Polyphasic Sleep

Day 7… The end for now

delta1one — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:51:10 +0000

Overslept again this morning. By alot. My 1.30 sleep continued to until midday. I think this has really screwed up my pattern. I could probably get back into the correct pattern after a few sleeps, but it is not really compatible with other things in my life. I am going shooting tonight, and probably more this week, so I can’t just go and sleep half way through, and it is probably not wise to drive while I am still in the process of adapting to polyphasic sleep. I will have another long sleep this afternoon and then go shooting and sleep normally again. I would be interested in trying polyphasic sleep again at some point in the future. It did seem like it could work as I was becoming less tired at night each day, but it seems that it conflicts with other things in my life more than I imagined. It seems a shame having wasted the last week in a terribly tired state and got nothing done just to give up, but I guess that is just too bad. At least I will be able to make good use of this week.

Day 6

delta1one — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:46:53 +0000

Today went great, no oversleeping and I felt the more awake again. Starting to get stuff done again. The hardest time to stay awake was still after my 1.30am sleep. It is weird that I still feel more awake during the day than the night.

Day 5

delta1one — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:19:25 +0000

I overslept again this morning. I slept right through the alarm clock. So now I have got three separate alarm clocks set up so that if one fails or I sleep through one, hopefully one of the others will wake me. The two sleeps after I overslept I couldn’t sleep, but I seem to be pretty much back to how I was this time yesterday now in terms of tiredness, maybe slightly worse but not too bad. Still I am not functioning properly due to tiredness, and I hoped I would almost be by now.

Day 4

delta1one — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:30:11 +0000

I didn’t oversleep today, which was good. I was more tired today during the day than I have been yet. I was in the car for several hours and was in a weird state between awake and asleep alot of the time. I was half going to sleep and having a tiny bit of dream then I would wake up again. Very weird. And I ended up hitting my head quite a few times by falling asleep and going around corners. Apparently I was mumbling to the person next to me. But I have started to have dreams, so hopefully that is a sign that I am getting some REM sleep, so am closer to being adapted to polyphasic sleep. If I don’t get some definite progress soon, I will be very tempted to give up.

Day 3

delta1one — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:58:25 +0000

I missed an awake period again today. I was so fast asleep that I did not hear the alarm clock, which has never happened to me before. This time it was after the 9.30am sleep, and I was reasonably confused when I awoke because I guess I expected it to be 10am, not 1pm. Apart from that, nothing really different from yesterday. Maybe it is getting slightly easier to get to sleep and feeling less tired during awake periods, but no major difference. I think I need to make sure I do not oversleep anymore so I have got a better system for waking up. From now on I will use my ipod’s alarm feature to wake me up and sleep with the headphones on. Hopefully no more oversleeping.

Day 2

delta1one — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:49:50 +0000

Today was pretty much the same as yesterday. I still am not getting to sleep quickly so am barely getting any sleep. I made a mistake after my 1.30am sleep, I didn’t feel like getting out of bed, so I decided to stay lying down for a few minutes. I ended up sleeping until my 5.30am sleep. Not so good. From now on I will make sure I stand up after each nap to make sure I am not going to fall asleep again. I am feeling like I have not slept very well but still I am surprised that I am functioning as well as I am having been sleeping alot less. I still have not had any dreams which apparently indicates that I am not getting any REM sleep. Nothing else really to say about today. I have not become extremely tired while writing this like I did when I posted yesterday, so that may show some improvement.

Day 1

delta1one — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:12:09 +0000

A bit over 24 hours since I had my first nap, and surprisingly I am feeling alot better than I expected I would at this stage. I felt better today than I have in the past when I have completely gone without sleep, which is surprising because I have only managed to sleep for around 1 hour in the last 24 hours. I have been strictly sticking to the schedule, with my naps starting at most 1 or 2 minutes away from the scheduled time and I get up as soon as the alarm goes off, although it takes quite a while for me to be able to get to sleep. From my latest nap (the 9.30pm one) I did not manage to get and sleep at all, but the two before that I did get a small amount of sleep. During writing this I have become very tired. Hopefully I will be able to sleep earlier during my naps soon.

Polyphasic sleep

delta1one — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:54:04 +0000

A few weeks ago a friend put me onto the wikipedia article on polyphasic sleep which I found very interesting. It claims that it is possible to reduce sleeping to around 2 hours a day by splitting sleep into smaller chunks, giving you 5 extra hours of useful time every day. I have some trouble sleeping and usually feel tired for most of the day. Apparently this sleeping pattern makes people feel more awake and alert, and I read one blog that suggested it could help insomnia. Well… 5 extra hours in a day could be useful, and it would be nice to feel awake and alert for once, so I decided to try it. I waited until now to start because I have a two week break and being tired will not stop me from doing anything, because I have nothing to do.

I have decided to attempt to convert my sleeping pattern to the “Uberman” sleeping pattern, which involves sleeping 6 times a day for around 25 minutes every 4 hours, reducing time spent sleeping to just over two hours. I have decided to document this as I thought this may be interesting for others, as other peoples blogs on the subject have been interesting to me.

I am going to sleep for 25 minutes every four hours. I will sleep at 1.30am, 5.30am, 9.30am, 1.30pm, 5.30pm, and 9.30pm. I chose these times because they will fit into my normal schedule, if I manage to succeed in picking up the pattern.

I started this evening, after a normal day – waking at around 7am. I had my first 25 minute “sleep” at 9.30pm. I did not actually manage to sleep at this time, nor did I for the second “sleep” at 1.30am, so I am feeling reasonably drowsy at present.

I will post my progress daily.