A haiku, for reasons described earlier…
It seems to have become a habit for me to summarize the previous 24h during the next day’s first cycle.
Okay, well, Day 3 was rough. When I awoke at 4am, I was more tired than I have probably ever been in my life. I certainly don’t remember ever being more tired, and I’m certain that if I somehow were that tired then in any other circumstance I would just sleep. In my dazed state, I decided I should still go for a walk, and that it would probably help wake me up. It did not. I practically sleepwalked for over an hour around campus. A route that would normally take me ~40 mins took well over an hour. I had my eyes closed probably more than half of the time. Not one of my finer moments.
Upon returning to my room, it was quite clear to me that I would not be able to stay conscious until my 7:30 nap, but it was only 5:15 or so. I decided that I’d stay awake until 5:30 and then have an extra nap…
…and that’s the last thing I remember before waking up in my bed shortly after 9am. Upon inspection of my phone, I discovered that I hadn’t slept through a 6ish alarm, but that I hadn’t even set one. That’s how tired I was, apparently. Anyway, I had a quiz this afternoon, so it was potentially for the best that I got a bit of actual sleep. As it was, I don’t think I did that well, but there’s a chance I would not even have made it there conscious otherwise. Of course, there’s also a chance that I could’ve had several REM naps today if I’d stayed on schedule. It’s impossible to say. The past is the past.
I’m not prepared to give up that easily though, and fortunately tomorrow/today/Day4 is Canada Day, so this is a long weekend. I’m hoping that 3 days of few commitments will allow me to hit my naps on schedule and take several extra ones, a la Naptation.
Anyway, it’s 3:27, so I need to get ready for nap 2 of Day 4. (I count the midnight naps as belonging to the next day.)
I’m feeling pretty good at the moment.
Malcolm
PS: I skipped my night-class for half an hour to catch some winks on the second floor of the classroom building — literally on the floor.
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?
It’s now shortly after midnight, technically into Day two. I’ve decided I’m going to divide my days based on midnights, because
I feel pretty good. I’m tired but not exhausted. I’m not in any real physical discomfort.
My mind is having a hard time getting used to the idea that I’m not going to flop down on my bed and conk out for 8h every night. I was downtown playing at a UW Engineering Talent Show (“TalEng”) and it was weird to realize that I was coming back and just going to work all night, plus probably go for another stroll at 4am. I ate a bunch of food at TalEng too… I’m trying to eat a significant amount during 4/6 cycles, plus snacks in the other ones.
I remarked to a friend at one point that “Normal people probably don’t try Uberman, but if they did they’d probably stop because it just feels so weird.” by which I meant that the pull toward returning to the status quo of sleeping all night is quite strong, all physical aspects aside.
I’ve been advised to create a list of projects to do with all of my extra time. I have a few but so far this hasn’t been needed due to an exceptionally large number of school assignments.
Speaking of which, Calculus time!
Malcolm
PS: One of my friends, Patrick Cockwell, has decided to join me. His naps are on the 4 hours (4,8,12) so we should be able to keep tabs on each other and make sure we don’t oversleep.
It’s 5am, and I’m feeling pretty great.
For the remainder of my 12-4 cycle, I tweaked some things on the blog design, and talked with a friend online. is currently sleeping biphasically — one main sleep (4.5h) and a nap (1.5h). We’re going to stay in touch throughout my adaptation process, and presumably afterwards as well. During that time I also read some articles, and… Hm. I remember feeling as though time was passing fairly slowly, but I’m not sure now exactly what I was doing the whole time.
Perhaps it is all just my own bias wanting me to think that I’m still functioning very efficiently. Hard to say.
My naps had all been pretty good until the 3:30 one, when I just couldn’t get comfortable… I was laying in the same shavasana position as all of my previous naps, but my limbs would just feel like they were in the wrong place. I just couldn’t get to sleep. I’m hoping that future naps will not be so restless. For all of yesterday’s naps, I actually slept, although I don’t know what state I was in.
The Yoga position "Shavasana"
On the subject of Yoga, I’m planning to start doing a half-hour or so every day. I’m trying to model my adaptation period quite closely on what I’ve observed on Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog. This includes:
I may also do other things he did, such as cook things, although I don’t know if that specifically ought to help immensely.
I’m going to do some schoolwork etc now, nap again before 8, do more, nap again, eat lunch, go to class!
So far my mental status is fine. I feel tired but not excessively. My energy is at a stable although slightly below average level. I feel like I could sleep now if I wanted to, but I don’t feel like I absolutely have to.
Boom.
Malcolm
PS: I’m chatting with a friend at the moment, and I made reference to the conversation I had with the other friend during my 12-4 cycle as being “last night”, even though it was just 2 hours prior. Interesting, eh? Factors that could’ve caused me to divide the day that way could include…
As those of you who know me in real life know, I have recently decided to undertake a transition to the Uberman Sleep Schedule. That link will tell you most of what there is to know about Uberman. If you don’t like reading, the following diagram somewhat summarizes it.
Circle is 24h. Red is asleep. Black is awake.
Basically, rather than sleeping ~8h at night, I’m going to be sleeping for 20-25 minutes every 4h. At first, the body violently resists this, because it does not know how to get any REM sleep while only sleeping in 20 minute stints. After a couple of weeks, though, the body can adjust to this and then actually becomes more rested since it actually gets 2 full hours of REM every 24h versus only about 1.5h REM on a regular sleep schedule.
I’ve given this past day (June 27th, 2011) the name “Day Zero”. I had a full night’s sleep last night—aside from my roommate’s phone waking me earlier than I’d intended—but I started my naps at noon, and have just finished my fourth (my midnight nap).
My nap schedule is: 11:30, 3:30, 7:30 (am & pm).
I’ll post abut Uberman at least daily for the first week or two, then after that it will depend on my state. My hope is that polyphasic sleeping will become my normal state (or close to it) by then and there won’t be many more anomalies to remark.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment! I have plenty of time now, so I should be able to answer it 😛
Malcolm
PS: My friend just sent me a link to this comic about sleep deprivation.
Hey everybody!
I have a new blog. If you were hoping this blog would actually have content on it, because you really enjoy my rants and ideas and so on, you can check out my old blog, Obfuscatism. To be quite honest, this blog may well end up being full of similar rants, but I recently purchased this domain name and wanted to start over.
Here goes.
Malcolm
PS: to anyone who is here to follow my Uberman journey, the next post will be about that.
