapt without major difficulties to some sort of polyphasic behavior. Indeed, the ability for a multiple napping behavior in adult humans may be the behavioral expression of an underlying biological rhythm of daytime sleep propensity...........
However, the author would like to caution against misleading interpretations of these conclusions. What is being proposed here is not that polyphasic sleep is preferable to monophasic sleep, nor that everyone should now switch to a multiple napping behavior "panacea". It appears obvious that quasi-monophasic sleep --monophasic sleep plus occasional naps -- is what comes most naturally to the majority of adult humans and a few other species. If somewhere in evolution such species have developed the ability to sustain wakefulness for relatively prolonged periods, most likely this ability occured in response to some sort of important and advantageous adaptive pressure."

"Should adult humans be forced to reduce sleep by considerable amounts, polyphasic sleep may be more efficient than monophasic sleep. Unfortunately, experimental evidence for this hyporthesis is limited to a handful of preliminary studies; this, in turn, may allow for some speculation on the matter. "


The next quote is from Stampi's book but is written by Giancarlo Sbragia, who was an Italian actor into all sorts of creative arts who tried the cycle (20 min every 4 hours) for a while (in an uncontrolled experiment) in the 1960's i believe. His reflection on the experience was that he learned alot about himself and it was a life-changing experience becuase of the lessons it taught him. The lessons where that he had plenty of time to do everything he enjoyed in life and that he was not a super - human and genious that he thought he was and couldn't live up to Leanardo (an interesting conclusion). He also discussed at the time of the book of wanting to try it again but for different reasons (i think something about for the good of science, and to see if he could do it, or see would be like now or something). The trend of people wanting to try it again even after they fail (sometimes quite badly) the first time is maybe a testament to the cycle.

Giancarlo Sbragia - "I also experience a strange sensation that I only understood later. I missed dreams. I am a dreamer: I don't remember a single night in my life without the recollection of dreams: I have always dreamt.....As this nourishment (dreaming) was missing, my imagination and my artistic activity started to suffer."

This statement i found especially alarming, becuase one of my motivations for doing this was that i had heard that you actually have more lucid dreams that you remember completely. This is something that more than one experimenter has commented on, and the inconsistency with Sbragia's experience could be that he was trying to recall the experience from 30 years ago. The idea that you have more lucid dreams on polyphasic sleep i think stems from the idea that you are getting all REM once you have adapted to the cycle, and skipping the other less important stages. The Stampi project monitored the stages in the early 90's with two polyphasic sleep experiments and saw that the stages were just all shortened proportionaley to the 20 minutes. A result that at that time was disproving the idea that you only got the begining part of sleep and missed out completely on REM and stage 2.



These are a couple quotes from Leonardo Di Vinci that are in the book in Italian, and then my translation using altavista bablefish:

Or dormiente, than what e' sleep? The sleep has similitudine glue dead women. Or perche' you do not make adunque such work, than after the dead women you have perfect similitudine of alive, than viviendo it is made with the sleep similar to the sad ones died?

O dormiente, che cosa e' sonno? Il sonno ha similitudine colla morte. O perche' non fai adunque tale opera, che dopo la morte tu abbi similitudine di perfetto vivo, che viviendo farsi col sonno simile ai tristi morti?Leonardo da Vinci, Codice Atlantico, 76 v.a.


It is not worth fortune to who s' does not tire. Perfect don s' it does not have without great pain. The one who is made happy, and vertu' it investigates

Non vale fortuna a chi non s'affatica. Perfetto don non s'ha senza gran pena. Colui si fa felice, e vertu' investigaLeonardo da Vinci, Windsor Castle, 12349 v.

First Nap - learning experience

My first nap went basically as expected, I didnt really sleep at all. I was i think in an inbetween state however for a good bit of the nap. I also was able to learn alot about what i need to do to make these naps more possible and productive. One major problem was with kids on the hall screaming. I started my nap at 10:25, mainly becuase of the necessary nap tommorow morning at 10:25. The problem was that at 10:30 the kids on my hall (high schoolers that i am an RA for, have Room check at 10:30, i wasn't on duty so i didnt have to do it today but my room is right by the stairs and elevator and about 5 minutes into my nap a rush of kids came screaming onto the hall. Also after room check all the kids are couped up on the hall and not allowed to leave unitl their 1200 bedtime, but specifically after room check they were ridiculously loud. From now on i think i am going to use my headphones to listen to some music, ill probably start the first few days listening to the last five songs of my coldplay live CD, which would be roughly a little over 26 minutes of music. This would allow me to block out the sound until i get to sleep, but then stop before my alarms go off. Im also hoping that it becomes associated with falling asleep and will futher aid me in falling asleep quickily. I'll see how well it works, but i may end up buying just some relaxing sound music if it doesnt work. I also wonder if i will sleep less deeply with music on. One of the barriers i think in this first nap was that i was aware that time was passing by and i wasn't falling asleep and then eventually realized and started anticipating the alarm to go off any second, which was in a way preventing me from getting to sleep. With only a twenty minute nap, and the fear of not waking up at the twenty (thirty) minute mark, i am almost fighting myself going to sleep and fighting myself to not let go and fall asleep, while at the same time trying to force myself asleep.

My Set-Up

To help with my daytime naps (and because I really like forts), i have made a fort/cave for my self to sleep in (on the Left). I also have put my alarm clock outside of the fort so that i will have to get out of the fort (hardest part) and walk to turn off my alarm. I have set two Alarms on that clock and plan to set a third somewhere else if i need to.

Although the sheet looks like it would keep all light out it doesnt really do a very good job, and i might resort to using a blind fold/eye mask, which would have been the practical option to begin with.

My schedule hopefully

The first two days i am going to plan for 30 minutes of sleep every 4 hours, the next three i am going to plan for 25 (guessing that it will be easier for me to fall asleep right away) and then hopefully (depending on results) will move to 20 minutes every 4 hours by the end of the first week.

Sunday 16th - 10:25-10:55
Monday 17th - 2:25-2:55
- 6:25-6:55
- 10:25-10:55
- 2:30-2:00
- 6:30-7:00
- 10:35-11:05
Tuesday 18th- 2:35-3:05
- 6:40-7:10
- 10:50 (roughly, depending on when my 9:30-10:45 class gets out, will get it in as close to 10:35 as i can and go for a half an hour)

Although it will be difficult i will try to gradually adjust my nap time to the conflict that arises with my MWF classes from 11:1:50 and my TTR classes 9:30-10:45, 12:30-1:45 (thursdays i have a 2:00-2:50 class but it usually only lasts til 2:30 or so, and it can be moved if need be.) The only other problem that could arise is with my 6 and 10pm naps when i am on Resident Assistant Duty (I'm a Res. Asst. at a high school which involves a lot of extra RA duties, like a 10:30 room check, and a Wal-Mart run sometimes at 6:15-7:10).

Tonight I start

Tonight will be my first night trying a polyphasic sleep schedule. Sadly, because of my class schedule, i will be unable to do it as exactly and precisely as i had hoped, but i hope that won't effect my results. I went to bed at 4 last night and didnt wake up til 1:10 so that has give me a good 9 hours of sleep to start it on. The nights before last i had consistenly gone to be at the 3-4 hour and gotten between 7-9 hours of sleep so i am in no way behind on my sleep. Because of my consistently late bed time, i don't anticipate getting a lot if any of my 30 minutes at 10:25 tonight but will try anyways. Then i have one at 2:25am, where it will probably officially start.

My Inspiration for doing Polyphasic Sleep...not really though just, ironically, my favorite song right now

"....sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is. Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids. People say that you'll die faster than without water. But we know it's just a lie, scare your son, scare your daughter...."

Group: The Arcade Fire
Song: Rebellion (Lies)
Album: Funeral

Introduction

I have set up this blog to keep track of my attempt at polyphasic sleep. I plan to include a regular/daily diary of how it is going as well as include information about polyphasic sleep that i have gathered in preparing for the switch.