#polyphasic sleep experiment

[sunandblaketho]

Polyphasic sleep experiment update: 14

ok wow I’m sorry I’ve been so lazy and haven’t done any journals :’D

so the last journal I wrote was the night before I had a friend over. He arrived around 1 PM, and we ended up going to the shops. this ended up delaying my 1:30 PM nap by about 15 minutes, the longest I’ve delayed a nap. I didn’t manage to get any sleep that nap. my 5:30 and 9:30 PM naps were much the same, I didn’t manage to get any sleep. I think this was more due to self-consciousness than anything else, he didn’t make any noise or try to talk to me, I just couldn’t comfortable fall asleep with him around. my 1:30 AM nap was an absolute mess; I ended up sleeping through till the end of my 5:30 AM nap. by this point he was also asleep and slept through my alarm too. my naps that day went fairly well, I didn’t sleep during my 9:30 AM nap due to having overslept, but I slept pretty well through the others, until again my 1:30 AM nap. Apparently he tried to wake me, I woke up, swore at him a bit, turned my alarm off and went back to sleep. I have absolutely no memory of this. The next thing I remember it’s 10:30 AM and I was feeling pretty good that I only overslept half an hour. then I was told what happened :’D

the thing about constantly oversleeping is, since the adaptation from monophasic to polyphasic sleep is driven by sleep deprivation, it essentially undoes any progress I may have made. with that in mind, and having been at this for over a week by this point, I decided that I would take a break from polyphasic sleep. My plan was adjust my monophasic sleep schedule to almost entirely nocturnal (which is natural for me anyway, without a regular daytime schedule I end up sleeping when the sun’s up rather than down) and try again, to see if this had any effect on the 1:30-10 AM crash I was experiencing. I knew I wouldn’t have any where near enough time to realistically adjust even if this worked, as I go back to school in less than a week, but I was hoping that I would at least be able to trial it for a day or two and see if it had any effect. unfortunately, some family things have come up at very short notice and this isn’t possible.

for now at least, this is the end of my polyphasic sleep experiment. however it’s worth noting several things that have happened since returning to monophasic sleep:

my sleep is no where near as restful, I often wake up after 8-12 hours of sleep feeling far more tired than when I was sleeping in a series of naps. this may have something to do with: A) not going to sleep as often, so my brain thinks I’m actually sleeping less B) my body no longer needing to sleep as efficiently as possible, resulting in more time spent in N1 and N2 phases of sleep. this can be considered ‘normal’ for a monophasic sleep pattern.

sleeping for such a long period of time is causing me a large amount of stress. I feel like I’m wasting time that I could be using for other things. coupled with the fact that: A) I know I can function with at least semi-normalcy on polyphasic sleep. B) monophasic sleep feels lest restful. this only gets worse. much, much worse. this is again added to by stress of going back to school which is quite frankly terrifying.

With these things in mind, I fully intend to attempt polyphasic sleep again next holidays (exact dates unknown, around 10-15 weeks I think). 

Edit: I’ve also noticed that since this experiment my dream retension has improved drastically.

[sunandblaketho]

Polyphasic Sleep Experiment update: 13

well, surprisingly, my 1:30AM-2AM nap went perfectly, didn’t oversleep or anything. dream retention was fine, slight groginess upon waking though. but what i really wanna talk about...

IS THE DREAM I JUST HAD:

so we were playing gta right (it wasn't gta it was like gta on acid man vehcles bigger than skyscrapers wtf brain) and me and blaine Gibson were driving atound in a firetruck bigger than a house delivering mail (by this point it was not gta my mind was fully convinced it was real) then like, somehow, in that weird dream way we're in like, a hospitality class? except joel heyman was the teacher and her was having a go at us for not only not delivering shit, but setting everything on fire. let me reiterate: we were in a firetruck. so we're standing there, leaning on this stove and joel makes me read out delivery instructions and suddenly i can barely read and it was insanely hard and rly embarrassing and blaine was laughing his ass off cause he was gonna get in shit but i took the blaine blame for it and i'm silently freaking out and joel's just all bracing and "it's ok, you can do it" then my alarm went off and i'm still trying to work out wtf happened :'D

I MEAN, I DUNNO WHERE GTA, HOPSITALITY, BLAINE OR DRUGS CAME INTO IT BUT IMMEDIATELY PRECEEDING MY NAP I WAS WATCHING ON THE SPOT AND I REMEMBER THINKING "JOEL IS THE YOUNGEST SENIOR CITIZEN ALIVE" THEN I TOOK A NAP AND THAT HAPPENED :'D

[sunandblaketho]

Polyphasic Sleep Experiment Update: 12

Whelp, I tried extending my 9:30PM nam to 10:10PM to see if it would have any difference in my ability to waje up from either my 1:30AM or 5:30AM naps. But, It isn’t going to do a damn thing if I lay there and couldn’t sleep the whole time. Which, you guessed it, just happened.

Y’know, something interesting about trying and failing to sleep, even if you’re wide awake: It makes you feel awful. I’m so groggy and tired and grumpy it’s not funny.

I’m really, really hoping this doesn’t make me oversleep again :s

[sunandblaketho]

Polyphasic Sleep Experiment Update: 11

Ok so this one’s basically for the last 24 hours or so, now that I’ve covered the symptoms I’m experiencing updates will likely only be daily now unless something happens (oversleeping, schedule change, etc.)

First thing, I overslept again last night, I went down at 1:30AM and woke up at 6:30AM. This is seriously, seriously bad and I need a way to stop it ASAP, because it’s halting and possibly even undoing any progress I’ve made.

I’ve added another, louder alarm at the end of both my 1:30AM and 5:30AM naps, because they’re the ones I know I oversleep on. If that doesn’t work, I’m planning a schedule change in the next day or so that will either: A) Lengthen night time naps by 10 minutes B) Shorten day time naps, which I often feel the urge to skip (I haven’t, but I deffinitely feel like I could) C) Both D) add in a longer sleep, possibly of one hour, at my 9:30PM sleep, in order to aleviate the build up of SWS pressure, which is what causes me to sleep through my alarms for hours.

It’ll likely take a few days of experimentation, and I’m not sure if any of it will help.

If you have any suggestions or advice, send them my way, I’d love some input.

Ok, on to the less negative stuff. During the day I have next to no negative symptoms asside from some slight occasional groginess. I’ve noticed that I am begginning to fall asleep slightly faster, often within 5-15 minutes as opposed to starting to fall asleep around the 20 minute mark. While not yet at the standard I’m aiming for (under a minute or two) this is a definite improvement. I’m feeling significantly more rested from my naps, and they’ve started to feel a lot longer than they are. I think this is for a combination of these reasons: A) falling asleep faster B) going to sleep more often, as opposed to once a night, I’m going to bed every 4 hours, or 8 times every 24 hours, this gives the impression I’m actually sleeping more (contrary to what my body tells me) C) my body may be begginning to adapt, skipping stages N1 and N2 and entering SWS and REM faster D) your mind works faster when asleep, especially while dreaming, which may make the time feel longer

And finally, while on the topic of dreams, my dream retension is getting better. I find I’m waking up and usually remembering at least one dream I’ve had. This is especially noticeable when I’m woken from REM, in the middle of a dream (such as just then), which is the goal anyway. This is a best case scenario: -I lie down for a nap, not feeling overly tired -I fall asleep quickly -I enter SWS for roughly 20 minutes -I enter REM for roughly 10 minutes (note that when I reduce the naps to 20 minutes ideally it’ll be about 12:8) -I have a dream -I’m woken from REM the moment my alarm goes off, feeling refreshed -I remember my dream

Every single one of these occured in the nap I just had. the only downside to this is that the reason I wasn’t feeling overly tired was because I overslept last night/this morning, which essentialy makes most of this progress void.

The end goal is to experience each and every nap (but particularly the 1:30AM and 5:30AM ones) just like this, on a continuous cycle. While it’s slow progress normally, and with the regular oversleeping it’s like banging my head against a brick wall, I’m going to keep trying, hopefully for the duration of the holidays (a bit less than 2 more weeks). If I’ve adapted reasonably well by then, I’ll have some flexibility with my naps and be able to fit them around school. If not, that will be the end of this experiment (unless I decide to try it again next time I’m on break).

[sunandblaketho]

Polyphaisc sleep experiment updaye: 10

ok well i made it through the hardest part f the day withought oveerdleeping, but now i really  cna’t focis: proper seeing double, everythings like, sliding over other stuff it’s kinda inconvenient won’t lie. i think i’ll have a nap in 2 hours

Update: makes sense but if i close on eye it’s much easier, not perfect though

Update 2: apparently my assumption that it was due to waking from the wrong phase of sleep (SWS) as opposed to the deprivation was right. i had no symptoms before the nap and now they’ve completely subsided.

one thing i noticed is that when i got up and moved my vision was basically fine. without doing any research, my guess is that this developed as a way urge the body to sleep when it’s inactive (i.e. safe) but still allow it to function when needed (e.g. hunting, avoiding predators).

also, i now feel confident enough to skip the 7:30AM nap i had planned: i dealt with (albeit uncomfortably) the buildup of SWS pressure, i should be fine now.

[sunandblaketho]

Are you taking your blood pressure during the experiment?

unfortunately not, i have no way to measure it.

[sunandblaketho]

Polyphasic Sleep Experiment Update: 9

ok, i just took a shower to wake myself up a bit and i’ve noticed two new side effects:

dilated pupils.

increased nervousness/paranoia/jumpiness etc.

[sunandblaketho]

Polyphasic Sleep Experiment Update: 8

As predicted, the 1:30-2AM sleep is by far the hardest. I’m tired and having trouble thinking, I can’t focus on anything. something just happened where i blinked and half an hour had passed, and it wasn’t sleep. That was pretty trippy. I think my eyelids have sawdust under them :’D