So I got the opportunity I was looking for and by most conceptualizations, I succeeded. I started drinking with friends for Halloween festivities around 10 pm (late for my school's standards but there's a limit to how early I can start and still evaluate my college experience positively). Doing the whole collegiate thing, we drank, watched the baseball game, played beer pong, etc. At midnight, I took my first nap, but since I was across campus at my friends' suite, I slept in one of their rooms without my alarm clock. My friends were kinda enough to wake me up 20 minutes later. Apparently, my friend had to scream my name to wake me up, but once I was awake, I felt completely refreshed ... and a little soberer (which I expected).
After a my tour of the evening's events, my friends were were still awake reconvened around 2:30 in the morning. By the time my 4 am nap rolled around, people were peacing, so I decided to nap at home. Setting the alarm to 7 am, I made the conscious decision to incorporate a 3-hour core sleep to my schedule since it was the weekend. That's when things got more difficult.
Waking up at 7, I was completely exhausted. I showered (falling asleep mid-shower multiple times) and then went for a walk hoping the cold weather would wake me up. I got breakfast at this diner at 8 am hoping that food might wake me up. When I got back to my room, I tried to read but my I kept nodding off. Putting up some polaroids on my wall, I tried to waste time until my next nap.
Around 10:30, I realized that just waiting around wasn't going to wake me up, and I didn't have the energy to run, so I took a half-hour nap that I didn't wake up from until 12:30. When I woke up, I felt very refreshed but the feeling was short-lived and now I'm experiencing the general characteristics of sleep deprivation (delayed reactions, brain fog, etc).
So while someone could fault my 3-hour core sleep or my 2-hour nap this afternoon, the thing I've realized is that while drinking is possible on polyphasic, regardless of how little sleep your body is used to, alcohol recovery still needs the same amount of time. At this point, my body may be very used to the sleeping 2 hours every 24, but that doesn't speed up the one drink per hour absorption rate that it takes to clear last night out of my body.
I am still enjoying this experiment a lot. Yesterday morning, I finally got a chance to spend one of my awake time slots going to the gym and doing something I wanted to do. For now I'm going to continue with polyphasic sleep. Day 14, the official assimilation point, is coming closer, but I wonder if my screw ups and longer naps will delay my eventual adaptation. That being said, I have never overslept more than 2 and half hours (knock on wood), so I consider myself a lot more successful than participants who practically have to start at Day 1 after they oversleep for hours upon hours. At some point, maybe around Day 18 or when I finish a successful month, I am going to start incorporating a "reboot" day. Other blogs have talked about taking one day every two or three weeks where you turn off all alarms, cellphones, lock your door and let your body sleep as long as it wants.
Last I night I learned that there is another polyphasic sleeper on campus! I don't know any details besides her name, but it would be awesome to talk with someone about it. I'll keep you posted.
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