Day ten

Today was pretty much the same as yesterday. I got all my naps in, but still felt a bit tired the whole day. I'm really hoping for some improvement tomorrow/soon.

Day nine: My first "real person" day

So today I had to be a real person because spring break was over. I had classes, meetings, and rehearsal.  So this was a big test day to determine if this is going to be a possible schedule to keep up.

I would say that the day went so-so. The good news is that I fit in every nap. Once I get adjusted, this is going to be what will be difficult. I've planned out each nap time with my class schedule, but some times are pretty tight. I can't linger around after class or I won't have time to get the whole nap in. And if I miss a nap, I will start to crash before I have another chance to sleep.

But even though I got every nap in today, I was still pretty tired throughout the day. It didn't hinder me from anything or lower my functionality, but I was noticeably tired. Particularly at the end of rehearsal, but that's okay because it was the part of the play where the moon is supposed to be tired. So it just looked like I was a really good actor, haha.

I'm hoping that the tiredness was just because it was the first day in a week that I had actually been busy all day. Hopefully I will be back to full energy soon. I'm still in the time frame of the adjustment period, so things will still be improving.

Day eight

Today was pretty similar to yesterday. I feel like less of a zombie than earlier in the week, but I still have much lower levels of energy than I want. This sleep pattern will really only be worth it if I can have the same amount of energy as before. I'd rather have 16 hours of good energy than 21 hours of just okay energy. But it is still early on and I'll give it some more time. Part of me desperately wants to just give up and go sleep for 10 hours. Ahh, that sounds soooo good. But I've got to stick it out. I've made it this far. It has only been 8 days, but it has been 8 difficult days. This has taken more self determination than probably anything else I've ever done. So I'm not turning back just yet.

Tomorrow will be interesting because classes and rehearsals start back up. Let's see how that all goes!

Day seven

After today, I actually feel pretty confident that this is going to work! I am definitely starting to feel my sleep pattern adjusting. Today is the first day that I haven't felt so exhausted that I have had to add in an extra nap. And I was able to do actual work during the night hours. All of the previous nights I was so out of it that I couldn't really do anything productive. So this is definitely a good sign. If I wasn't mostly functional by the time school started on Monday, I was going to stop this so that it wouldn't negatively affect my school work. But it's looking optimistic at this point :)

Questions

I have been asked some of the same questions repeatedly about polyphasic sleep, so here is my "mass text" answering them. If you have any other questions, let me know and I can answer them in a future post.

1. Why are you doing this?
Well for one, there is the obvious reason of having more time. I could definitely use it. In addition to more time, I will supposedly have more energy throughout the day instead of getting tired as the day goes on. But the main reason I am doing it is just to find out for myself what it is all about. It seems pretty far-fetched, to be able to get the same amount of rest with only three hours of sleep a day. If it is that simple, why aren't more people doing it? What will it feel like to almost always be awake while the rest of the world is sleeping? Will my concept of the passage of time change? These are things I want to find out which is my main motivation for doing this.

2. It seems unnatural, are you sure that it is safe?
Ironically, it may actually be more natural than the monophasic way that most humans sleep. When we are born, we naturally sleep polyphasically. A baby sleeps for short periods throughout the entire day. It is hypothesized that the only reason they switch to monophasic is because their parents condition them to sleep that way. There are cases of cultures completely isolated from modern society that sleep polyphasically. Almost all other animals sleep polyphasically. So the majority of our societies may actually have it all wrong.

The sleep deprivation experienced during the adaptation week is also fairly harmless. There have been countless studies on sleep deprivation and there have been no found long term effects of a short period of sleep deprivation.

3. How will you be able to take a nap every four hours when you have stuff going on all day?
It actually works out pretty well with my schedule. I have long enough breaks between classes that I can fit in naps. And there are plenty of places to sleep. In the aud, there is the couch in the green room. In SnyPhi, there is the pillar room full of couches. I'll have to keep on top of it, but it should be doable.

 

Day six

This morning was sooo much better than yesterday, thank God. I only had difficulty staying awake for about an hour, instead of several hours. However, I did then have trouble staying awake in the evening, which hasn't been an issue before. Either way, today was an improvement. Hopefully it'll all go up from here!

Day five: Tripping on Sleep Deprivation

So this morning I think I hit the peak of sleep deprivation, which ironically is a good thing. This means that my body should start to make the necessary changes to adjust to this new sleep cycle. I only remember half of this morning and imagine that the experience can be compared to being some sort of high. Reality became dreamlike and the line between sleeping and being awake became blurry. I had previously read that this would happen as the body's attempt to trick you into going to sleep. And it was partially successful in doing so. Like I said, I can only remember bits and pieces of the night. I think I may have fallen asleep for several minutes at a time. There was one point where the line was so blurred that in a dream, a friend told me to go on ichat, so in the real world I did. And this all blended together. At the time I didn't realize that they were two separate worlds. Around 7am I got in the shower in an attempt to wake me up. I only remember half of the shower. I couldn't tell you if I even used shampoo and soap or if I just stood there. But I remember all of a sudden falling asleep while standing up and jolting awake as I was about to fall. I woke up in bed half an hour later, not even remembering getting into the bed.

Needless to say, sleep deprivation can be dangerous. But if this works like it is supposed to, that shouldn't happen again, because now my internal sleep cycles will start to change. However, if I continue to have experiences like this morning, I will definitely stop this experiment and go back to monophasic.

Day four

Today was very similar to yesterday. The morning was still difficult, but a little bit easier because I had things to do. I was doing active, physical tasks, like laundry and cleaning my room. This kept we awake without too much effort.

I took the extra nap again. I think I'm going to keep this 7th nap until I get adjusted and then I will possibly get rid of it. But for now it really helps break up these torturous mornings.


Sleep update: In the past 115 hours I have only slept for a total of 15 hours. Damn.  

Day three

This morning (midnight-7am) SUCKED. I spoke too soon about this being easy. I could not stay awake. I decided to add an extra 30 minutes nap in just so that I wouldn't collapse and wake up 12 hours later. I hope there aren't many more mornings like this one, because I wouldn't be able to handle that.

The rest of the day was normal. Energy levels a little below what they were before, but nothing to complain about.

Let's hope tomorrow morning is better...

Day two

So far this has not been as bad as other people made it out to be. So either I am adjusting easier than most people, or the worst is still to come. I'm hoping it's not the second one. I had good energy levels for most of the day. The only really difficult time was from midnight to 5am. I had a lot of trouble staying awake. I had to walk around in circles and do jumping jacks so that I wouldn't fall asleep.

I have been dreaming during my naps, which is a good sign. This means I am getting REM sleep (the important kind).

I've also been eating like it is nobody's business, but I am justifying it with the fact that I am awake for 5 more hours each day than usual, thus I need more nourishment.

I'm starting to feel the late night exhaustion coming on. I'm hoping it isn't worse than this morning because it was hard to make it through. I have bright lights on and music pumping. (p.s. "Bare" is so much more heartbreaking on shuffle at 3am when you are sleep deprived.)

Sleep update: In the past 64 hours I have only slept for a total of 6 hours.

Day one

Today was my first day of the adaptation phase. I just got up from my sixth and final 30 minute nap of the day. I'm feeling a bit tired. Most of the day was fine as long as I was active. When I sat down for a long period of time, I would start to get drowsy. But it was basically like pulling an all-nighter, which I have done before. Tomorrow is when it'll start to get worse, so be prepared for posts that make no sense.

I got through the first day!

Final Night of Monophasic

So tonight is my last night of monophasic sleep before staring a polyphasic sleep routine.

If you haven't heard of polyphasic sleeping before, it is when you sleep several times in a 24 hour period instead of just once. With the Uberman routine, the one I will be following, you sleep 6 times a day, 30 minutes each. This means only 3 hours of sleep a day! But you still get the same amount of REM sleep (the important kind). You train your body to go into REM sleep right away instead of taking long transitional periods, like in monophasic sleep.

So how to you train your body to do this? Sleep deprivation. That is why I am starting this over spring break. It is an intense week of sleep deprivation that forces your body to go into REM sleep immediately after hitting the pillow, so that each of the 6 "naps" are REM sleep.

Based on other people's experiences, it takes about 10 days of this until you return to normal energy levels. These first ten days are called the adaptation period, aka the zombie period. But after that, you feel great, if not better than before, even on only 3 hours of sleep a day! It is theorized that since babies are polyphasic sleepers, it is actual more natural and healthier to sleep this way.

So if you are interested in seeing how this insane experiment goes, follow my blog!