Well, it’s now Day 3. The following is a summary of how Day 2 went.
It massively surprises me that—despite having a hypothetical 6 extra hours per day—I’m having trouble updating this blog daily. I imagine that part of that is linked to just how tired I’ve been during many of the AM hours. During Day2-cycle3(8am-11:30am), for example, I nearly collapsed into my omelette that I was eating for breakfast. I had to take an extra nap, which I did at 9:30, at the midpoint of the cycle. The extra naps really help keep me going.
As far as my state of being is concerned, well… I’m still feeling generally fine/pleasant. I find funny things twice as funny, although so far I haven’t found an abnormal number of unfunny things funny. I’m super-sleepy at times, but not immensely so, as it still takes me a few minutes to fall asleep when I lay down. Also, sometimes I don’t feel sleepy at all. This is mostly correlated to how active I am, both physically and socially. I’ve always found conversation to do wonders for my levels of awakeness.
In my second cycle, I went over to Patrick’s res, Velocity, and played the keyboard that’s in the Great Hall while he took his 4am nap. I went to ensure he was awake but he was already up as he hadn’t actually fallen asleep. We went on an excursion that took us through Waterloo Park and over to Uptown Waterloo, then back up King Street, returning on University Avenue. It was much colder than my previous walk (which I did in shorts & sandals) but still very nice. The walks are great for keeping energy high at that time of the morning.
Dreaming! The challenge of adjusting to the Uberman Sleep Schedule is to teach your body how to have REM sleep in just 20 minutes. One of the most tell-tale signs of REM sleep is dreaming, which does not usually happen in any other sleep phase. I’m happy to report that my noon nap yesterday included a brief dream. Hopefully, over the next few days, more and more of my naps will become REM-naps, complete with dreaming. For some people this apparently takes weeks, but I’m hoping for a smoother transition than that.
10 minutes until Nap 2, and I’m suddenly starting to feel super-tired. A good sign, I think, although it’s hard to say at this point.
Malcolm
PS: Other polyphasers have mentioned that they began craving grapes. My res cafeteria was serving grapes at lunch today, so I got them, but I found them very unpleasant. That’s probably related mostly to where they’re from or how (if) they were washed?
