Day 12: Its about Twelve (O'clock)! 4:27 AM

Haven't posted in a while, but I am still going for it with Uberman! I have had quite a lot of mishaps but I am not giving up yet. Lots of oversleeping but I am pinpointing them problems and will soon be back at it!
The biggest issue I had was the other night I missed a nap at a party (well worth it, was a real blast!). That night I overslept my 3am nap by 2 hours and felt really groggy. The next day I also overslept by sleeping right through my alarm, despite the fact that I put it right next to my face. I need to get a new alarm because it seems that I have developed an immunity to this one.
There are several things that I am starting to figure out that may help prevent oversleeping. The main danger of oversleeping comes when you enter Slow-wave Sleep (SWS), aka. deep sleep. This is the deepest form of sleep and is very hard to wake up from. Waking up from it also leaves you groggy for some time after.
Some studies have shown that people tend to enter SWS more often when they have a high body temperature. Therefore, I am starting to keep the temperature lower when I nap so I do not enter SWS as easily.
The duration of my naps may be a big problem too. When I started, I would set my timer for 25 minutes, figuring I would need 5 minutes to fall asleep. Now, however, I fall asleep instantly and 25 minutes is too long, leaving me in SWS sometimes when I wake up (or fail to wake up). I am going to start putting me alarm at 20 minutes from now on and see if that helps.
Due to these mishaps with oversleeping, my adaptation may take a little longer, but I am confident I can still succeed!

Day 7, Almost to Heaven! 4:57 AM

Day 7 had the usual ups and downs. As always, I get very tired around 4am, and even worse around 8am. Once I make it through the 11am nap, however, I feel completely fine. I guess I have to break my Cicadean rythem, which takes a bit longer.
I still do not dream very much during my naps. I guess I am still not at that level of adaptation yet, though I am looking forward to it. Most of my naps (especially late at night) are just blank. They differ greatly from some feeling like brief blackouts to others that seem to last many hours.
Lately I will sometimes wake up mid-nap and go back to sleep for the remainder. I find it very strange that I wake up 10 minutes after falling asleep and then have to go back to sleep for the remaining 10. These naps never provide very much rest.
Last night I got back into my old hobby: bread baking! In undergraduate school I used to bake bread sometimes, but I have not had the time/motivation to do it lately. Now I have hours of extra time (necessary to let the bread rise) with little to do. Every morning I can now have fresh bread! Last night I made a Portuguese sweet bread. It is a pretty simple yeast bread that is easy to make. In the future, I plan on making some more exotic and exciting breads, so you will have to check back to see what I come up with.

Day 6, In the Mix! 2:57 PM

Just when I thought I was through the hardest part, I was hit the hardest! After my last blog entry, I felt great and went to work. As soon as I got there, the sleep deprivation of the last 6 days hit me. I couldn't focus my eyes, it took all my effort to stay awake, and I would nod off randomly only to jump up with a sudden start! I even wrote some "work notes" during this time that are complete jibberish and I have no memory of writing. I guess I thought scrawling "Yep." and "not all-together though..." directly over my old notes would be productive. This hell lasted for nearly 3 hours, until I could go to the library for my 11am nap.
I felt OK for the rest of the day. We went to the Beach, so I got some physical activity. During the night I was again very tired. I was planning on baking a bread but did not have the mental ability or will-power to do it. I still managed to stay up between my naps and fought off the urges to sleep.
For my 7am nap, however, I was very tired and was instantly out. I had some fantastic dream (that I do not remember the details of) and was woken up by my alarm just before some great secret was revealed! I set my alarm for 3 minutes and went back to sleep. It woke up at 8:30 feeling very groggy. This is the last time I try going back to sleep after a nap, even if its for just a few minutes!

First Dream on Uberman! 10:59 AM

So my first dream came during my 7am nap on the beginning of day 6. I now feel much better at this hour than any other previous day (7:30am-10:00am was my hell time). I woke up feeling like I had been sleeping most of the night and was just sorta waking up early. It's a real mind eff to see your clock has only advanced 20 minutes when you feel like you slept the whole night. Kinda feels like cheating...
I think I am started to adapt!

Day 5: Still Alive? 5:44 AM

Day 5 done and gone! I'm feeling slightly better, though mornings are still hell. Overslept by 4 hours on my 3am nap. Going to try moving the alarm to the other side of the room to prevent this from happening again.
I went to work today just after my 7am nap and was pretty tired all the way up until my meeting at 10am. During the meeting, my boss said that I looked like crap, but I was able to intelligently discuss things still. I told him I have been working on some thesis or something...
2 Naps in the library went well. I seem to sleep better in sitting position in a library than in a bed (especially one full of spiders!). I think some dreams may be coming on soon but I am not remembering them at all. Hopefully this blog will get more interesting when I start getting more cracked out dreams.
Time for my 3am nap, see you tomorrow (aka. 6 days for me)!

Day 4, ready for more! 4:06 AM

My roommates have been trying to grind my gears about this whole polyphase thing for the last day or so. They started recording video blogs claiming to be doing polyphase when they obviously do not. Something about getting "polyphasic babes" I think... I guess they are trying to reap the rewards without putting up with the pain. One actually stayed up, took one 20 minute nap, then went to sleep at 5am and slept in until noon. Obviously they are not going to put any serious effort into adapting.

At this point I am getting used to taking naps. My body is able to fall asleep very quickly and waking up is not a problem at all. However, I have still not had a single dream since I started polyphasing, nearly 90 hours ago.

I noticed this morning that the eye lag and dryness is starting to get pretty bad. It was taking all my effort to focus my eyes and started getting pretty painful. It was even to the point where I found myself with one eye opened to avoid the energy needed to focus without falling asleep.

The feelings of time distortion and transience are starting to get interesting. Now that I am sleeping more soundly for the naps, the feeling of time passage has increased during them. This past weekened seemed like it was about 2 weeks long, so going back to work today felt like I just returned from a vacation.

Day 3, Chee Hee! 3:15 AM

Still at it with the Uberman adaptation. I noticed some decrease in mental function this evening. I will not be taking the additional 1am nap tonight as I did last night, and see if that affects my tiredness level.
So far I have not really experienced any level of tiredness that I could not withstand. No real danger of uncontrolled sleep yet. However, I am still not dreaming in my naps so there is a good chance it will get worse. Tomorrow morning after the 7am nap is going to be the real test. That nap is always hardest to wake up from.
I am considering going to work tomorrow, though I am afraid of accidently falling asleep or doing something stupid. If I am very tired tomorrow morning I will call in sick and hope that I adapt soon and can continue work.

2nd Day, ready to play! 9:05 AM

The 2nd day was one of the longest days I have experienced. From the time of my last blogging, I took my 7am nap and became very tired after I woke up. From 7:30-9:00 I was extremely tired but was able to will myself to stay awake. During this time I also became very sensitive to cold. I was freezing this whole time and had to wrap myself in multiple blankets.
Once my roommates woke up and there was more activity, the extreme urge to sleep passed and I felt OK. I spent the entire day with friends doing various activities, so it was somewhat difficult to fit in naps. I did not sleep at all for my 3pm nap because I was riding in a car. The 7pm nap worked out well and everyone decided to take a 20 minute "interval."
The rest of the night was very long and involved a lot of driving on my part. My 11pm nap was a completely failure (30min late and in a parked car) so I decided to add a 1am nap. After taking my 1am and 3am naps without incident, I felt more rested and able to handle the rest of the night. Never during this time was I overly tired or worried about driving. I even got $30 for driving some friends around at these normally extreme hours.
It is now 6am and I am getting ready for day 3. So far I have been able to sustain myself with these naps, even while doing lots of activities and sleeping in various places. There is no way I would have been able to do this much without being completely exhausted at this point. Even before adaptation is complete I am reaping some benefits of the Uberman schedule. Hopefully the rest of my adaptation goes as well...

Day One, Having Fun! 8:33 AM

Video Entry after Day 1 of my adapation:



Day 1:
Did not really sleep much during my naps during the day. Maybe just dozed off for a few minutes. After my 7:00pm nap, I went to a get-together at a friend's house where I had a couple of drinks. Tried to take my 11:00pm nap there, but did not manage to really sleep with music playing and whatnot.
We then went to a bar where I had one more drink, but did not really get drunk at all. I set my timer for 3:00 but apparently it was set for 3:25pm. I woke up at 4:25 when by 25minute timer went off (now sure how that's possible). So I overslept for exactly 1 hour. Hopefully this will not happen anymore, I will try to be more careful when setting my alarms.
No real sleep deprivation yet, even after the 1.5 hour nap. No dreams that I remember in any of my naps yet.

The Plan... 9:26 PM

Polyphasic sleep involves breaking up your sleep pattern into multiple smaller phases. Unlike monophasic sleep (which most humans are accustomed to), on a polyphasic sleep schedule a person can get the needed amount of rest with much less overall sleep. The average person needs 7-9 hours of sleep per day sleeping monophasically (roughly 1/3 of the day). On a polyphasic system, however, it is possible to get by with as little as 2 hours of sleep per 24 hour period (1/12 of the day).

There are several different polyphasic systems used, each with different pros and cons. I chose the so-called "Uberman" sleep schedule. This schedule involves taking a 20 minute nap every 4 hours, for a total of 2 hours of sleep per day. My sleep will be broken up into 6 naps per day at the times:

7-7:20am
11-11:20am
3-3:20pm
7-7:20pm
11-11:20pm
3-3:20am

The first week is considered to be hell, with roughly 98% of people who attempt it dropping out and going back to monophasic. The sleep-deprivation during this first week is considered to be almost unbearable, yet once you make it through this transition, your body will supposedly adapt and begin to gain the needed rest.

I will try to post my daily experiences during adaptation and record videos when possible. Despite all the nay-sayers out there, I think I can successfully adapt and accomplish infinitely more things with all the extra time!