Archive for the ‘Sleep’ Category
Dan on February 10th, 2006
I finally have time to update the site. I’m now working out at school 3 days a week. I haven’t devised my entire workout plan yet but the general idea is 10-20 min of cardio with 10-20 min of targeted weight training. I’d like to make that 5 days a week but that’s just not possible with class 8-5 on the other 2 days. I have to leave at 7:30 right now to get to class on time. I’d have to make that 6:30 if I wanted to have enough time to workout and shower. I’m not even sure if the fitness room is open then, plus I’m giving a ride to a friend and I don’t think he’d like having to wake up an hour earlier.
My sleep patterns have been a mess this week. I started with polyphasic and that was going okay until I overslept on Wednesday and ended up going back to monophasic. I’m going back to polyphasic this weekend with the same 5 period schedule I posted before. The problem is that adjusting while I’m in class is hard. So long as I’m doing something interesting I have no problem staying awake. Once it gets boring though, like Accounting is at the moment, I start nodding off and having microsleeps. I really hope I can adjust enough this weekend to maintain it through the week. I really need the extra time in order to accomplish work on my investing research and my new website.
Speaking of the site, I’m not working at all this weekend so I’m going to spend some time working on it. I still have to run the idea past an attorney but I think I can make it work. More details to follow.
Dan on February 4th, 2006
I’m happy to report that I feel great, despite skipping two of the five naps I will be normally taking. Here’s hoping that the new schedule will work well.
One thing I haven’t commented on is how other people perceive polyphasic sleep. Nearly everyone I tell about it reacts like I’m crazy. I have to reassure them that yes, I do it and yes, it does work. They still think I’m nuts and that I’m either going to die, go crazy, or I’m lying. I this reaction continues to intrigue me. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising considering how close minded the masses are. It’s truely unfortunate how little people think for themselves now.
Dan on February 2nd, 2006
My one week of reset is over. It was interesting to see how quickly I readjusted to monophasic sleep and waking up at 8AM without an alarm (on non-school days). If anything this has taught me that I hate wasting 8 hours on sleep. Since I lived like this for 24 years it feels normal again, but I miss having that extra time. This is especially true now that I’m in school and have a part time job. My available time has been cut to about 1/3 of what it used to be, not including sleep.
I have to plan my sleep around my school schedule (school was one reason for ending polyphasic sleep temporarily). I think it will be easier to adjust if I hold to the same schedule everyday, at least until I get used to it. I’ve decided that I’m going to try the following:
1:00AM - 4:00AM (3h core)
6:30AM - 6:55AM (25 min nap)
1:00PM - 1:25PM (25 min nap) *
5:30PM - 5:55PM (25 min nap)
9:30PM - 9:55PM (25 min nap) **
* - The 1PM nap will be taken at school. I have to do some searching to find a suitable location for this. Once it warms up I can sleep in my car, but for now I’m not sure where I can take this one. Possibly in a forgotten row of books at the library 
** - The 9:30PM nap may be dropped. I will see how it goes. If I feel it’s necessary I’ll take it, if not I’ll drop it.
This gives a total of 4:40 h of sleep. Much more than the 2h I was taking before but I think it will suit me better. We’ll see how it turns out. I may end up reducing the core to 1.5h or increasing it to 4.5h, depending on how it goes.
Dan on January 25th, 2006
It happened again last night, another oversleep and another memory lapse. I went to sleep around 11:15PM and woke up at 4:30AM. When I woke up the timer was sitting on my bed, physically switched off. I never turn it off since I just have to hit the stop button to end an alarm. I have no idea why I turned it off. I seem to have a lingering memory of waking up to the alarm, but I’m not sure about that. I had even set a second timer placed on the other side of the room. It seems I just ignored the 2nd one.
I’ve decided it’s time for what I’m going to call a “sleep reset.” For the next week I’m going to try to have as many 8h monophasic sleep days as possible without using alarms. If I can’t fit in 8h of sleep (probably on school days) I’ll take 6h with one nap in the afternoon. Next weekend I will move back to polyphasic sleep. I’m hoping that a week of monophasic sleep will help fix the oversleeps and memory loss. Plus I want to get out of the habit of sleeping through alarms.
I’m going to get in touch with the University of Rochester sleep center during the next week and see if they have any input on the subject. Who knows, maybe they’ll be interested in using me for research.
Dan on January 23rd, 2006
I briefly touched on the dreams I’ve had a few times, but nothing in any depth. I’ve found that dreaming in polyphasic sleep is much different than monophasic dreaming. It seems that the brain speeds up the processing so that the perceived passage of time is much faster than real time. I will frequently wake up from a dream and feel like I’ve been asleep for 1+ hours. Even so, the preceived length of dreams tends to be much shorter than during monophasic sleep.
The vividness of dreams has increased. While in the dream it seems very real. However, as soon as I wake up it seems much less real than it would have during monophasic sleep. I only know that it seemed more real during sleep because I’ve made observations in multiple dreams about it being real and not a dream.
The subject matter has changed a bit. I don’t want to say that they are more unique than before. That would be a lie. However, they are different. For example, the other day I woke up from a dream within a dream. I though I had actually woken up and was very disturbed because my vision was disrupted and I was having trouble moving correctly. After about 10 seconds of this I actually woke up. I never have dreams within dreams.
The memory of the dream usually fades even faster than monophasic sleep. If I don’t concentrate on remembering it right away it will be gone within minutes, unless it’s something very unique like the dream within a dream.
This just goes to show you how different polyphasic sleep can be. It brings about quite a change to your body and has a strong affect on how your brain functions while asleep.
