Day 8-9: Worst Fuck Up Yet

So I went to take my midnight nap last night, set two alarm clocks which were both placed next to my ears. And woke up at 5:30 in the morning. Well, I was just writing how worried I am about oversleeping, guess it was justified. To be honest, I may have needed the sleep. I was losing my ability to read text which has hasn't happened since last year. My friend reminded me that my loss of sight has tended to happen during times of sleep deprivation (though there are other general occurrences). And I think I was just getting dumb. Getting ready for my nap, I tried to pull down the shades, but to do I have stand on a tiny windowsill or on my refrigerator that had eight wine glasses/cups resting on it. Well, the window shade came off thus propelling me backwards, knocking every single glass to the ground and shattering them. I mean ... they were from the dollar store, so I it wasn't the worst thing in the world, but clean up was a bitch.

I am definitely continuing regardless of last night's lapse. I think I'm going to start my core sleep cycle again because if I can't read, then there's really no point to the extra hours of awake time.

UPDATE:
I just read a new blog and the guy said that after an amazing few days, Day 7 felt like he was starting over brand new. This is extremely encouraging!

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So that 5 hour sleep seems to have really messed things up. All day, it's been extremely difficult to fall asleep. I understood that the 8 am nap and 12 pm nap would be hard, but shouldn't the 4, 8, and 10 pm ones be easier? My body has to need the sleep. My eye sight is better than it was the previous evening, but I still have to take breaks from work to be able to read text. As for tiredness, I guess I'm fine. I was feeling really tired during my radio show this evening, but when I got my room to take a nap, I couldn't fall asleep. I have no idea what's happening. Hopefully by the time 2 am or 4 am rolls around, I'll actually fall asleep.

We're definitely approaching the make-or-break point. Five more days until complete assimilation according to other blogs, and I intend on sticking it out until then if not till Day 18. That being said, if my sight degenerates any further, I will end this experiment and return to monophasic sleep. While I have been enjoying this, my sole encouragement the entire time has been the goal of extra productivity, if I'm not able to read during my 22 hours awake, then it's not worth it. Let's see what happens.

Day 7: Timelessness

As days start to blend in with each other, it becomes harder and harder to describe what happened that particular day, but I will continue using the midnight to midnight reference point. Today started out immensely difficult. Things were okay after my midnight nap on the floor that I wrote about previously, but I as got closer to my 4 am nap, fatigue started to set in. I started nodding off as I put in edits to the newspaper. Although I was extremely tired, I think I'm starting to fall directly into REM sleep. Writing an e-mail to a photographer on the newspaper staff, I intended to write "preferably when the fireplace is lit" but nodded off slightly and ended up writing "when the soldiers approaches." It is my hope that I slipped into some dream during that second of REM sleep that had to do with soldiers ... or I could be going crazy.

Things got a little better later on after my 4, 6, and 8 nap. I went running again at 9:30 feeling fine. The brain fog has returned slightly but more in the form of general tiredness. I'm starting to have vision problems somewhat like I did last year before I updated my prescription to trifocals. This could be because extended use of contacts. From here on out, I'm going to be wearing my glasses anytime I need to do extended reading. To be perfectly honest, I'm perplexed. I've now been on a polyphasic sleep cycle for a full week--it started out extremely difficult, got immensely easier, and has been degenerating since. While the assimilation stage is only half over, other polyphasic blogs mention Day 7 as time of clear headedness.

Recent naps have been a lot less restful. Every nap starts out with a fear that I won't actually fall asleep, that I'll miss a nap and crash. While I do eventually fall asleep every time, I've occasionally woke up mid-nap. I would have presumed that being so sleep deprived, my body would take what it could get. There's a possibility that these new challenges are due to my surroundings. As I start my naps, I'm often ruminating over the extensive work I have to do. Even my backup of trying to fill my mind with lewd thoughts hasn't distracted me. Additionally, the reason I may be waking up mid-nap is because I'm so scared of oversleeping. I'm starting to see why successful polyphasic sleepers often work out of their home and have a flexible schedule.

But if anything, I am appreciating polyphasic sleep more and more. I've been too busy with work to read any recreational books or hang out with friends. So while it's hard seeing all these extra hours devoted to work (that I'm still not getting completely done), I find faith in the fact that if I weren't on a polyphasic sleep cycle, I would be pulling all-nighters and feeling horrible the next day. At least now, I work as much as I can but can continue to do so the next day almost unaffected.

Sorry about all the weird font changes on the site, creating a uniform font is surprisingly difficult.

Day 6: Getting Back into the Flow of Things

So Day 6 didn't have the best of starts. I was working on a group project Sunday evening starting at 10 pm. We worked until 12 am at which point I retired to take a 20 minute nap. I set my alarm to 12:30 only to wake up at 2:30 in the mornin. Once again I am extremely grateful that my instances of oversleeping have only been 1.5-2.5 hours rather than the customary failed polyphasic sleep of 6-13 hours. What this represents to me is that my body may really be getting used to the polyphasic sleep cycle.

I decided to skip my core sleep cycle again which has been making me feel a little better. But in order to combat the difficulty of the 4 am - 8 am time period, I added an additional 20 minute nap at 6 in the morning. So my sleep cycle today has been midnight, 4 am, 6 am, 8 am. After my 8 am nap, I went on a half hour 3-mile run with a friend. This has been my first experiment with physical exercise since I began the experiment.

I felt really good throughout the day and stuck to a concrete nap schedule at noon then 4 pm. Things got a little more creative later in the evening. Monday night is always college newspaper night for me so I ended up taking my 8 pm nap on a couch in a lounge. Unfortunately, I wasn't as lucky for my 12 am nap. Since all the lounges were locked, I spent my nap on the floor. In order to ensure that I would wake up, I brought my alarm clock to the news room to keep by my side wherever I sleep.

I am definitely feeling quite tired at the moment. Both my mother and a friend of mine recently stressed the importance of the 3-hour core sleep cycle, and while I agree that it is extremely useful, I think I will continue to put it off until I am more assimilated with the polyphasic sleep cycle. I've started to realize just how difficult polyphasic sleep is. Sometimes you just want to go to bed after a long day, but I need to remember that I can't. And as long as I follow this sleep cycle, I will never be able to sleep extensively when I feel like it.

My friends at college have been supportive though more mocking than my friends at home. I think that since my friends from home saw the intense physical effects of those first few days (sunken eyes, glazed-over eyes, deep fatigue, etc.) they have more of an appreciation of what I'm doing whereas my college friends saw a more happy, energy-filled kid. My alertness and energy are roughly the same as when I was a monophasic sleeper except that I get more hours of the day awake. I look forward to the time where I feel more energeic and alert.