Day 30: Lucid Dreaming! 6:31 AM

Sorry for the lack of updates! I felt like I had the same failures and successes as I had already mentioned in every blog that there was no point in continuing to update. I am now on day 30 (yikes!) and still not completely adapted. Aya Hu mentioned that at day 27 she fully adapted and felt terrific, so hopefully I will soon too!
I had a lot of cases of oversleeping (usually by an hour or so), so that may be why I am still not completely adapted. I will give it another week or so and, if I still feel the same, I may abandon polyphasic sleep for now. Sleep deprivation for this long can't be healthy!
On a positive note, I had my first lucid dream and it was pretty cool. I read that if you keep an eye out for unusual stuff, you can sometimes lucid dream, so that's how it happened. What I remember of the dream is as follows:
I arrive at my house and notice it is sorta broken into or sorta run down. There are window slats missing, etc. So I peek in the front door and am afraid that there are people inside or something. I make noise and notice some kids jump out of the window on the side of the house and run to the neighbor, where they apparently live. The leader is a huge fat kid around 17 and about twice my size! I somehow become friends with them (don't really remember anything in between) and we were leaving my apartment to go for a drive. Mitch was dilly-dallying on his computer when I left, so everyone was waiting for him. I proceeded down the stairs where "Leon" from the Professional (actor Jean Reno) and an undead version of Dr. House from the show House (actor Hugh Laurie) were waiting. I then noticed that the staircase had a very strange configuration. This made me immediately think that I was dreaming and that I could do whatever I wanted. I then decided to fly off the balcony and up into the sky. At some point my alarm woke me up and that was it...
I will try to keep everyone updated on my last week or two of adaptation. With any luck I will soon adapt well and be able to stay on uberman!

Day 19: A Dream Machine! 5:06 AM

2.5 weeks in and I'm still suffering from some serious sleep deprivation. It comes and goes, like always, but is really starting to take its toll on me mentally and physically. I have had several instances of oversleeping that may have hampered my progress so far, but I am not ready to give up and will keep up the schedule!

I sometimes would sabotage myself from waking up and have no memory of it. This has started to occur more frequently in some funny ways. The other night some friends called me and I answered the phone, talked for 30 seconds and hung up, and now I have no memory of that ever happening. I am not sure how to overcome this except by repeatedly trying to force myself to wake up after each nap and put in place more fail-safes that will make it hard for me to sabotage.

Everyone is talk to about this has seemed so intrigued by Polyphasic sleep. If it wasn't for such interest and encouragement, I may have already given up and gone back to monophase. At this point, though, I am locked into this and will continue it for as long as possible!

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)!