Made it to Day 3

Yesterday afternoon nap was excellent, got the full twenty minutes, and didn’t do too badly in the exam (not an A-grade paper, but I think that that can be accounted for by things other than the sleep deprivation).

Last night was harder – not just tired, but the kind of emotionally-fragile state that one gets after a couple of days without sleep.

2330 nap was extremely refreshing, however, and I’m feeling reasonably good at the moment.

The 2330 nap was interesting in that I remember dreaming, albeit briefly, which would confirm that I have indeed started to reach REM sleep in less than 20 minutes of downtime. Empirical validation FTW.

Day 1 – morning

(as a half-day, yesterday is hereby declared ‘day 0′)

After sleeplessness during naps 1 and 2, 1730 and 2330 yesterday, ’twas a welcome surprise when I dropped off pretty much immediately at 0530 this morning. I slept the full twenty minutes, perhaps even a minute or two over.

For what it’s worth I’m awake and somewhat coherent. Not really too sleep deprived (yet). Cognition’s acceptable, if a little below ‘well-rested’ – short-term memory’s not great, but I’m functioning at a normalish level overall. I imagine my exam performance this afternoon will be a better indicator of ability during this adjustment phase.

Midnight update

Second ‘nap’. I think I might have gotten 60 seconds’ worth of sleep there. >.< Definitely drifted off in the second half of my twenty minutes.

This is promising. Coming from a relatively monophasic pattern, I'm capable of at least getting to sleep during that time, and I've barely started yet.

I anticipate that the difficulty of getting up after a nap will build very fast over the next few days, but so far not a problem.

The week's worth of normal-life sleep deprivation is starting to build up as I mock my body with the prospect of sleep. Exam tomorrow afternoon, so I'm counting on getting at least something out of my next two naps. The next week is going to be a challenge.

First (non-) nap

Unsurprisingly, spent the 20 minutes in a drowsy kind of half-sleep. Ordinary sleep deprivation is catching up to me though – I should be out very quickly come 2330.

Welcome.

This is yet another polyphasic-sleep blog. Why? Because there’s still too little information out there, and too small a signal:noise ratio.

Starting today, I will be adopting a modified Uberman pattern – 20-minute naps every six hours, for a total of eighty minutes of sleep per 24 hours.

Aiming to keep this as single-purpose and bullshit-free as I can, but hoping to update frequently and give a full account of my attempt.

Before I start, a bit about my current patterns/habits:

My sleep is very very irregular at the moment. I generally sleep about 18 hours a week, but spread out pretty much randomly, so a pattern is hard to detect. I won’t be sleeping that much less than I was, but no more quadruple-allnighters.

I chose (or rather adapted) this pattern because it’s the only one I can think of that will fit in with my school’s schedule. Planned naptimes at the moment are 0530, 1130, 1730 and 2330. Even so, this will involve sleeping in some weird places, which in itself will take a lot of getting used to.

So, here goes. :cheers: