Polyphasic Sleep Experiment - Days 9, 10, and 11

You may have noticed that the granularities of my log posts are getting coarser and coarser. There’s a reason for that: things are changing less quickly now. It becomes a little redundant for me to repeat what’s been happening with regards to the sleep schedule, when it’s all the same for 2 or 3 days.

With that in mind, though, here’s my shakedown over the (American) holiday weekend:
Thursday went off very well. The bizarre microsleep / narcolepsy from earlier in the week went away – I speculate that this was for two reasons:

• I was not forcing interest in topics – I was genuinely interested in what I was doing.
• I crashed briefly during my 4 am nap for 2 hours.
  

Mostly, though, it’s probably from the crash fulfilling the REM need. :)

The biggest challenge that I ran into was trying to find a quiet place to nap during the Thanksgiving meal / gathering, really. Fortunately, the spare bedroom being used to host the over-abundance of coats was sufficiently quiet, so I dozed there (successfully and with dreams!).

I still enjoyed a good, full Thanksgiving meal without oversleeping or even drowsiness. I am starting to believe more that a modified diet is not necessary to succeed at Uberman sleep, though it may help for a variety of reasons. This probably warrants its own post, though.

Back to the log: I carried through to Friday with nary a hitch. I’ve had to abandon reading as a reasonable task to fill time at night (2 to 10 am), as it caused quite a bit of dozing if I was not fully engrossed by the material.

I skipped a nap in the afternoon on Friday. I was just busy with socializing and interacting with people, and was not in a situation where I could nap. I was also a bit curious to see what would happen. I felt fine at the time, and so just skipped it.

I lasted fine until my next nap, which also got delayed by an hour… It was a total of about 9 hours from one nap to the next. That was rough. I napped fine after that (albeit groggy upon awakening), though I expected to oversleep.

I actually didn’t oversleep again until Saturday at 10 am (for 2 hours). Woke up without an alarm (turned it off or forgot to properly set it) feeling alert and refreshed. If the oversleeping does nothing else, it makes me feel a lot better. Saturday was a really good day with regards to mood, energy, and adaptation to naps (little post-nap grogginess, naps were very restful, etc).

I wonder if limited “permitted” oversleeping would be a viable means of adaptation. Only allow it during times when you would be most active and awake when monophasically sleeping. Use bright lights and other zeitgebers to indicate to your body that you should be awake. The idea being to placate your body, but hopefully limit the amount of sleep it takes. So you’re convincing the body that it’s really getting what it needs, at least in the short term. It’s unlikely to work, but it’s possible, I suppose. I awoke after 2 hours, but maybe I’m just adapting quickly, so my body didn’t want to sleep longer…? I’m just speculating, though.

New activities:

• Stretching. This was mainly adopted to deal with heavy post-nap grogginess. It started after one 4 am nap at which I was very close to just saying “forget it” and sleep some more. Despite the grogginess, I stumbled out of bed, dizzy and bleary, and started just doing deep hamstring stretches, since they required little more than leaning and standing. That felt good and woke me up a bit, so I continued with other leg stretches. Again, felt more awake and, well, limber. I worked my way through most of my personal major stretches and it felt quite good. By the time I had finished them, it was just enough light exercise to get my blood flowing, and occupied me during that time when I felt most drawn back to the bed. The repetitive, physical nature was nice as it required no thought. Plus, I could use the exercise (I work at a desk job, remember?). :)


• Dance Dance Revolution. A classically geek-favored exercise. :) Good aerobic workout that’s entertaining. I have two pads, so sometimes my wife plays with me, which is an added benefit. Making sure that we maintain our social interaction has been a priority to me.

Other notable changes:
I’m waking up more often before the alarm goes off. Now I do so around 10% of the time, and overall, I’m feeling better after naps. More remembered dreams overall, though no more lucid dreams yet. I think I’m over the main humps, despite the previous caffeine use and multiple, almost regular, oversleeping. I have a feeling that this coming week will go well, and that I’ll be able to tackle more complicated tasks at work.

I don’t yet hate my cell phone alarm, so that’s also a good sign… ;)
-sean