My wife and I will be travelling more over the New Year's Eve weekend. We're leaving here in about 5 hours. What's notable about this trip, though, is that it's the first since I've started polynapping that has a one-way driving time of more than 4 hours. As such, since I will be doing the majority of the driving (my wife sleeps during the day), I will need to schedule a nap along the way. Should be interesting. :)

Anyway, also as a result of this, I will yet again be without reliable internet access for the next few days. I'll make an attempt to write posts offline while there, though, and submit them here later.

So if I don't see you, Happy New Year!
-sean

I've returned from my Christmas excursions for the year. All in all, things have gone well.

The first day (Friday, Dec. 23rd), my wife and I travelled to my childhood home town to visit a friend who was in town from the military as well as some others. This group of friends are all pro-polynapping, and so did extremely generous things to allow for me to step out and nap. So, because of the ability to nap exactly when I needed as well as the general excitement of the social group (it's a constant buzz of activity with these people), I did no core sleep, only doing a "pure" uberman sleep. I still felt fine, so I wasn't worried about it.

Saturday morning, though, I took "accidental core sleep" (I overslept when I usually take core sleep), for about 3 hours. We then travelled up to my wife's home town to visit her family. I was quite tired again come afternoon (I think mostly because I hadn't eaten), so I slept again for about 2 hours.

This was around her father's family. After that, we travelled to her mother's place. They are aware of my experiment from previous time at their place, so again, few problems explaining myself. The day passed well without really missing my naps (though I took the timing very flexibly), and continued into the night. Around 6 am Christmas Day (I haven't been awake that early on Christmas since I was like 9), I took core sleep of about 3 hours. Then, woke up, did the presents thing for an hour, had some breakfast and a bit of Mimosa and then promptly fell asleep again for 4 more hours.

It was probably the alcohol that caused it... but judging from past experience, though, regardless of how much I would have slept the night before (probably like 10 hours), I still would have taken this nap. Basically, I don't think I lost anything, and I felt really solid afterwards.

Christmas night, I cuddled next to my wife and fell asleep (she always relaxes me to an extreme), taking about 5 hours of sleep and awakening around 7 am. We packed, ate breakfast, and went north to my family's gathering at an indoor waterpark, which was impressively cool. This, though, was probably most disruptive to my schedule of napping, as I stayed down in the waterpark area long past when I usually sleep. I don't think I got in all my naps, though (I really have stopped paying close attention to when I nap - in my memory, it's been relegated to "unimportant" so I don't track it). When I tried to grab core sleep, upon the alarm for me to get up, I apparently treated my cell phone as though it were my bedside table alarm. My wife said I was trying to press the snooze button by putting my weight on it, which is entirely unlike how my cell phone alarm works. :) Anyway, because of this, I slept some more past where I wanted, but only a little; it turned my 3 hour core sleep into 4 hours.

Finally, I was able to grab more naps for the day, this time not skipping any, and to return home.

All in all, the biggest problem I really had was missing meals. I was not eating on a regular schedule at all. When I get hungry, that's really when I have the most problems staying awake. If I can get food, I usually have no problem continuing, even past normal naptimes, probably because of the increase in blood sugar... it makes me wonder if I should start evenly spreading my daily caloric intake over 6 very small meals, always taken at a regular place in my nap schedule. I already space out most of my daily intake into mini-meals while at work, but I may benefit by spreading them over the entire day instead.

Hmm... something to think about.

Anyway, best of wishes to all. :)

-sean

I'm looking forward to the Christmas and New Year's holidays (the holidays themselves, not the nebulous time leading up to them - we're mostly through that after all).

I used to dread them. As a friend of mine once pointed out in an editorial article, the holidays (both senses of it) are not a time of cheer for most people. They wander around looking worried and stressed. We're more concerned about meeting all the social obligations (parties, gifts, cards, etc) than actually just enjoying being social.

I was in that category of people. I felt there was not enough time to adequately deal with the holidays, and I worried a lot about what people thought about me or my gifts. It forced a lot of unneccesary stress. This year, though, I haven't really had any stress. I'm just looking forward to them. Admittedly, my wife has done nearly all of the work this year (she likes shopping, so...), or it could be that I'm just better at dealing with stress than previous years. I dunno.

But really, I'm most looking forward to just savoring everything... because I have the time to do so! There's a lot about the holidays that I enjoy. I dearly love spending time with my family. Time with my brothers is always extremely fulfilling (5 brothers, no sisters, by the way). Sometimes I feel like I can't spend enough time with them, especially if I have personal projects to pursue. At least this year, I won't need to worry about divvying up my time, because it will be mandated by when they sleep. :)

Cornrow is planning on continuing polynapping when with his family... the main benefit he lists is that he can do the early breakfast thing with the early risers, and still stay out late with the night owls. My side of the family doesn't do the "early" thing, but my wife's does, so I can see why this would be good.

Estragon has recently been doing a lot of zealous family gatherings which involve copious amounts of rich foods and alcohol (pretty common around the holidays, I think). He's been commenting on the gatherings contained in his usual posts, so it's a little hard to point to one source exactly. Probably the main post around the first big gathering is a good place to start reading.

Me? I've got 3 locales we'll be hitting this weekend, so we'll be busy. It's likely that I'll run into rich foods and alcohol, too... This time I'm with family, though*, I plan to be more strict in my sleeping. My family can wait 20-25 minutes if needed. They're not going anywhere. :)

-sean

* As opposed to the last time I had a family visit (discussed here), where I slept 6 hours, two nights in a row. This was likely because I skipped naps and was real loose with my schedule, among other things. Hopefully, this won't be the case later on.

Sorry for a delay, folks (or for the gitchiness, if you got caught in the post shuffling that occurred). I have a post up and ready, it's just that it's breaking the feed. Something in the way Blogger is handling it. Go fig. In any case, the only solution I've gotten for it is to re-type the post from scratch. *grumble*

One more reason we're moving to another site. :)

I'll have it up later.

-sean

I realized the other day that it's been a bit since the last update on my personal experiences...

Again, there's not much to report. I have continued with 90 minutes of core sleep during my dredge hours (4 am to about 8 am). My wife usually wakes me up from this, or helps me when I don't immediately respond to the alarm clock. Usually, just saying my name is enough to kick my brain into gear. (Or at least... I think it's enough... obviously I wouldn't actually know, now would I?)

The parallels I talked about yesterday have mostly started manifesting in the last week or so, but instead of repeating them, you can go read the entry. :)


I guess the biggest point of interest (one I promised I'd discuss in the previous post's comments), is that I've slept significant amounts on the weekends (in particular, two four hour naps this past weekend, and the previous weekend's six-hour sleeps), but still continue to increment my day counter. Why haven't I started over?

I don't think I've failed and that I should list myself as attempt two, or that I've slipped into mono- or bi-phasic sleeping, for a few reasons... (this calls for a bold-prefixed list!)

My body still remembers my polynapping, despite the gains in overall sleep. I don't feel like the horrible, sleep deprived state as the first few days.

It's a known variation on the Uberman sleep cycle to do "normal" sleep periodically. Usually, the implication is to intenionally crash periodically, but still, it means it doesn't define "failure".

I haven't given up. Many other polynapper testers at this point would have declared failure and either given up or started over. However, it seems that most polynappers don't have any given metric for when failure occurs (one exception). My best approximation is, as Placebo has so eloquently put it, "Failure IMO is when you give up." I agree. I haven't given up on the attempt.

I think the trigger that would indicate to me when my stint is over would be if my body sleeps mono-/biphasically enough that I start to "forget" how to polynap. In other words, when napping becomes tricky, or I feel like a zombie again. Then it's time for a solid reset (a month maybe?) so I can take some slightly more objective measurements for another trial (or some derivative, like minimal bi- or even tri-phasic.)

The other point I promised to discuss (sickness, the immune system response, and crashing) I'll handle in another post.

-sean

Steve Pavlina has posted his (pretty beefy) 60 day update on his polyphasic sleep experiment.

Reading through it, I can't help but notice a lot of parallels of his status and observations to some of my own. For those keeping score, I'll be hitting 35 days (5 weeks) tomorrow.

Like him, a lot of my close friends and relatives are getting used to the idea that I'm awake as much as I am. My wife is happy about it because of the extra time we can spend together, plus the fact that I can focus on just being with her. Previously, I've had to focus on other projects and whatnot during time we were together, since I didn't have much other time, so I didn't always get to really be with her.

More parallels - to quote:
The big challenge I’m facing right now is how to put all this time to use in a balanced and sustainable way.

I'm running into the same problem. Instead of cleanly paritioning my extra time equally towards the extra pursuits I wish to er, pursue, I'm mostly throwing myself into my work towards financial freedom. I can feel sometimes that I might be leading towards burnout on this.

Things that are helping me combat this:
My goals are clearly written. Rereading them always serves to revitalize me and refocus me.
Time off. When I feel like it's getting to be too much, I take a break between naps, and spend 3-4 hours just doing something fun, e.g. video games. Previously, when I monoslept, things like video games and such were a big problem for me - I couldn't pull myself away from them and would play for hours upon hours. If and when I did get away, though, I was fine. Now, though, I can't really play more than a few hours, as a nap quickly encroaches. This serves as the severance I need to get back into a productive mood.
Clear breaktimes. It's hard to argue with my body when it needs to sleep, so it's more difficult to work myself into exhaustion. Naturally, this is a better idea in the long term.

Even still... I do tend to want to work for huge amounts of time.


Steve also mentions how time seems so different for him now that he doesn't have sleep dictating his day schedule. He mentioned at some point in his initial 30 days that time seemed to move slower, and how his concept of days is somewhat broken... I can't say I feel it as well. This is probably largely because I'm still attached to a day job, so I have a strong regulator to my schedule. Plus, I'm pretty solidly booked during the extra time I have, so I tend to be busy. Time seems to actually pass faster for me! (I mean... 5 weeks???)


He's definitely right, though:
Polyphasic sleep is NOT the same thing as monophasic sleep plus a few extra hours a day. Not even close. It’s a much, much bigger change, one that is both intoxicating and disturbing.

It's a little hard to describe. While I would be unmotivated to do things as a monosleeper because I did not want to be involved in so much time, now I'm just diving in left and right. This may just be that I've decided to jump right in on more new things in general, but it does help me get going on projects.

It's still more than that, though. There is a fundamental change in my approach to life. Before, I was a creature of habit and routine. My wife had even poked fun at me for the meticulous level of routines I had. I had rigorous routines for all my simple, day to day tasks - dressing, bathing, cleaning etc. Mostly, it was compensation for my notoriously bad memory, so that I would perform all the necessary tasks and not forget anything important. It was going on autopilot so my mind could worry about other things.

Anyway, many of the routines were based on the sleep schedule. With the monophasic sleep removed, it consequently stripped away a lot of those routines. It feels a little like cutting the safety line and a little like opening the cell door. Yeah, I could fall and fall hard, but I'm also free from them. Well, some of them, anyway. :)

It's a weird sort of deep-seated feeling. It's like I can feel my neurons reconnecting and rewiring, working at getting a handle on this new world. It's like my brain trying to figure out how to grapple with this foreign thing, but it's just shooting it's feelers ridiculously far out... It's not used to this because I was so contained in my safe little box. I'm working without a net here.

Of course, I could just be feeling what it's like to go insane from sleep deprivation. ;) I dunno.

It's just... weird.

-sean

In my last post, I talked about how the circadian rhythm is regulated, with the underlying issue regarding entrainment of the rhythm to different (but still monophasic) schedules. I left off with everyone wondering why I brought it up. :)

Soo.... My question was prompted by my sleep schedule this past weekend. As you might know from following my blog here, I nap almost immediately after I get home from work (usually around 5:30 to 6:00 pm). That's usually one of my most useful naps, because I'm getting into my most productive / awake time so there's little risk of oversleep. It's also usually been 5-6 hours since my previous nap at 11:30 am during lunch, so it's extra restful.

Over the weekend, though, I try to opt for a more "traditional" 4-hour nap schedule. It's a lot easier and more comfortable than forcing the 5 and 6 hour stretches as I must do with my day job. As such, I tend to slip into an 8, 12, 4 schedule of napping when not accomodating work. Saturday, however, right around 6 pm, I started feeling like I was going to need to nap. It was the exact progression of feelings that occurs leading up to my normal weekday naps.

So I listened to my body and napped. Woke up without the alarm with strong dreams feeling very refreshed. I didn't feel the need to nap again until approx 9:30 pm, the usual time for my weekday naps, instead of the weekend-based 8 pm. The rest of my naps continued like my weekday schedule until I hit a late core sleep, and slept from 8 am to 12 pm.

If it were just sleep deprivation that were causing my need for an extra nap, I would have crashed harder, would I not? I would have just constantly felt the homeostatic pressure to sleep and not prompted to return to my weekday schedule, right?

However, this weekend it appears that my body "knew" that it should sleep at these times. Additionally, during oversleeps this weekend (there were a few), I always woke up at the same time as when I would wake up from my regular naps, despite potentially being out of phase with a 90 minute sleep cycle. Of course, a 90 minute sleep cycle starts to seem irrelevant if one's body is compressing sleep stages... Nevertheless, I didn't oversleep more than what would carry me to the end of the next four hour cycle.

I hesitate to wonder if it is possible to become entrained to a polyphasic sleeping schedule? It does not appear (with the admittedly, minimal research I have done on entrainment) very likely, but it sure feels like entrainment is occurring. What could possibly cause this? How strong is the ability of the cognitive portions of the brain to alter chemical indicators of sleep? Is there something strong enough to force overriding of the gene-transcription / protein mechanism?

Of couse, it could just be a fluke... it's only one weekend's occurences. However, as I progress, naps during my regular times are feeling more and more "right" and are becoming more and more useful. It's not explained by just circadian rhythms or just sleep deprivation.

-sean

I am under the impression that one's body starts to get a certain amount of "sleep memory", which is similar to the so-called muscle memory.

I think that when we sleep on a regular schedule, it becomes easier and easier for us to sleep and wake up according to the schedule. For example, when I slept monophasically, it was much easier for me to awaken at 7:00 am, and to sleep at 11 pm because I consistently did just that. When I switched to a biphasic schedule (pre-blog) to spend time with my wife, my schedule shifted so that I expected a nap right after work, and then to sleep 1-6 am. As I continued this practice, it got easier and more refreshing.

For normal nighttime monophasic sleep, this entrainment is understandable. There are a large number of zeitgebers that indicate we should sleep, most strongly a day-night (read, "light-dark") cycle. The workings of most human societies reinforces this as well.

But what causes the entrainment to happen? According to these pages (thanks to "mc" for the latter link), our circadian rhythm is controlled largely by a handful of genes (and their protein expresssions).

Quoth the first (decidely more approachable for the layman) article:

• The transcription factors that turn on the light-induced promoters are dimers of the CLOCK protein and a protein designated BMAL1. These dimers turn on
  • the Per gene;
  • Cry, the gene encoding cryptochrome
  • a gene whose product inhibits transcription of Bmal1
  • effector genes (such as the gene encoding arginine vasopressin)
• The Per and Cry mRNAs are exported to the cytoplasm where they are translated.
• The PER and CRY proteins then form dimers that enter the nucleus where they
  • turn OFF their own genes (as PER/TIM dimers do in Drosophila);
  • turn OFF the gene inhibiting Bmal1 so this double-negative effect causes the level of the BMAL1 protein to rise.
  These actions cause the levels of BMAL1 and PER/CRY to oscillate in opposite phases (as CLOCK and PER/TIM do in Drosophila)

There's a bit of jargon in there, too, but I think you can get the gist of what's going on with the production-inhibition-production cycle for the proteins.

So how does our body know when to time the clock? The SCN can be stimulated to modify the schedule because stimulation by light affects the shape (and thus effect) of proteins so that they inhibit production of the BMAL1 protein. Depending on timing, this could mean that you can shift your schedule forward or backward, but ultimately it's about 24 hours. I think that repeated exposure here also creates other cues internally to reinforce the behavioral patterns of mono- or bi-phasic sleep.

Obviously, there's more to this... sleep deprivation and other physiological and psychological factors can affect when we feel we need to sleep. Does the brain produce the light-modified protein in order to change the circadian rhythm? Does it inhibit production of the proteins, or create others that inhibit the inhibitors? I'll need to do more research.

But all of this applies to full-on circadian cycles and monophasic sleeping directly. It doesn't address ultraradian cycles, such as those encouraged by polyphasic sleeping.

Why am I asking this? I'll finish up in my next post on my observations of my personal polyphasic entrainment.

-sean


UPDATE - Sunday, Dec. 18th, 2005, 8:26 pm: Replaced the pasting from the article. I referenced the wrong part and didn't proofread enough... I was in a hurry. Thanks to mc for pointing it out.

You may have noticed some comments disappearing. You may have noticed odd changes elsewhere in the site or template.

Yeah, sorry about that. I'm moving to a new host for the blog. Potentially, we'll start having some other content added as well.

As such, the transition period's going to keep me a little busy until about Saturday or Sunday.
Stay tuned, and I'll let everyone know when the new site is up and running.

-sean

Pavlina's success seems to have generated a lot of interest in doing polynapping, Uberman in particular. His strict Uberman schedule and vegan diet have inspired many to follow in his footsteps in the hope of squeezing hours out of day.

And so a large number of us try just the way he did: cold turkey. We just stop doing monophasic sleep altogether, and start napping. No transition or anything. Just jump right in.

And, inevitably, many of us fail. Cold turkey methods are generally very hard things to maintain.

But why do we only insist on attempting the transition cold turkey? According to a post to the Yahoo! Uberman support group (group registration required, sorry), Claudio Stampi (author of "the" Uberman book, Why We Nap) tried at least two different ways to get someone onto the cycle.

A first attempt was cold turkey. Bam! He's polyphasic. It failed.

A second attempt, a year later, was a gradual division and lessening of sleep over 10 days or so. The main sleep time was decreased while adding 80 minute naps, and then the naps were decreased down to 30 minutes. This one succeeded.


Now, there's a variety of possible reasons it worked the second time. It could be easier to succeed with 2nd and later attempts (likely), though it is unclear how long it would take for your body to "forget" the previous attempts' training. It could have been more enthusiasm for success or a more fulfilling work schedule that worked for the artist. It could also have been that it was a better (read "easier") method for transitioning. It's not clear why it worked, but regardless, it's the second method, not the first, that provided the documented success.

So why do we all try it the straight-up, cold turkey way? Is it just that we're not doing our homework? Is it that we want to emulate Pavlina?

Personally, when I decided to begin the trial, I went that way because it was the only method of which I was aware. I will admit that I began the test without a lot of research, as I was under the impression that there wasn't much to be found. But still... seems like it would be a heck of a lot easier.

If I quit and decide to try again, I'll probably map out specifics of a gradual approach and try it.

Until then... more speculation. :)
-sean

Since the content of the site has grown significantly, and I tend to make very long posts, I've thrown in Google search features on the site as well. You can go ahead and search just locally through my blog with the top one (make sure to select the blog address), or, if I mention something but don't provide adequate linkage, you can search with either the one on the top (and selecting "Web") or the one in the sidebar, on the bottom.

I also found out that the feed to the site had been broken for a while. I'm not sure why, but it appears to have to do with using Blogger for Word and extra tags that are introduced, but do not fit in the Atom XML schema. Sorry for the techno babble. :) Anyway, the feed provided now is through FeedBurner, and is a so-called "smart" feed; it should conform to whatever format your aggregator desires.

Let me know if you'd like to see anything else on the site!

-sean

As I stated yesterday, my wife, Sara, wrote an essay s how she felt about the experiment so far. It's weird how similar the points made there are to Steve Pavlina's wife's comments. However, when I asked my wife directly, she told me she had never read any Pavlina...

There are some distinct characteristics (she was a little more concerned), but there are similarities.

Anyway, here it is, with some minor editing.

-sean


Sara the Ployphasic Sleep Widow

Okay, it’s not really that bad. In truth, due to my work schedule, we couldn’t sleep next to one another if we wanted to. Yet somehow I felt like I lost a little bit of my husband to this crazy experiment.

To explain what I mean by this, I must first explain a little bit about us. We are outwardly a quiet and normal couple. I mean, we both have shared likes and hobbies to spend good times together. In turn, we each have our own separate hobbies to enjoy time apart. Sometimes, as in shared activities, being apart can cause problems with one or the both of us.

For me, polyphasic sleeping is one such example of being apart. After I heard about this hair-brained scheme, I was a little scared what this might do to him (physically, and mentally) or to us. He explained exactly what poyphasic sleep was, the possible risks, and the total lack of research on the subject. And to be honest, I was scared. I knew I could not do this with him. I can not function, nor do I desire to, in such a state of sleep deprivation. But yet I love him. I told myself long ago that I would never be “that woman.” The one that controls everything around her, most especially her spouse. He is his own person, and for that, I say if this makes you happy, do it.

So his journey began. As expected, quite rocky. But only for him. There were no increased incidents in fights between us, no missed opportunities due to his strict sleeping schedule. It was only at the very beginning, before we had worked out what “works,” that I at all was unhappy about the “sleeping separation.” He, by his own choice, would nap in on the spare bed, to keep from disturbing my sleep.

Now, call me selfish, but I like to cuddle. We both do. I like to sleep next to my husband. So when he started this, I didn’t get that. It took a little time, but it appears we have worked it out. Life is better.

Other things I didn’t really expect, but make sense: Mostly in the beginning, but still today, I became a sitter. Now, most naps I’m not there, but when I am, I assist in any way I can. Usually, by being the alarm. Sometimes it is mis-set. Sometimes he just sleeps through it. So I wake him up. In some cases, primarily in the beginning, he also needed help staying awake. This was mostly needed in car trips. In any case, I feel needed. It’s good to be needed.

Looking back over this Crazy experiment (and I do mean Crazy, but not in a negative way), I have realized a few things. It is possible to function like this; you’re not just a mindless zombie sleeping so little, though you must find the right sleeping schedule for your own needs. It did take time for Sean. Another thing was it takes a lot of will power to change from mono to polyphasic. It is difficult and sometimes scary to watch someone go through this. It is even still scary, but the unknown always is. I must also say I am very proud to see him succeed at this. He has put so much into it. Now he is finally reaping the benefits of it: more time outside of work-eat-sleep.

So far this for me has been an interesting experience. Not bad, not really good, just okay. It at least has given us new insight into a world I didn’t even know existed. And even though I felt at the beginning I might have lost some bit of my husband, I didn’t really. He has been here all along -- just a little sleepy.

I'm one that deeply enjoys the current moment, whatever that may be.

If I'm playing video games, I'll prefer to keep playing video games. If I'm working on a particular project for work, I prefer to keep my work focused on that and not switch to something else. I was going to call it "social inertia", but it doesn't quite function like inertia... because long stretches can sometimes warrant change (while using "inertia" would imply that long stretches would likely be harder to change). It's just that, in general and on the short(ish) term, I prefer to continue doing whatever I'm doing. I hate to drop out of the "right now" moments.

So, I skipped a nap. Then proceeded to take a rather long pit stop. Twice.

Lemme back up some. :)


Days 22 (Wednesday) through 24 (Friday) were smooth. Astoundingly smooth. Naps were solid and extremely restful. I was up with the alarm and fully alert, even after core naps. My dreams were vivid (though not lucid) and interesting. I considered myself to be at the tail end of adaptation, with very little left that could throw me off my path. I was, to put it simply, feeling arrogant.

Insert any number of snippet comments like "Pride is a sin, you know", "Oh, how the mighty have fallen", or even "Ha ha!". See, this weekend has been a lesson in humility.

On Day 24, we went to visit one of my brothers, his wife, and some friends that all live together. They've been following this test to varying degrees, and were sympathetic. I got my fair share of ribbing about it, though, but it was good natured. (hmmm... need an update on the social life post: "Have a sense of humor; laugh at yourself about polynapping sometimes") I also got a fair deal of interest and questions about how it works, how I feel, why don't I crash and burn, etc.

I was fine taking naps while there. I would go over to a spare bedroom, nap with my cell phone alarm, and then rejoin the group. In general, my naps were a little late to get started, but not much (maye 30 to 45 minutes). I also pushed my 4 am nap to about 5 or so, when my wife was also going to sleep.

It wasn't really a problem, I thought, because I had pushed nap times to more extreme placements previously. So, I set my alarm in a place where I wouldn't climb across her to turn it off (on my side of the bed). I cranked up the electric blanket we had (room was kept a little chilly because, well, it's a spare, combined with an incompetent landlord), and snuggled next to my wife, quite cozy and warm. Then proceeded to sleep for 6 hours.

Next day, feeling good, I picked up where I left off, grabbing naps where I had planned. We ate at a really excellent sushi / hibachi place (soooo good), and then hit Dave & Busters. For those that don't know, it's an adult arcade. No, the games weren't pornographic, it's just an arcade that also has a bar, restaurant and an over-21 age requirement. It was noisy, exciting and just cool. And I love arcades. And I love going to arcades with the people I was with.

So I skipped my nap because I was so in the moment with everyone. I was having a really excellent time and didn't want to pull myself away. I tried at one point to nap, but I couldn't bring myself to go out to the car to nap. I should have followed my own advice. :)

Anyway, when we got back, I got a nap okay. We made and ate some great fondue, and generally hung out. When it came time for my risky nap (the 4 am-ish one, when I'm most groggy) my wife and I went to bed as before. I set my alarm for 90 minutes later, aiming for mild core sleep, rolled over and quickly snoozed.

...then woke up at 11:30 am.


Seems like a disaster? Two nights of 6+ hours? No. Learning points. Pit stops. :) I felt great the next day, and it reinforced a few points I've found already (but ignored over the weekend):

Alarm placement needs to be out of immediate reach. I need to at least sit up when handling the alarm. If I can reach it while still lying down, it's all over.

Lights need to be on, even if just dim. I've theorized on this before. Melatonin is probably no why I crash easily in darker places, but it still happens, regardless. It's just easier for me to roll over when it's dark. The light stimulus might still be enough to trigger something in my conscious brain. Perhaps it's just 24 years of conditioning that said, "It's dark. You should sleep." In any case, light helps me wake up, so I need to remember to utilize this tool.

Warm, but not hot. Too much heat makes me sleepy. Overly warm car trips make me fall asleep quickly. Blankets do the same for me, especially when there's a large difference from my blankets to the ambient air temperature. We cranked the electric blanket up, but with both our bodies' heat, we probably didn't need to do so. It made it too cozy to get up. So... fewer blankets, less heat, yeah.

Don't skip naps, even if you're having a good time. It's not bad. I can get back with the group in no time. I just need to step out for a bit. It's like going to the bathroom or something. It's just a need that takes me away for a brief period.


This weekend is not a loss. I learned. I reinvigorated. Plus, when monosleeping, I would consistenly sleep 4+ more hours each night already, so I haven't really lost anything. :)

My other naps since the long sleeps have been easy and restful. Makes me consider doing monthly monosleeps like has been attributed to Jefferson (haven't researched him, yet, though, but I plan to do so). Keeps covering the bases of sleep, and gives me even more safety buffer room.


As a side note: My wife has written a really excellent essay on her view as a "Polyphasic Sleep Widow". She did this without any prompting from me or knowing that Pavlina's wife posted her perspective as well, too. There are some really suprisingly similar themes in them both. I'll throw it up soon, and maybe think of a solution to the "cuddle problem." :)

-sean

I've heard it said several times that it would be tricky to do a polynapping cycle and have an avid social life. People don't seem to think that it could be done because of the odd, ultraradian cycle we use.

At first, I had a little trepidation about the concept of maintaining a social life during this experiment as well. It is odd. Or, at least, it's not what the "normal" people do. ;)

But for me, my social experiences with it have been nothing but positive: I get to spend more time with my wife and people I've told have been sincere and interested. Other people have let me sleep in their bedrooms when hanging out with them. So far, the best response I've gotten came from a friend when I said that I was awake 21 hours of the day: "21 hours? Do you know how many video games I could play in that time?!" I was amused.


Still, though, maybe I'm lucky and just have some weird friends. Actually, I know I have some weird friends, but I don't think that their social acceptance of something like this is at all different from the general populace. Nevertheless, it seems to be a point of social anxiety amongst those that want to try polyphasic sleep.


The best way to deal with it, in my opinion, is just to be open and honest. I wouldn't have thought about this before, but it was suggested by Pavlina in his response to reader feedback on his experiment, and I assure you, it's the best approach. I usually open up by asking if there's a place I can nap for half an hour or so. If the host(ess) doesn't ask why, then I don't worry about it. If they do, I carefully explain what I'm doing and why. I've never had a negative response.

If you're into the clubbing scene, consider shifting your schedule in such a manner as to allow blocks of awake-time during prime clubbing time. Cornrow has suggested an 11, 3, 7 schedule. Not sure how successful the scheduling is - it's not really my style.

For those basics, things look hopeful. However, for those that like to party, I'm not real sure what to say. Alcohol could very easily throw one off the schedule, especially early on in the adaptation period or in significant doses. Because of alcohol's well-documented lessening of inhibitions, one under the influence might just consider not bothering to set the alarm and sleep anyway. Under larger doses, one might forget to set an alarm or turn it off completely. Not only that, but alcohol has been shown to inhibit REM sleep (source, in section "Alcohol's Effects on Sleep Physiology").

Cannabis has also been shown to inhibit REM and stage 4 NREM (source). I list cannabis because, despite its illegal nature nearly everywhere in the world, it is the third most popular recreational drug in the United States after alcohol and tobacco (source), and it is an extremely popular "social drug". Like it or not, it does play a part in many people's social lives, and so merits discussion.

Why is the REM/Stage 4 NREM inhibition a concern? Speculating here, if your polynap is inhibited by alcohol or cannabis, chances are good that it won't help any when you try to nap. It's quite possible that you'll oversleep if significantly intoxicated, too. But done in moderation spaced far from a nap? I can't say.*

* Just to be clear, I'm not advocating anyone use or abstain from using any drugs at all, legal or not. Be safe, do your homework, and then make your own decisions.


It's possible to have a social life. I still do. However, a polynapper may need to consider avoiding some popular recreational drugs, or reconsidering consumption patterns if wanting to easily adapt to the cycle.

-sean

Today, I had about 3 or different topics I was potentially going to write about. I even got ready and started on some of them. Then I just took my 1:30 am nap. I set my alarm for exactly 1:55 am (25 minutes).

Now, I have previously mentioned that my remembered dreams have been getting more common and more vivid. I've even had a lucid dream (though, sadly, only one and early on). Many of the dreams that I remember are just barely sub-lucid dreams (I consciously think that things are odd, and that life doesn't normally operate that way, but don't achieve the realization that things are weird because I'm dreaming).

More notable to me, though, is that the dreams that I'm remembering now on waking are also qualitatively weirder than when I monoslept. When I monosleep, my dreams would have odd things such as odd locales, occurrences, people, broken laws of physics, etc, but usually in a minimal fashion. One or two things out of whack.

The polyphasic dreams have been decidedly weirder. More things are different. More "new" extras appear (instead of recycling people from my life, more often entirely new entities are created). And some have just been downright alien. Not scary, just completely foreign to me to the point that they're hard to describe. Things like playing the role of a being composed of a pocket of a fluid and "conversing" (if you could call it that) with other beings through Brownian Motion. Weird stuff.

Anyway, this past dream was just barely sub-lucid and was relatively normal (for a polysleep dream, anyway). I won't go into a lot of the gory details, but the basic summary was that I was visiting friends from college. Incidentally, they all now lived in a college dormitory (though not the dorms they lived in during college). I was aware that this was odd, but politeness kept me from mentioning it.

I was catching up with them, and I was telling them about this experiment. I was talking about the chances of oversleeping and sometimes missing a few hours, and it occurred to me that during the last nap that I remembered, I didn't wake up at 1:55 am as I had planned. In fact, I was internally a little scared that I had no memory from when I went to sleep at 1:30 am to when I was visiting my friends (dream time was in the early afternoon).

"Well," I thought, "I've really overslept and crashed this time." I was worried that I had run into complete memory failure and "lost time" like cornrow had. This is a terrifying idea to me. Blacking out and acting when not conscious really freaks me out. But in the dream, I didn't mention it, and conversation moved to other things.

After a few hours of hanging out and talking, my friends and I went for a walk, and the dream abruptly ended. I was decidedly disoriented, because the dream was very convincing. Then, the thoughts that I had really crashed hit me hard (just the thoughts - I felt incredibly rested, which also supported the idea that I overslept), so I checked my alarm clock, thinking how I would accommodate the large oversleep.

1:50 am.

I blinked. 20 minutes?

I closed and re-opened my phone to refresh the display... Maybe something had locked up?

1:50 am.

Wow. It really felt like it had been 3, 4 hours. And I had been convinced that I had overslept. It's almost like I'm getting more life experiences for less time spent living because the dreams are so very vivid. They're vivid to the point of being nigh-indistinguishable from wakefulness.

Now, I'm not really up on my lucid dreams research, or theories as to what exactly the control factors of dreams / dream lucidity are, but this has me wondering: What might be a cause of these more vivid and potentially lucid dreams? It's been reported by several other polynap testers... Why are we dreaming harder? Is it just that we're becoming conscious so close after our REM?

Another topic of research, I suppose.

For now, I'll just conclude with the comedically trite statement: "Dreams are weird." :)
-sean

It's getting harder and harder to write anything interesting about my sleeping experiment itself. As expected, things are becoming easier. And it's just not near as interesting to write a full post saying "I slept well through all my naps. No problems or changes to report".

I guess I did change somewhat by adopting core sleep when I'm very tired. I had been considering core sleep for a while now to deal with my drag spot of 4-7 am for a few reasons:

• I have previously noted that when I oversleep (usually for just around 90 minutes, or one full sleep cycle) I feel just really good.
  
• We don't know for sure that REM sleep is the only sleep we need. During NREM, a variety of maintenance tasks occur (source, though source is targeting children) which may or may not happen sufficiently during times of wakefulness or REM.
  
• I started really dragging my feet at work around day 16, and I needed to get productive work done.

Given those, I picked up core sleeping for 90 minutes around night 16. It's helped a lot, and I feel a little less nervous about long-term effects (not saying there aren't any, just that they're probably lessened and will have later onset). I did say that I wanted to do this safely, so now that I'm mostly adapted, I can throw a little more buffer into my safety zone. I'm not losing much either, because those hours were usually not real useful to me (far too tired) and it was detrimentally affecting my day job.

Also, I feel now that I'm significantly adapted to the schedule that I don't think that I will oversleep accidentally from it. So if I'm dragging my feet, I'll go ahead and grab an extra nap or turn a nap into 90 minutes of core sleep. It's like if I were still monophasic, and napped or slept in when tired. Makes sense to me.


And I guess I did have a few stumbles along the way (minor extended sleeping, etc). But it's nothing big that I haven't mentioned in previous posts. It's almost like I'm actually waiting for some problem or catastrophe to occur so that I can tell you all about it. "Unfortunately" for me, though, still no catastrophes to report. ;)

But then, I don't consider sleeping outside of the schedule to be a catastrophe. Even if I sleep 4 hours, more or less straight. That happened just this morning. I had my usual 1:00 am-ish nap just fine. I awoke, felt a little tired, but continued working. I took an extra nap around 3 am to deal with the drowsiness that didn't go away. Awoke, felt unmotivated, and grabbed an immediate second nap*. After that, though, I decided to take a 90 minute core sleep. Which I did beautifully. Then I decided just to sleep off the rest before getting ready for work at 7am.

* I've done this double nap a few times before when very tired. I find it very refreshing and a good revitalizer when I feel like I need more sleep. Usually, the second nap is not taken until I've been up a minute or two, so that I don't just continue where I left off. I'm hoping that my body is treating it as just another polynap, but I'm guessing that it's not.


Don't get me wrong. These weren't sleep-deprived-whack-the-alarm decisions. I was alert and conscious. I just decided that I should probably grab more sleep to alleviate the sleepiness. Yes, my tiredness weighed in pretty strongly, but it was something I had been considering for 3 or 4 days.

This sort of crash may have some precedence, too. According to some, Thomas Jefferson crashed out for a full day after a month of polyphasically sleeping, in order to reset himself. Take that with a grain of salt, though, for now. I'm not even sure that he did polyphasically sleep. I'll examine it more closely when I investigate his sleep cycles. For now, I'm satisfied in knowing that I could listen to and appease my body appropriately.

By the way, after the block of sleep last night, work today was awesome.
-sean

Richard Buckminster Fuller. Civil engineers everywhere can thank him for geodesic domes and their many applications. He's created numerous other inventions and even has a poly-molecule named after him.

But really, Wikipedia does a far better job of covering him.

He was influential in many ways, and because of his philosphies on life, he's a sort of hero to many. He's an ideal person to fill the role of a polysleeper for polynap promoters because he's a great role model.

He's also a good person to kick off this investigation of famous polysleepers because he's recent and well documented. There's a good deal of literature about and by him, so it wasn't too difficult to find some reliable information.


So, did he polyphasically or Uberman sleep? Quite likely. "dfishel" from the Uberman Sleep Yahoo! Group sent me a reference to Bucky Works: Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today. The relevant passages are on pages 66 and 67. Just poking at it in Google Book Search makes me think it's worth throwing on my reading list.

Interestingly, Bucky Works also notes that the ideal diet (according to "Bucky") is not a vegan / vegetarian diet, as suggested by some, but instead a diet consisting entirely of "steak, prunes, Jell-o(R), and strong tea, taken three, and sometimes four times a day, synchronized with his naps." However, the book goes on to say that later, in the 1970s, he reniged on that diet to be an advocate of the winged bean in his autonomous housing ideas.


An apparently autobiographical account discussing his revelation and suicidal contemplation also mentions that he decided to sleep "that way that certain animals sleep: lying down as soon as I was tired, sleeping a half hour every six hours." Not quite the Stampi Uberman sleep, but polyphasic nonetheless.

So, it's likely that he did in fact sleep polyphasically (unless someone has information that discounts these sources...?).


One down, many to go. :)
-sean

It doesn't seem that a lot of people found much on famous people's polynapping behavior either positively or negatively. So, given the leads provided (thanks to those that submitted links or enough information to re-create them), I will be digging deeper with each of the claimed famous individuals in separate posts.

I'll start breaking it down for each person individually, and see where it takes me. It'll be a fun internet researching / digging project, spiced with occaisional library trips, I think. As a result, though, I won't summarize them all in one fell swoop. I'll do them each as their own posts every once in a while.

First up, Buckminster Fuller...

-sean

My last post got a comment that warranted a long enough response to spawn another main blog entry. :)

Here we go:

Jim Eastman said...
I'm kind of curious how a polyphasic sleep cycle works for someone with an active exercise/workout schedule. I realize that's entirely unlike you :-D, but do you know if there's info on that?


For formal research, I'm inclined to say that there's nothing out there, but that's being said without actively looking. As for informal, there may be a blog or two of some physically active participants. I know at least one or two of the active uberman list constributors is pretty physical. I'll dig some and see what I can find.

I do know that it has been suggested that one should increase their activity levels when experimenting to stave off weight gain. Most point to an increase in appetite because of the time spent awake. Digging down, it may have to do with muscle atrophy caused by long-term high cortisol levels... but I'll get to that when I think I've researched enough on it. In any case, it may be beneficial to work out extensively because of the above reason.

But then, another concern is how one "repairs" after extensive workouts... I know it's the common wisdom that the NREM stages of sleep are used for physical repair, such as healing and muscle building (though I haven't looked into this to see how true it is). So it may be detrimental because your body healing can't keep up.

So, um, in short, I don't know. It'll be my next research topic.

-sean

Last Friday, I cross-posted to this blog and to the Uberman Sleep Yahoo! group asking for citations about the famous people that purportedly slept polyphasically. People were really great about responding with citations and such. Thanks, everyone!

I'll summarize the responses and information posted tonight. Meanwhile, if anyone has any other information on that topic, feel free to send it my way. Don't forget to cite your sources, or it just looks like more internet speculation! :)

Also, today is the three week line from when I started this little test. I'll have a summary for this past week for everyone out there tonight as well.

Current Polyphasic Sleep Research Topic: Hormone levels (specifically, Cortisol) with regard to sleep and polyphasic sleeping and long term effects of those levels (e.g. Are the levels disrupted by not sleeping as much? Do irregular light cues play into it?). More good leads on this would be good. :)


-sean

Famous People Sleeping

Did Da Vinci, Jefferson, Fuller, etc. actually sleep polyphasically?

It's one of the favorite 'facts' that's used to promote polyphasic sleep, Uberman in particular. It's almost always thrown in with the short blurb description. I've seen it referenced both for Uberman sleep specifically (like the wikipedia entry or everything2 entry), as well as the 90-minute cycle varieties of sleep (like here).

Everyone loves to do it when discussing polyphasic sleep. Heck, I've even been guilty of name dropping. It makes this whole polysleep thing seem a little less crazy.

The question is, where'd it come from? I've never seen a single reference or citation to say where this information comes from. Sounds to me like an urban legend...

But it might not be. Does anyone have any information on this? I'm willing to throw a large shadow of doubt on this if we can't dig up any reliable sources on the information. That's not saying that it is a myth, just that we cannot quote it as fact (and people should stop doing so).

-sean