Still going. Polyphasic was blissful for a couple of weeks after the last post. Blissful, but incredibly inflexible. Missing a nap screws me up for almost 24 hours afterward. This got irritating, and I went back to monophasic for a few days, but more than anything else it was really boring.

So back to 20*4 minutes per day, going through adaption over again – it’s a lot easier the second time, trust me. Should be back to peak in a couple of days.

Will continue to update as to how it’s going, but no longer any pretense at being a daily thing.

I’m setting up a repository of polyphasic info at http://tesser.org/sleep. It will take me a while, but I’m intending to publish a large-ish guide in the next few days, so check back then.

New polyphasic blog from a friend of mine: http://morpheus.tesser.org. He’s updating it after every nap (Uberman, so six times a day) at the moment).

First, many apologies for the Epic Fail that was this blog. I had every intention of updating it daily; however, life got in the way.

The last couple of weeks have been all-over-the-place. The lack of sleep combined with the possibility of oversleeping, as well as assorted life-stuff that all hit me this week, I’ve been moving between highs and lows with ridiculous rapidity. Pretty much unable to function for the last two weeks, up until yesterday.

I did it – I’m adjusted. 80 minutes of sleep per day, and I’m feeling better than I ever have.

It was most definitely not easy. I had to restart twice due to oversleeping; the deprivation wreaked havoc on my mood; I was rendered incapable of doing pretty much anything for most of those days.

So my advice for those who want to try this: first, you’re batshit insane. If you’re happy with that, read on.

* Before you start, set aside two weeks during which little will be expected of you.

I was a moron – I started during exam week. Fortunately the exams were easy, but my performance definitely suffered, as did my people skills.

Prepare to be irritable and have your short-term memory nonexistent for about five days.

* DON’T OVERSLEEP.

Take whatever measures necessary, but do not do this. ever. My six-hour blunder left me with the IQ in the single digits for thirty-six hours afterwards. Additionally, “complete shit” does not even begin to describe how bad those 36 hours felt.

* Don’t try this if you’re short on willpower. Try staying up for four days straight without stimulants. If you can’t do it, then you probably won’t be able to do this.

* Avoid caffeine. Another mistake I made. I quit caffeine completely five days ago; I’m now fully adjusted. Doesn’t matter how tolerant you are – not a good idea.

Now, on to how my sleep is going now:

I feel fantastic. Completely, utterly. The most incredible high. I’m up for over 22 hours a day and I’m functioning better than I was when I was up for 18.

I’m dreaming during my naps – it seems like hours of experience crammed into twenty minutes.

I can get up without difficulty – my body doesn’t want to sleep past about the 19 minute mark.

My senses are heightened; my analysis has improved; and I’m able to apply this 22 hours a day.

So, a summary of what the past two weeks have been like:

Probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but oh so glad I did it.

If you’re not afraid of two weeks consisting primarily of hell and aren’t happy with your current sleep pattern, try it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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.

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.

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.

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: