Polyphasic

In the meantime, I still want to put something here to offer to those of you that are trying or want to try a new sleep schedule. This site has been getting a surprising number of visitors since I started keeping this journal. Before, I mentioned putting up message boards and such for people to share their experiences. I may see if I can throw something quick and dirty together. I’ll probably also organize things a bit more, and maybe throw together a sort of how-to document.

I’m curious if anyone who’s been reading this has been trying it? I’d like to hear from you, if you are.

Good night (for now),
-ben

It’s interesting to note that, even though I was getting a somewhat normal amount of sleep all weekend, my body was still craving naps. This is interesting, because I’m not usually a napping type of person, but they really do wonders for your mood, even if you’re not that tired.

It’s interesting to think that, even though this experiment has been going pretty poorly for me, I’ve still been managing to get through life pretty functionally on just 4 or 5 hours of sleep every day. While that’s not neccesarily too unusual, or tough to do, it would have been catching up to me a lot more by now, normally.

This is pretty disappointing to me, as I have really gotten used to the concept of all this extra free time. So, I’m going to strike some sort of a compromise between my body and my mind. When I think about it, while I’ve been trying to do the 30/30/30/30/30/30 schedule, what my body has been forcing me into most days (through over sleeping) seems to be about 30/30/30/30/30/120. Maybe I should just listen to my body and do that intentionally. That would be 30 minute naps at 06:00, 10:00, 14:00, 18:00, 22:00, plus a 2 hour rest from 02:00-04:00. That’s 4.5 total hours of sleep, still well below my standard 7-8.

I even feel like the nap schedule may be flexible. I could probably drop them back down to 20 minutes. Maybe I could even cut out a couple. Like the 10:00 (screws with my workday a bit) and the 22:00 (makes it tough to go out at night). That would actually bring it down to 3 hours of sleep, total. The main concert I have with this is it may drop me down to dangerously low levels of REM. The 3 naps would probably be pure REM, so that’s an hour right there, but could I get another full hour out of the 120 minutes? Probably not. In a “normal” night’s rest, the first 90 minutes are a progression of stages 1-4, followed by 10 minutes of REM, then starting over. The question is whether or not my body would adjust, like it does in the naps, and find a way to get 60 minutes of REM in there.

Another possibility might be something like this: 2 120 minute rests at 02:00 and 12:00, plus 1 or 2 20 minutes naps throughout the day, as needed.

The reason for the using 120 minutes is explained pretty well here, on sleepnet. It’s backed up by the fact that almost all of my “slips” have been either 2 hours, or 4 hours. I’m guessing that I get about 20 minutes of REM sleep in each 120 minute rest (2 complete cycles of stages 1-5, each yielding 10 minutes of REM).

I’ll be experimenting with this through the weekend, and I’ll hopefully decide on something specific to begin Monday.

Speaking of food, it’s been mentioned by others that they get weird food cravings when under this schedule. For me, it’s been trail mix. Not that unusual, since I have always like trail mix, but I’ve been getting pretty serious urges for dried fruit and nuts. It may well be simply that my body is craving the pure, concentrated calories.

Also, thank you to everyone who’s been emailing me to wish me good luck! I got a few of those Friday morning, when I was feeling pretty hopeless about the whole thing, and knowing that there’s people out there actually watching this journal with some interest is a really powerful motivator for me!

I’ve actually been toying with the idea of putting up a section of the site devoted entirely to alternative sleeping methods. I’m thinking along the lines of a collection of links and howtos, and a message board. I’m probably not going to do anything serious before June 1, though, as our office is moving, and there may be lots of chaos and a little down time at the end of this month.

Sunday, I shrugged off the initial disappointment of failure (as well as missing the club), and got on with the day. My body was completely confused, and off-cycle. I hung out with a bunch of people drinking on a pier, and managed to miss my 18:00 nap. I only drank 2 beers, so I didn’t think it would be an issue. I planned to get home at 22:00, take my nap, then code all night, in a desperate attempt to complete a wayward project. My 22:00 lasted until 04:00, at which point I decided to just go to bed and start fresh Monday.

So, here I am, back on schedule with my naps, and staying away from the drink for a while (at least until I fell that I’ve adjusted). I’m committing myself at least through the end of the week, but, if this week goes as poorly as the last, I may have to accept that this schedule isn’t right for me, or at least for my life right now. I am, however, in the process of devising alternate plans, which I may attempt if this fails. The big one I’m looking at is something along the lines of sleeping from 04:00-08:00, then taking a nap from 18:00-20:00. Either that, or the 4-8 combined with a series of short naps. I’ll look into it more, especially whether or not I’d hit the appropriate cycles with those, if it looks like I will be abandoning this method.

Pretty much the hardest thing about this, so far, has been living with a monophasic sleeper. A lot of my oversleepings have been a result of me latching onto my girlfriend’s sleep schedule. Having somebody asleep right next to you is a great way to get really, really tired. I’d recommend to anyone else trying this, that shares a bed with somebody, to try to get them to do it, as well.

Two, I should not nap in an environment in which I used to sleep for extended periods. It’s too tempting to sleep all night. I was previously taking my 02:00 and 06:00 in bed with Alicia, which is just too comfortable of a situation. Last night, for instance, I woke up to turn off the timer, and decided to “just give Alicia a little hug.” I’ll take all of my nighttime naps in the situation I described above, until I feel that I’ve adjusted enough to make it safe.

Another issue is that the weekend is here. Tonight should be okay to deal with, but Saturdays, I go to a goth club. Part of my reason for the 2, 6, 10 schedule I’m on is that this makes clubbing possible without missing a nap (at least by much). I can get dressed, take my 22:00 on the couch, the head out the door. I then head straight home after the club closes, and should be able to take my 02:00 by 02:30. I’m not going to be too hard on myself if I screw up this weekend. I can always get a fresh start on Monday, powered by everything I’ve learned this week.

I won’t give up. No matter what setbacks I hit, I think I should try it for at least 10 days (unless my friends tell me that I appear to be endangering myself). If another incident like this happens, actually, I may even up my minimum trial period to 14 days or more, to account for a prolonged adjustment period.

It’s like there were too sides to me at once: the stereotypical hacker, staying up all night coding to nothing but the glow of the crt, and something very basic and natural, like when you go camping. It was really cool having the cats around all night, too. I can finally keep an eye on them to make sure they’re not breaking things while I sleep.

It’s obvious to me that all of the above is the result of some sort of a weird sleep-dep high, and there’s really nothing wrong with that, I hope it lasts. I also finally managed to get some significant code written last night, which is cool, since that’s really the main goal of this project.

I don’t remember the second dream, just that I know I had one. Usually, when I wake up, my reams are pretty easy to recall. It may take a few minutes of thinking about it, or talking about it, but it usually comes back eventually. The dreams I had tonight were much more slippery. There was a lot more to the bus dream. I don’t even think the woman on the bus was the most interesting part, but I can’t even get the slightest handle on what it was. The second dream may have had something to do with typing and Alicia’s mom.

My appetite is still pretty weak. Over the course of the day, about 5 zits appeared on my face. It’s very unusual for me to get that many, so suddenly. I’m sure it has something to do with sleep, but I can’t really figure out the connection.

I feel really good right now, even though my 10:00 nap at my desk was fairly unsuccessful. I’m a bit groggy, but that’s not surprising, as I’ve had no coffee, just 3 or 4 Penguins. I don’t really feel like I missed a night’s sleep, more like I just didn’t sleep that deeply, like if I had nightmares that kept waking me up, or something. The only negative affect I can feel is a decreased appetite. I’m going to exercise tonight, which should help with that.

The dream had something to do with driving in my car. My car was really dirty, and I was resentful towards my passengers, as they were adding to the trash. I got on the highway to go to our destination, and they told me I was going the wrong way. I had actually just assumed their destination, without being told. I then had trouble turning around, and got stuck on some road where it didn’t seem like a car belonged, then I was riding a bicycle. I think I was making my passengers late, as there was a feeling of nervous ungency.