Monophasic For Now

I decided to put my attempt on triphasic on hold. Besides, I still miss Everyman and I'm having an urge to try it again when I next attempt some form of polyphasic sleep. That being said, I'm going to stay monophasic for now. I'm actually liking it for a change. I'm managing to keep a relatively sane and regular schedule and my sleep quality has been very good. Once my sleep goes back off rails again I'll start the triphasic.

As for now, I'll keep on streching my dream recall streak, that is already 10 days. My recall used to be stellar, but continuous polyphasic sleeping, where I have to focus on getting up rather than remembering any dreams have deteriorated it. If I manage to hold this schedule I currently have, I'll obviously focus on perfecting the recall again and starting to have lucid dreams often. They really come in rarely these days - my last one was 33 days ago. Besides, their quality has not been good in ages.

So, that's all. I'll keep you updated on when I start some form of polyphasing. Currently I'm happy with my sleep.

Triphasic: Intro

I'm not starting the triphasic yet today. I'll start in a few days, and considered to the last moment starting today, but in the end I feel a bit sleep-deprived at the moment. I've been sleeping a little erratically lately and triphasic sleep doesn't take kindly to sleep deprivation.

So, triphasic sleep can be of varying patterns, but I'm going to use the simple three times 1½ hours program. According to the limited info available, it's relatively easy to adapt, but as you know, my track record isn't the most solid.

Tonight I'll have a full night's sleep and then consider starting tomorrow. It depends on how I feel, but you can expect this experiment starting soon.

I'm lacking concentration at the moment so I'll get back to you later more.

Starting the Triphasic Next Week

I was going to write here that I'm not doing the whole triphasic attempt at all, but then I made a total U-turn at the last second and decided that fuck it, might as well do it.

So far, after numerous attempts my success-rate is still round 0. So, I guess that doesn't promise much for this attempt. But from what I've read of triphasic it should be way easier than any of the other schedules I've tried and also more sustainable. Whether that's the truth... Well, we will find out soon enough.

I guess there's nothing more for me to say now. I'm going to prepare for the attempt by reading everything there is to read about the schedule and then it's time for the own effort. If I manage to hold the schedule something like 40-50 days I am going to be happy. Don't know whether I'd go further than that. I know, "Whoa there dude, don't talk about 40 days before you've even managed 5 days of any schedule without mistakes."

Everyman Over

I ended the Everyman attempt after 18 days. I know, it's pathetic. Did fairly well for two weeks, felt good, then the going got tough. But the fact that I just slept through all of my alarms like nothing, and considering that I've struggled with oversleeps all through the effort, means there's no sense on keep going. I have nothing to prove in terms of willpower and determination, if you doubt them read through the whole blog. It's just that my body is not accepting this. Only reason I would keep going would be if I had 100 % failure prove alarm, and I don't think there is any. Another human being is the closest to that, but I don't have anyone to help me at the moment.

This sounds pretty damning judgment, like whole polyphasic sleep is just a pipe-dream. I'm definitely not believing that, not yet. What I'll try now is to mantain my quick napping. I really have had that handled, I've missed hardly any naps because of failing to fall asleep. I want to keep that ability, so I'm going to try to increase the core gradually while having as many naps as I can, with a minimum of 90 minutes in between.

The first day didn't work though, I'm just no waking to alarm anymore, I slept through it and for 7½ hours. I'm still trying to get some naps in. I have plenty of sleep dep in the storage, so having naps shouldn't yet be a problem even with full "nights" sleep (it isn't actually night)

If I end up just slipping back into monophasic sleep, that's fine. Next effort will probably be in the latter half of the August on triphasic sleep, that has titillated me for long. I'd wish I had Zeo properly working though, perhaps I should just bite the bullet and buy some replacement censors.

I'll be posting new stuff here in the meanwhile too.

Two Weeks of Everyman and Oversleeps Just Keep Piling Up

It's fifteenth day and since I've overslept now two days in a row, that has taken the combined total to 6½ hours. It's tough to avoid those oversleeps now that sleep dep is starting to creep in. I am yet to find a way to consistently get up from the bed. It doesn't seem too hard to outsiders, but it takes quite a lot of willpower once you start to get sleep-deprived.

I'll keep thinking about it and if it depended on my determination alone, I'd not oversleep anymore.

So let's recap the first two weeks a bit. It's not really been tough, it has felt easier than during last year's Everyman adaptation. The numbers though tell a different story. I've overslept more than last year by now, at least in terms of times overslept. If I can't keep at least two weeks completely mistake-free, I'm just not going to adapt, that's a fact. Seems a bit overwhelming when you barely can string three perfect days in a row.

From now on I'll keep much stricter reins to my schedule. I won't miss any more naps. I won't shift the naps around. The schedule is bizarre enough as it is, I don't need any more changes to that. The time for shifting naps is much later than now. I need to stay the fuck active. The bed should be off-limits within an hour from waking up.

Next two weeks will be a lot harder, but it should be a lot better. Sounds an impossible combination, but just like that Adidas slogan said, "impossible is nothing."

Everyman Day 12 - Completely Unnecessary Oversleep

I was going to write a post anyway today to update what has happened so far. Before the last nap of today the answer would have been "not a whole lot", but I just woke up from 1½ hour oversleep. This takes my totals to actually worse numbers than in the December adaptation. Still, I'd argue I'm still feeling better. Anyway, let's see into the reasons of the oversleep.

Quite simple really, two things happened that made this easy if not even likely. First off I went to be really early - 15 minutes early in fact. I wasn't too tired. It was feeling a bit down and not feeling like doing anything that made me do it. I was planning to stay awake for a few minutes before letting myself fall asleep. I did stay up for at least 10 minutes, but any nap lenght of over 25 minutes is still very dangerous. You fall into too deep sleep and get screwed.

I had much trust on my alarms though. Being a veteran of this already I'd knew that I was risking an oversleep when I go to bed early. But I thought to myself, if I fall asleep early I have the safety net of the computer's alarm. I have not needed that many times and I'm certain it would work if needed. So the problem was... Well, I apparently had not activated the whole alarm. That's useful, right? But these things happen which makes me think if I should have two heavier alarms just as two softer ones. Maybe one more, if religiously used, would render oversleeps at least very hard. In fact, I'll start to think about where I'll get one so that I'm pretty well covered in all situations.

Overall program still feels good, no terrible sleep dep, just very short phases of heavier tiredness mostly upon waking. The middle phase of the day, 14-17, still is by far the most unproductive, but it is also the shortest, which is a win-win situation. Or less lose-lose?

The oversleep today was pretty bad, but for some reason it isn't actually bother me that much. I remember a time when an oversleep left me feeling completely fucked up emotionally. Now I don't feel anything like that. I was only a bit annoyed and feel normal now. On an emotional level it's not a big deal maybe anymore, but intellectually I still want to avoid oversleeps as much as possible. I'll think about making oversleeps even harder and maybe do a blog post about what I come up.

I still need to use my days better, not be so complacent and remember the mantra: Stay active!

I'm going to stay active and bugger off to run 5 km. Why don't you folks do the same?

Everyman Day 9 - Refocus

I'm going to hit the sack soon for the 10th core. I've been on Everyman now for 9 full days and if you have followed my Twitter, you'll know that I've had mostly easy time. Two oversleeps, the other for 2 hours few days back and then practically an extra nap, 30-minute sleep shortly after the main nap yesterday. I'd say it has been easier than I could've ever imagined so far. The oversleeps have besides been more than compensated by two shortened cores and two missed naps.

The reason I'm writing this post is that I've noticed some complacency creeping into my daily habits. I don't get up so fast and I sometimes lay down after a nap (that's so stupid - recipe for disaster). So far, those mistakes haven't cost me. But they will if I don't intervene early enough. So I hope that this post is more of a wake-up call for myself, a way to refocus my eforts on the schedule.

I have had decent amounts of REM on the naps so far, but I don't recall my dreams. I just remember that I was having a dream, but not anything of it. I should be accumulating sleep debt, and perhaps I am, but that's happening really slowly apparently, because I'm still very rarely tired and it is so easy, no challenge to stay awake, unless it's just after waking up when you're not yet thinking straight.

My body has adapted to napping already very well. As I said, there's been plenty of REM already, and also I've noticed myself waking up often before the alarm. What I should still do is condition myself to get up, usually I just keep laying down and maybe fall asleep again. That usually results in more tiredness upon waking. Regardless of this I'm still keeping my discipline with the alarms - all three are in use for every nap, even though the instances where I've overslept on a nap using Everyman are rare. I think it makes falling asleep later more unlikely, when you have to set off three alarms. It's not much, but still, like I've said many times, you need to do everything you can to tip the odds in your favor.

Which is why you really can't fall victim to complacency. Polyphasic sleep is a fine-margin game, especially during the adaptation. Considering how easy it has been so far, I really shouldn't even have 2½ hours of oversleeps under my belt. It's improvement, but I still can't be happy. I hope I manage to avoid mistakes during the next 9 days. Now you must be curious about how much did I oversleep during the first 9 days of my original long Everyman attempt (I know I am), so let's take a look... Well, actually, now that I read it, I only had 3 hours of oversleep from two instances by this point back then. That was with three hour core, so it was in general harder than my current effort.

So is all this talk of improving I just had only an illusion? Perhaps, at least it should make me take the rest of the adaptation very seriously. It's surprising to find out that you shouldn't have had any trouble so far anyway. What it does tell me though is that I can look to the previous adaptation for what to expect during next few days, so I'll have a quick look on that too.

Day 10: Solid naps, plenty of tiredness.
Day 11: Similar to 10.
Day 12: Reversion - nap quality seemed to be down, yet I felt better.
Day 13: Low amounts of sleep, but no big troubles
Day 14: Similar to 13.
Day 15: Better, but still tired
Day 16: Overslept core, tiredness escalates
Day 17: Decent feel and numbers.
Day 18: Tired, but good numbers

So overall it seems like no oversleeps would be decent, but not hard task to pull - during the next days I can expect the tiredness to slowly escalate. No reason to get excited for the "success" so far. The real adaptation is still long way ago - this is just the building sleep-deprivation phase. Still having said all of that and basically disproven my own claims of "best adaptation ever", I would still say that there's something going on with this adaptation that wasn't before. I'm confident of success this time. I will not bend over at the first signs of tiredness.

Speaking of tiredness, I should be going to sleep very soon - 15 minutes from now. I've said all that I want to say for now, see you guys soon again.