lauantai 20. maaliskuuta 2010

My Body Is Not Agreeing

I had the stupidest reason for delaying this; I overslept again, two successive days! This time for 7 hours. It was dumb, I woke up normally 8.30 like I had planned, but I had brain fart that I should get still 15 minutes of more sleep. Right, like I can wake up to that.

But today I'm starting again, hopefully. Ironically after that "Uberman Mentality" post I've started to have regrets and had some thoughts on giving up. My life is a mess after all right now.

perjantai 19. maaliskuuta 2010

New Stuff for This Attempt

Some changes again taking my earlier lessons into consideration.

- I'll sleep with lights on any chance I get. I don't know if it'll help much, but even a little will do wonders.
- Playing poker for a while every waking phase (except when I'm feeling super-fucked-up). This is to assess more accurately my thinking processes. I can feel fine and put the 8 for my mental rating, when in truth I couldn't do anything deeper level thinking. This forces me to do some and I'll notice the deficiencys. I was thinking about 15 minutes minimum / every phase. The nice side effect is that this forces me to put in 45 hours / month. That would be a solid amount for me.
- I'll be constantly changing the place of my phone when alarming and of course using my computer's alarm from now on.

Those were just few quick pointers that came up just now.

torstai 18. maaliskuuta 2010

The Uberman Mentality

I had not before realized how much effort it actually requires to switch to polyphasic. Sure I knew that it would be extremely hard during the first days. What I didn't expect was that it would require consistent effort for weeks. But now that I've readed much more about polyphasic sleep, I know what I'm up against.

I had only read about Steve Pavlina and his success which made it look easy. Now I didn't think it was, but it seemed like that if you're determined and dedicated, anyone can pull it off and the worst point is over after three or four days - which might be true, but getting to that point without trouble is very, very hard.

I just ignored the failures. There's tons of blogs all over internet about failed attempts in different polyphasic schedules. It was probably good though that I didn't waste any thought on them and didn't let it put me down. All I needed was to acknowledge that there is those. But now that I've failed time and again and seem like adding my blog to the bodycount (I'm determined not to) I need to really read any material that there is. Even about the failed accounts, because they might have something valuable to offer. Those who adjusted with relative ease can't help me now.

Thing is, that when I was aiming to stay on schedule for few days, I should be expecting trouble for at least a couple weeks. I made it about a week with very low on sleep on the third attempt, but even then I had constant oversleeping. I get no closer to succeeding.

In the polyphasic sleep Google group there was said that extra naps for easier adjustment are not necessarily good. They need at least to be consistent and there's no-one who had succeeded with free-running sleep. That would be cool, but I guess I have to go for strict form of Uberman with no extra naps or anything. Pavlina recommended them for avoiding oversleep.. Well, my own experiences tell me now that it won't help to that; as you can read my last nap was extra nap that I described "that nap hit the spot". I felt great after it, yet when I went back to normal nap I overslept heavily. They won't help in that, what helps in that sense is working methods of waking yourself.

It's half about consistency and it's half about resilience. I have the latter, I need to mantain former. I need to have set sleeping times and need to be able to follow through with them. I can strech it a bit, but only a little. I need to wake up to alarm - partly it's not down me, partly it's down my body not agreeing with to whole think and shutting down the alarm while mind is still asleep.

I had a tired moment at couple hours back around 22:00. I realized just now that it was probably because I had already adjusted to certain extent to uberman - my body wanted to go back sleep after four hours awake despite me sleeping 10 hours prior to that. I should've maybe gone to bed then, but it's too late for that now. I'm not resetting completely after all when I do go to sleep. I aim to do it around the same times where my last schedule were settled - 0, 4, 8, 12, 16 or 20.

It's the mentality that I have that I hope will push me through. I had planned to give it up after the last failure. But I find I can't. I just really want to do this. Not because I want to have extra time. Sure, that's nice, but I'll probably waste it anyway. I want to do it for the experience, I want to do it for the lifestyle. It just seems so fitting schedule for me. I don't know, maybe there's some need to prove it to people that it can be done (there has been some can't rants already). All I care is that now I have the true uberman mentality, now I just have to make it count and do this.

I will be continuing with the format I started in the last attempt. I like it and I think it's pretty clear.

Crashed And Burned (Again), But Not Wanting to Give Up

I said this was the last attempt. So when I failed to wake up for my alarm again and slept for full 10 hours, I am supposed to quit this experiment and just accept I can't do it, not yet anyway.

But no. I don't want to give up. I feel devastated after the whole attempt just crumbled after the promising start, but I want to try again. I really would like to life polyphasic despite all the troubles.

There's just this trouble of beating oversleep which seems impossible. I wasn't particularly tired when I went to sleep this morning. Yet I shut down my phone while sleep. Walk across the room and shut it down I should say.

I had the idea with speakers of computers and I probably have to instantiate it.

I guess next we're starting another last attempt. Let's just say that it's fifth attempt.

Day 2

Day 2.1
Naptime 0:10 - 0:20, 10 min
Mental: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tiredness 0 1 2 3 4 5

Extremely short but refreshing nap. I still don't remember any REM so I am a bit amazed why I am feeling so great. But I don't mind.

Day 2.2
Naptime 4:05 - 4:35, 25 min
Mental: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tiredness 0 1 2 3 4 5

When I woke up, my tiredness wasn't that bad, but now.. It's just really tough. I can barely stay awake while sitting. I'll be waiting 'til the middle of the phase and definitely getting an extra nap just in between the two normal naps now. My eyes just keep closing. It's the first time I'm really having trouble in this attempt.

Things change really fast - I just had a huge surge of energy for some reason. It's still half an hour 'til 6:00, so I'll see if I take the extra nap, maybe I'll do anyway as I'm still drowsy.

Okay, 10 minutes since last update and I'm again feeling like I'll fall asleep any moment. I just need to get the extra nap, even if it won't help me to not feel like a zombie. Though I'm not yet in a zombified stage, I'm just very tired.

Extra Nap
Naptime 6:00 - 6:25, 25 min
Mental: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tiredness 0 1 2 3 4 5

That nap hit the spot. Only light tiredness and better mental clarity again. I'll make it easily to eight o' clock for third 'official' nap of this day.

keskiviikko 17. maaliskuuta 2010

Day 1 - Just Hangin' Around

Day 1.2
Naptime: Missed nap
Mental: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tiredness 0 1 2 3 4 5

I just completely missed the nap. I was way too awake and couldn't clear my mind from all the thoughts that were coming through. But I guess this was to be expected after that long oversleep yesterday. I'm not too upset about this, just hoping that it won't become a recurring event. I didn't have any trouble during this phase despite not taking the nap.

Day 1.3
Naptime: 8:15 - 8:30, 15 min
Mental: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tiredness 0 1 2 3 4 5

I'm not actually 100 % sure that I fell asleep, but if I did it was only for a short time. I felt very tired at the start of this phase, but after a while it got better. I had planned to exercise in this spot, but due to tiredness I delayed it.

Day 1. 4
Naptime: 12:15 - 12:30, 15 min
Mental: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tiredness 0 1 2 3 4 5

I'm once again not sure whether I slept at all, but I was certainly in some sort of semi-asleep state, so let's credit 15 minutes to sleep for myself, I don't have a clue about the truth in this.

Day 1. 5
Naptime: 16:40 - 16:50, 10 min
Mental: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tiredness 0 1 2 3 4 5

Once again not sure about my sleeping, but I'll put down 10 minutes. I was nearly on time when it comes to this nap, just didn't fall asleep instantly.

Day 1.6
Naptime: 20:10 - 20:30, 20 min
Mental: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tiredness 0 1 2 3 4 5

I feel fine. Ordinary nap. This is going swimmingly. I've taken some caffeine today, equivalent of one cup of coffee. Don't know it that is contributing to my wakefulness. Probably it is at least to some extent, as I don't drink coffee and use any other caffeine products usually, so my body should be pretty sensitive to it I'm not planning to take any more as it can mess with my REM cycles. It could assist me when the sleep dep. gets bad, but I'd rather not use it. I decided not to care about that today, as I don't expect to be anywhere near to be getting REM sleep yet. Maybe I'll get there on third or fourth day, if I can keep this up 'til that without oversleeping. So far so good.

Day 1 Total Sleeping Time: 1h 30min
Day 1 Average Mental State: 7,33
Day 1 Average Tiredness: 0,66

Last Attempt - Day 1 - Do or Die

Well, do or die sounds a little dramatic, don't you think? I've had my full day awake and just finished my first nap of the last attempt. I've learned a bunch of lessons after three total failures which both had a lot of smaller errors in them. I'm going for uberman right at the start as it's well known that it's possible, unlike dymaxion.

So my package of errors I did and I'm not to do anymore:
- Be stricter with my sleeping times. My schedule were on constant change in the previous attempts, so it's not wonder I kept oversleeping and failing to adjust.
- Plan better - add-on for the previous - I need to keep everything in my plan to avoid having to shift my sleeping times.
- Aim for a little shorter naps. I always put my alarm for over 30 minutes after going to bed, sometimes almost 40 minutes if I wasn't that sleepy. That was because I wanted to give myself time to get to sleep. I aimed to sleep the full of 30 minutes. It's not that important really and 15-20 min is much better, since it's easier to wake up. If you slip into too heavy sleep it's going to be tough getting up.
- Get up no matter what. My last attempt failed because I overestimated my wakefulness and decided to lay down there longer. No more doing that.
- Alternate the alarm's locations and such. I need to keep myself on toes regarding to where my phone is when it starts to alarm me to wake up. I'm surprisingly able while I'm sleeping..
- Autosuggestion. I didn't use it much during my last attempts, now I'm going to add some of this to intensify my efforts. Maybe it helps me waking up as well.


Things I'm expecting to finally to experience, that I have so far not 'enjoyed':
- Serious sleep deprivation. I'm talking about the hardcore shit, where you can't even sit without falling asleep. I've had trouble staying awake when I lie down and extreme drowsiness at times, but I haven't really hit the full gear on sleep deprivation yet.
- Hallucinations - this one is a symptom for the sleep deprivation that I'm yet to experience. I've experienced extreme sleep deprivation in my life before, but never hallucinated (unfortunately I don't even do psychedelic drugs).
- REM on naps. Yes I did experience some REM-naps but they were due to the oversleeps earlier on the day. If I get REM while I have not slept over and hour for days, that's when I condies myself done this.

I'm going to make some formatting changes to my blog now, so here goes.

Day 1.1
Naptime: 0:15-0:45, 30 min
Mental: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tiredness 0 1 2 3 4 5 - This varies of course, but I answer on this after waking of from the nap.
And then I'll have a short space of text talking about whether I finally had some REM-sleep or not and some random stuff. On the scale I guess 8 is my normal state, where I feel pretty good and 9 is where I feel great. 10 is preserved in case I feel really, really great. I also notice about extra naps etc. in here. This time I'm going to be a little more conservative with those and only use them when I really feel like shit. Tiredness is rougly like this 0 = not at all tire and 5 = I can barely sit without falling asleep. 4 and 3 are pretty bad and 1 and 2 pretty mild.

tiistai 16. maaliskuuta 2010

Day 8 - Close to Giving Up

I overslept 8 hours, so it was basicly a nights sleep. I wont be napping again until next morning. This time it wasn't phone's fault, it was only my fault. For some reason I didn't get up right away and therefore fell asleep again. After three and a half hours I woke up and realizing that I overslept, I sulked in the bed for some time and in the end fell asleep again.

I will give myself one last change. Next oversleep and it's over. It's do or die. If this fails, I'll be trying it again maybe at the end of the summer, or maybe never. Summer would be easy I guess since it's never dark. But let's think about that if I fail again. I don't want to give up, it's just that I can't stay whole spring doing this. I've been functioning decently while I've been on this experiment, but pretty much never 100 %

Here's my naps so far:
-Dymaxion-

Day 1:
Nap 1: 10 min sleep
Nap 2: 30 min
Nap 3: 2 h 30 min
Nap 4: 0 min

Day 2:
Nap 1: 25 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 5-10 min (?)
Nap 4: 5-10 min (?)
Extra-nap: 10 min

Day 3:
Nap 1: 15 min
Extra-nap: 15 min
Nap 2: 3h
Nap 3: 0 min
Nap 4: 20 min
Nap 5: 15 min

-Schedule Change to Uberman-

Day 4:
Nap 1: 20 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 25 min
Nap 4: 20 min
Nap 5: 30 min

Day 5:
Nap 1: 4h
Nap 2: 10 min
Nap 3: 0 min
Nap 4: 25 min
Nap 5: 15 min

Day 6:
Nap 1: 25 min
Nap 2: 25 min
Nap 3: 15 min
Nap 4: 25 min
Nap 5: 25 min
Nap 6: 20 min

Day 7:
Nap 1: 5 h
Nap 2: 20 min
Nap 3: 20 min
Nap 4: 25 min

Day 8:
Nap 1: 8h

I also consider this the end of this attempt. Next nap will be fourth attempt, day one.

Day 7 - Readjusting

Five hours is such a long time for an oversleep, that it got my cycles a bit messed. I've only napped twice today and with longer intervals than usual, but I think I can now start the nap every four hours routine.

I'm getting some resistance right now from my parents, but it's not that serious. I know I'm not harrassingtheir sleep or anything, they just think that I'll go insane if I don't sleep. I doubt I could get any more insane that I already am.

-Dymaxion-

Day 1:
Nap 1: 10 min sleep
Nap 2: 30 min
Nap 3: 2 h 30 min
Nap 4: 0 min

Day 2:
Nap 1: 25 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 5-10 min (?)
Nap 4: 5-10 min (?)
Extra-nap: 10 min

Day 3:
Nap 1: 15 min
Extra-nap: 15 min
Nap 2: 3h
Nap 3: 0 min
Nap 4: 20 min
Nap 5: 15 min

-Schedule Change to Uberman-

Day 4:
Nap 1: 20 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 25 min
Nap 4: 20 min
Nap 5: 30 min

Day 5:
Nap 1: 4h
Nap 2: 10 min
Nap 3: 0 min
Nap 4: 25 min
Nap 5: 15 min

Day 6:
Nap 1: 25 min
Nap 2: 25 min
Nap 3: 15 min
Nap 4: 25 min
Nap 5: 25 min
Nap 6: 20 min

Day 7:
Nap 1: 5 h
Nap 2: 20 min
Nap 3: 20 min

maanantai 15. maaliskuuta 2010

Day 7 - Forget About Yesterday

I fucked it up again. I heavy overslept for 5 hours. It's back to square one for me. Amazingly I did just what I was afraid - lifted the dumbbells of the box and opened it - while asleep.

So now it's back to thinking a ways to avoid oversleeping, but right now I feel pretty helpless. That was so long oversleep that it throw's me off my schedule as well.

I managed to notch up a 10 successive naps.

EDIT: Well, I figured out an another way. As it was the psychological factor that got me with the cardboard-box until I got too used to it, I'm targeting that side again. I'll just put computer's alarm on with sound to the max or anywhere loud and set it couple of minutes after my phones alarm. If I don't wake up to the phone's alarm then I and pretty much whole house is waken up by the loud sound. I hope the fear of that happening will be enough to get me up any time.

sunnuntai 14. maaliskuuta 2010

Day 6 - The Hardest Day So Far, The Best Day So Far

Every nap today was spot on. However I did experience some sleep deprivation and there was couple of moments I was in the risk of falling asleep. There's not really much else to say. The cardboard box did the job beautifully - the psychological effect was all that was needed, I always woke up instantly to the sound of the alarm, not while I was figuring out how to get phone out of box. I'm going to use

It's only going to get more challenging from now on. I'd suspect the overslept days also help me a bit now while adaptating.

I've played some accuracy demanding games and noticed that my performance has dropped in them. Also I won't be playing poker anytime soon. My thoughts aren't clear enough. I need to be fully adaptated before thinking about that, otherwise I would only be losing money.

And lastly, here's once again the naps so far in a convenient list:

-Dymaxion-

Day 1:
Nap 1: 10 min sleep
Nap 2: 30 min
Nap 3: 2 h 30 min
Nap 4: 0 min

Day 2:
Nap 1: 25 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 5-10 min (?)
Nap 4: 5-10 min (?)
Extra-nap: 10 min

Day 3:
Nap 1: 15 min
Extra-nap: 15 min
Nap 2: 3h
Nap 3: 0 min
Nap 4: 20 min
Nap 5: 15 min

-Schedule Change to Uberman-

Day 4:
Nap 1: 20 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 25 min
Nap 4: 20 min
Nap 5: 30 min

Day 5:
Nap 1: 4h
Nap 2: 10 min
Nap 3: 0 min
Nap 4: 25 min
Nap 5: 15 min

Day 6:
Nap 1: 25 min
Nap 2: 25 min
Nap 3: 15 min
Nap 4: 25 min
Nap 5: 25 min

Day 6 - First Real Test Passed

I was expecting to have the first problems of the day during this first nap like in earlier days. But I actually woke up pretty easily (guess my subconcious didn't like the thought of the alarm). The real trouble however is just starting. But I'm getting repetitive, so instead of always talking about the same things, I'm going to move on.

I feel slightly groggy again.

One observation I have made is some kind of weird switch in the state of mind when I go to sleep. After I've laid there for a couple of minutes I almost feel this switch inside my head go off. I really can't tell yet what it does, but I'll usually fall asleep few minutes after the switch goes off.

Day Five's Last Two Naps

I had finally two solid naps at the end of this day. First was pretty great, long and refreshing and then just now I woke up from the second. I guess the second one was a bit shorter.

Now it's time to start anxiously waiting for the next day and hoping that I finally would be able to avoid oversleeping. I have a following plan: I put the phone in the cardboard box I was talking earlier and then I put the dumbbells on it. If I can clear the dumbbells and open the box while sleeping.. Then I salute myself.

Let's hope we can finally really start the adaptation phase.

lauantai 13. maaliskuuta 2010

Day 5 - The Daily Dose of Missed Naps

I had short nap earlier today, but now I miss another nap. Fact is that I'm not tired at all. That's because of earlier oversleep. I mean, you could practically handle one day with only four hours sleep without naps, it isn't a miracle that I don't feel like sleeping. Even two hours would be too much.

That's why I'm still at the starting point when it comes to adaptating. I simply have to stop oversleeping. I figure putting my phone into hard-to-open cardboard box would force me to wake up to shut it down. We'll see. I'll start using it tonight, but not yet on the next two naps. I'm confident I don't have any problem with those.

Day 5 - The Daily Dose of Ovesleep

This was my worst oversleep so far. I overslept full of 4 hours. This was simply down to extreme laziness, as I remember waking up normally to the alarm, but I'm not sure. I had trouble with this nap since it was scheduled for 3:20, but I managed to finally get to sleep little before six o' clock.

Pretty desperate feeling right now. This constant oversleeping will just not do, despite me being fairly refreshed and making some extra time. I want to fully adjust! I guess my next alternative is to hide my phone inside a cardboard box. If that doesn't work.. Then I'll have my work cut out.

Day 1:
Nap 1: 10 min sleep
Nap 2: 30 min
Nap 3: 2 h 30 min
Nap 4: 0 min

Day 2:
Nap 1: 25 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 5-10 min (?)
Nap 4: 5-10 min (?)
Extra-nap: 10 min

Day 3:
Nap 1: 15 min
Extra-nap: 15 min
Nap 2: 3h
Nap 3: 0 min
Nap 4: 20 min
Nap 5: 15 min

Day 4:
Nap 1: 20 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 25 min
Nap 4: 20 min
Nap 5: 30 min

Day 5:
Nap 1: 4h

I'll just have to be stricter with myself. No more missed naps and then just no more oversleeping.

perjantai 12. maaliskuuta 2010

Day 4: Tired

I'm exhausted. I finally stood awake for about 5 hours and got my nap at 23:20. So next nap is at 3:20. The longer interval didn't do for me much good.

This is the part where nervousness kicks in regarding to morning - will I oversleep again? That would suck so much ass. I have the night to figure out a way to avoid that.

Day 4: Missed Naps

I tried twice to nap, first with the three hour delay and then again when four hours had passed since the previous nap. Both attempts failed and I didn't sleep. I'm going to nap once I get tired and try to re-set my schedule with that with four hour intervals.

I don't feel particularly tired. In fact, I keep feeling great. It's amazing since I haven't have any adaptation phases and I have slept under four hours every day. I just can't wait how great it will be after I adapt.

Day 4: The Fast Nap

I napped like I said hour earlier than normally. I fell asleep soon enough and woke up five minutes before the alarm. I didn't have dreams though, so I guess there's more adaptation to face.

I'll try still another nap in 3 hours, just to see if this is sustainable.

Day 4 - First REM

Nap worked perfectly as usual after oversleeps so far, but this time I also had a dream - first time I have a dream on nap in this experiment. But it's nothing to get carried away. It's probably still side effect to the oversleeping earlier. I've had this kind of stuff before. I got near second REM probably in my over 2 hour nap earlier this day, so my body just started the new nap on the part of the cycle that it was when waking up previously. The funny thing was that I actually kind of knew I was asleep and the dream ended when I realized that "SHIT I MUST BE OVERSLEEPING" and seizured awake.

If I will have dreams in my next few naps too, then I'd say that I'm adapting. But that's very unlikely. I feel pretty refreshed after that nap. There's a bit of drowsiness, but I don't feel like I want to go back to sleep instantly. In fact, I just laid in my bed for about 10 minutes after waking up without fearing that I would fell asleep again (bed is so warm and there was a cat on my lap).

But I'd like to test something and continue 'going with the flow' as I have so far. I'd like actually to shorten my nap interval to press on with this sudden REM. I feel that the shorter the time between naps, the easier it would be to have another REM-nap and then keep chaining them together. Once that happens I could start increasing the nap interval again to at least normal uberman levels, maybe beyond.

I don't know whether this even could work, but I want to try it out. I don't know enough of polyphasic sleep to tell if it possible, but my intuition would say that it could be done. So I'll take the next nap hour earlier I planned or once I get tired, which might happen even earlier.

Day 4 - Oversleeping For A Living

Everything was fine until the 10 o'clock nap. I was expecting so trouble with oversleeping so I moved to sofa and hid my phone. But no. I wake up 2 hours later with my phone beside me. It's frushtrating, but at least I didn't oversleep any longer. I just gotta keep trying harder. I won't probably oversleep again today.

I'm pretty tired also. You'd think more sleep = more rested feeling, but no, I've been more tired the whole time I've had the extra naps added.

Complete log so far:

Day 1:
Nap 1: 10 min sleep
Nap 2: 30 min
Nap 3: 2 h 30 min
Nap 4: 0 min

Day 2:
Nap 1: 25 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 5-10 min (?)
Nap 4: 5-10 min (?)
Extra-nap: 10 min

Day 3:
Nap 1: 15 min
Extra-nap: 15 min
Nap 2: 3h
Nap 3: 0 min
Nap 4: 20 min
Nap 5: 15 min

Day 4:
Nap 1: 20 min
Nap 2: 2 h

Day 4 Starting

Didn't accomplish much during last phase. The feeling of tiredness got away eventually, but I wasn't my sharpest and got tired just in time for the next nap.

It was a great nap. I fell asleep quickly and woke up before the alarm - though I stayed in bed until the alarm because it just felt so warm in there! I'm bit groggy again, so for some reason more naps seem to equal more grogginess. But I hope this is a positive sign, as in, I'm finally starting to adapt. Ow, little bit of headache actually now (and I never have headache).

I guess I'm going to once again let myself to get fully awake, then I'm going to jump into some streching. After that, who knows, maybe I'll just pass time for another 3 hours.

Day 3 Still Going On

The concept of day is really interesting while on dymaxion/whatever polyphasic sleep schedule. It feels like I've been on this forever and we're still officially only at the end of day 3. I guess new days starts at next nap, which will be on 6:10 now that I'm transitioning towards more naps.

I actually slept during my last nap. Wow! We'll see if the same pattern continues - the early night / morning naps go swimmingly and the trouble starts in the noon / afternoon. I'm really trying to fight that in what ever way I can.

So rest of my nap times are following:
6:10
10:20
14:30
18:40
22:45

Notice that I decided to put 10 mins extra to get it in sync with my original schedule, where all the naps started :45 and ended :15. I like that space (I'm thinking of the footy matches - I'd rather miss 15 minutes from the end and 15 minutes from the beginning of the next rather than one 30 minute part of one game.).

I'm feeling really tired now despite waking up before the alarm. Just gotta give myself some time to awaken properly.

torstai 11. maaliskuuta 2010

Day 3 - What I'm Trying To Achieve

Okay so I guess I slept for a short while during my nap just now.

Thing is that because I'm oversleeping, I'm getting some REM-sleep that I need. Once I stop oversleeping, I really start adaptation (and regretfully, feeling shit, but that's what you gotta do to fully adapt).

I didn't have a clear vision of where I'd like this to go when I started this so I didn't talk about what is my real goal in this. Hell, I don't even remember what I wrote in those first couple of posts. I better check before posting this.

Anyway, now the image is slowly starting to form. Here are my main objectives:
- Only 2-3 hours of sleep in 4-6 naps. Like I'd said I'm leaving door open for uberman, in fact I'm leaving it wide open. I guess with the extra naps my 'dymaxion experiment' will be more like uberman. I'd be glad if that worked out too, really glad. If that works out, maybe I'll try to slim it down to dymaxion, maybe I'll test out some own stuff, we'll see. That part is still fuzzy.
- Starting to have lucid dreams pretty much every nap. Even half would do. Or third. Let's say one lucid a day? Not aiming too high, though what I've read from people's experiences is that these start coming in once you're fully adjusted. Right now I'm pretty mediocre lucid dreamer, getting those 3-8 in a month, depending on how hard I'm trying. The ones I do get tend also be a bit poor quality with poor control. Whereas polyphasic dreams are very vivid and I'd expect to have better control over them.
- Have some flexibility over nap times. I already have one if I need, though I'm not really sleep into the sleep deprivation yet, so I'll stay cautious of saying anything
- In may (hopefully I'm succeeding by then) I'd like to experiment with some really hard training and see how my body takes it. If it seems not able to recover, I might consider dropping polyphasic for the summer (because I'm training soccer a lot and I don't want to burn myself out), but if it works out.. Maybe I'll keep on doing this for the rest of my life.

It's early days but I already feel great about the time increase. My mind is not yet as clear as with normal sleeping, but I'm not the mess I was at the some points in first and second attempt. Hopefully I don't turn into one once I finally get a couple of days without oversleeping. But I could live with this state of mind for the rest of my life considering all the extra time gained. I feel I'm functioning with 90 % efficiency while gaining at least 30 % more time every day. That seems like a fair tradeoff. The best thing here is that it's only going to get better once I adjust. My effieciency might even rise from the original and If I manage to mantain strict sleeping schedule I'll be gaining 38 % more time (if I think I used to be awake 16 hours a day and it would turn to 22h).

Missed My Nap Again!

This is crazy. I'm missing my naps all the time. It's understandable though now since the oversleep was so short time ago.

I've been thinking into transitioning into uberman pattern at least for some time. It's common sense that it would be easier and faster to adapt with it. I gotta research how even more naps would work. I'd think adapting would be easier when putting in more naps. When you finally start to hit REM with your naps, you could lower the amount as much as you like. That's something I'd like to do.

My schedule has been all over the place due to commitments, oversleeping and extra naps.I'm going to nap now, so it would be just natural to start transitioning for more naps now. I can always lower then once I've established a beachead.

Day 3 - Oversleeping vol. 3

This time I overslept 3 hours. Like any oversleeping incident, I don't remember a thing and just looked at my phone confused when I finally woke up. I don't even remember the time I went to sleep. It was around 12 and I woke up 15:15. I had some dream about dogs, so I got my REM fix.

This is not horrible situation, I'm not sleeping more than 5 hours and I'm avoiding turning into a zombie, but if it would quicken the adaptation I'd turn to zombie for couple of days pleasantly.

My complete naplog so far:
Day 1:
Nap 1: 10 min sleep
Nap 2: 30 min
Nap 3: 2 h 30 min
Nap 4: 0 min

Day 2:
Nap 1: 25 min
Nap 2: 2 h
Nap 3: 5-10 min (?)
Nap 4: 5-10 min (?)
Extra-nap: 10 min

Day 3:
Nap 1: 15 min
Extra-nap: 15 min
Nap 2: 3h

I'm easily mantaining under 4h / day. It's kind of everyman schedule now with core sleeps and all.

What I'm going to do now is to put my phone to weird places and maybe sleep somewhere I don't usually do, just to keep my body from getting used to anything, so I don't turn alarm off asleep.

EDIT: One thing I realized soon after posting this was the fact, that the oversleeping seems always to occur right after physical stimulation. I was doing heavy manual labor this morning and the afternoon oversleeping is in tune with my exercising. It might be just a coincidence, but I'd still pay extra attention to naps after physical load.

Day 3 - Some Random Thoughts

I started the third day with a nap that was a bit delayed from the normal time because of some work stuff, but only for 10 minutes. The good thing was that I was already feeling tired despite the extra nap. I woke up prematurely because my dad needed more help. I guess I slept like fifteen minutes. I still felt quite refreshed after the nap anyway. The sleep I get from the naps is really weird and I can't grasp where's the line between awake and asleep. The second the alarm sounds I'm instantly alert (unless I'm oversleeping), so it's like dog's sleep in a way.

I sure hope this would finally be the first day I didn't oversleep. I'd consider that major step closer to success. We'll see if I grab another extra nap during this phase. While I did freshen up during the short nap I'm still a bit drowsy so I might need the extra nap. Enough guessing, we'll see.

Some random stuff I've noticed during this experiment:
- The bed feels really, really warm. When I get out of it, I start shivering from coldness. It's crazy. I guess this is more sleep deprivation related, 'cause I've noticed that during sleep deprivation I often feel cold even when there's so warm that I'm sweating.
- No dreams so far, but I haven't really stopped to try to remember one. I guess it would be too early to expect one anyway. If I'd stay on the bed trying to remember a dream I'm afraid I would fall asleep again. I'm not ready for dreams yet..
- I'm eating like an elephant, and unhealthily too. Now usually people go for healthier food on instinct when doing polyphasic sleep, but not me. In my case it's simply function of what there's in the fridge.. Damn you mom. Perhaps I should have a talk with her. Perhaps. Or just grow some discipline.

See ya.

Quick Nap

So I took the quick nap as I was getting more and more tired. I got just up at 5:15, so it was exactly in half between two of my main maps. I'm not sure if I slept again. I guess I did, I just don't recognise it as it's so light sleep. Also I only slept probably for few minutes, as it took pretty long for me to fall asleep again. I'm feeling a bit tired. But I'll make it for next 3 hours with this sleep.

Day 2.4 - What's Wrong With Me?

No, I didn't oversleep - I just kind of missed a nap again. I drifted in a near-sleep state for sometime, but I don't think I ever really fell asleep. Though I'm feeling pretty refreshed, so it's possible.. It's weird that I'm not feeling the slightest of sleep deprivation. I'm not in my sharpest state, but I feel fairly good.

I'd expect this half-assed nap to catch up with me so maybe I'll include first extra nap in a few hours, but of course I won't do it if I don't get tired.

I tested my blood pressure and heart rate. My blood pressure were bit on the high side and my heart rate was 55, which is also a bit bigger than my usual, but it's too close to make any conclusions.

keskiviikko 10. maaliskuuta 2010

Day 2.3 - Another Missed Nap?

I don't remember falling asleep, I once again just sort of drifted in near-sleep state. Still, I'm feeling pretty good so that shouldn't be that much of a problem. Haven't done pretty much anything productive today after helping my dad, but I perhaps should as I don't feel like a mental wreck, I feel almost as fine as with normal monophasic sleep right now. I feel that I've rested enough, though that might be down to the couple of oversleeps I've had.

I'm still waiting for the chance to put in those extra naps. I'm actually pretty surprised how easily I've been able to stay up for the 6 hours that Dymaxion needs. I've had a couple of times tired feelings after 5 hours, but that too is longer than the sleeping interval in Uberman.

Basicly what my plan is now is to go with the flow, but if my body doesn't ask me to nap any other time I'll just keep up with my normal dymaxion schedule.

Day 2.2 - Another Oversleep Issue

I had a brilliant phase after my first nap today. I slept for 25 minutes and woke up before the alarm. I wasn't espeacially refreshed, but I weren't tired like normally. I went to help my dad in which was tough manual labour and it drained pretty well my energy. But even after that I wasn't feeling like I need to go to sleep. I managed easily to wait for my nap time and wasn't even really tired when I went to sleep for second nap.

For some reason I overslept. My phone was unmoved as if it haven't even been set to alarm, but I vividly remember doing it. It was again only 2h oversleep, so this is not that big of setback. It's another mental blow though, cause the first nap today gave me the feeling I was making progress.

I was very excited before last nap also because I read about Steve Pavlina's successful uberman attempt. It's very good piece to motivate yourself pulling through with polyphasic sleep. I have read about it before, but this time I read it with more detail. There were some good tips. Pavlina thinks that in the adaptation phase is good to throw in a few extra naps to avoid oversleeping. That's something I've planned to do, but only if I start to tire prematurely or something like that. It took him something like week to adapt. I guess I'm at the starting point again because of my oversleeping issues.

I'll do the 19:45 nap normally, unless I'm not tired at all. Right now I feel a bit groggy, though not really tired.

Missed The Fourth Nap

Just never fell asleep. It's just misfortune after another in this attempt, but the log looks so far like this:
Nap 1: 10 min sleep (?)
Nap 2: 30 min sleep
Nap 3: 2 h 30 min sleep
Nap 4: 0 min sleep

3h 10 minutes seems decent enough. I'm not feeling that tired now, but I'll expect to be zombified in few hours. My body obviously still thinks nap 3 as a night time sleep so it makes everything it can to prevent me from getting up. I just have to excert more discipline at the third and fourth nap. Also I need to get to bed a bit earlier if I'm not feeling very tired like happened just on this nap. When I'm in a hurry to fall asleep, it just never happens. Need some time to relax.

On first attempt I got to 2.2 when I finally completely overslept, now that shouldn't be such a big of a trouble. Improving seems probable, but that is not saying much.

tiistai 9. maaliskuuta 2010

Motherfucker!

I can't believe it. I overslept again. This evening nap is really, really giving me trouble. Luckily I only overslept for couple of hours only (it made me miss the first half of the evening Champions League -game, so I'm pissed of because of that too). I'm going to act like nothing happened and go on, but fuck, I can't do this oversleeping shit anymore.

Another Nap Later..

Again we're in a familiar position. I'm very tired after just waking up from the second nap. I hope I finally get over the first day this time around.

I've thought for a while about should I really go for dymaxion and still I'm convinced I should at least try for a couple of days. It it doesn't work, I need to use some alternative sleeping patterns and see if some of them work for me especially well.

During last phase I did just what I intended to. I'm supposed to start raining now, but I really should wake up properly before even considering that. I feel very tired right now.

Third Attempt - Go, Go, Go!

I said in my previous post that I'll be re-attempting in couple of days. But no, I'm re-attempting already. I didn't feel like sleeping the whole night which is understandable, since I tend to stay awake too long. I decided that fuck it, since I'm already staing up I might stay up till 7:45, my normal first naptime.

I didn't feel like I slept much though, I sort of tripped between awake and dream. My sister who was preparing to go to school distracted me a bit.

I feel now pretty rested though, so I guess I at least got an eyeful which is enough in my case. I still don't have any back-up plans other than the "cage" where I put my phone. What is basicly is two dumbells put across and my phone is under them. But it works pretty good. I just need to use more willpower when the sleep deprivation kicks in and getting up gets harder.

I decided also to figure out some kind of goal for my daily routine. This would be my ideal plan for each phase and my goal for this experiment.

Phase 1: 8:15-13:45
This would be my daily chore time. Washing the dishes, cleaning up, etc. kind of stuff would be done here along with streching to get my day started. Anyway I would do everything I need to do so rest of the day would be free for me to use as I wish.

Phase 2: 14:15-19:45
My exercise phase. I'll be doing more intense stuff and also standard football training on this phase.

Phase 3: 20:15 - 1:45
This is hardest part to figure out a meaning. On most days, I'll be spending good bulk of this time watching footie, but this could also include some poker and little bit of other activities as well. Pretty much the free time slot anyway.

Phase 4: 2:15 - 7:45
Nighttime slot is the easiest me to figure out - it would be only natural for me to immerse myself into the more creative stuff, which basicly at my case means writing. That said the poker games are usually very soft at this time, so might as well do that too. Also, another streching session would really do me good. That's also good because streching is a very silent form of exercise.

That is my pretty vague goal I'll be aiming. I don't want to make it more exact as I like to go with the flow and do what I want, but some framework is just good.

See ya.

maanantai 8. maaliskuuta 2010

I Hate Myself

So I overslept again. I remember barely waking up to shut down the alarm. The cage did the trick, kind of. I didn't become fully awake though or rather lacked self-discipline to actually get up. I don't know if I was aware enough to even remember I am supposed to get up..

Damn it. I'm gonna keep a couple of days break again and then we'll see if third time's the charm..

sunnuntai 7. maaliskuuta 2010

Day 1.3 - Missed a Nap

I forgot to nap while gaming on lan with couple of my buddies. I don't know what I'm supposed to do here, I guess I just skip the nap. At least I'm not tired.. Yet..

Later update: It has been a bit of a struggle to stay awake for a while, but it looks like I'm going to make it for the next naptime. I'm functioning pretty normally still, but that's not saying much since my normal is pretty bad already.

Day 1.1 - Second Attempt Let's Go!

I kicked the dymaxion experiment back on with my 'nap' just now. Thing is just that I didn't sleep one eyeful. This time around I'm going to be much stricter with the napping time. On the first attempt I only went to sleep at the set times - but as I didn't fall asleep instantly I just moved the waking up time onwards so that I could get the 30 mins of sleep. That was the wrong thing to do, since that way my sleeping times weren't stabilized. This time I'm going to have waking up times - I'll wake up that time no matter what, even if I haven't slept a second, like happened on this instance. That way I'm forcing myself more on the schedule My waking times will be 8:15, 14:15, 20:15 and 2:15. So I decided to keep the old times for going to sleep.

Also I made it harder for myself to get around to shutting down the alarm by making a sort of 'cage' for my phone. I hope it works, it shouldn't be as easy at least to just get around to pushing it off asleep.. We'll see. I'll still try to figure out some alternative.

So while I didn't sleep on my first nap, I'll still call this day 1.1 (it's good that this time the day starts at the dawn) and I'm feeling pretty good. My plan is to pretty much watch footie for the morning. I didn't watch last nights matches so I'm going to catch them now on rerun.

See ya!

tiistai 2. maaliskuuta 2010

Tried Again

..To start Dymaxion. I didn't have back-up yet and it was my fall again. I just don't wake up to my phone's alarm. I had the alarm on, but I woke up after four hours and my phone wasn't where I left it. I searched for couple of minutes and finally found it on my bed. I presume I picked it up and pressed the alarm off while I was sleeping. So I need to figure out a back-up, before that it will be very hard to re-attempt.

Thinking about the two days of first attempt, I liked it very much. I had plenty of time to do all kinds of timewasting activities and yet I could get something done. It will be my motivation to get it right this time.