Polyphasic Sleep Update – Day 90. Today is day 90 of my polyphasic sleep experiment.
It seems strange to refer to this as an experiment now, since it’s become such an ingrained habit. This will probably be my last update on polyphasic sleep, since the last 30 days were largely uneventful as far as this experiment goes. I don’t have much to report that I haven’t already written about previously. Lately I’ve been getting some really strange questions about this experiment, such as, “What effect does pot smoking have on polyphasic sleep?” And “Would you please get a full physical, including a brain scan, and post the results?”
I’ve grown accustomed to enjoying different activities at all hours of the day. I expect to be doing a lot more travel this year. Probably the most annoying thing about polyphasic sleep is having to take naps at inopportune times. One thing I plan to change as a result of this experiment is to add more social activities to my life. Polyphasic Sleep Update – Day 60. Today is the 60th day since beginning my polyphasic sleep experiment.
It’s hard to fathom that only 60 days have passed – it feels closer to 120 days. For the past several weeks, I’ve been receiving daily emails with questions about this experiment. Many of those questions have already been answered in my previous polyphasic log entries for days 1-30, so if you really want to know the details, that’s a good place to start. Most of the remaining questions are about various options that I’ve never tried, and I don’t care to speculate on them, since it’s too far outside my own experience. What I did experience contained enough surprises that if I venture beyond that, I’m probably just groping in the dark. I promised to post another update at day 60, so here goes.
Polyphasic Sleep – Response to Reader Feedback. Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 6. Today was the best by far.
My energy and alertness levels have taken a big leap forward. Right now I’d say I feel at least as good as I did when sleeping monophasically (a 10 on a scale of 1-10). It’s almost unbelievable that I can feel so wide awake, alert, and energetic on only 2-3 hours of sleep per day. Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 5. My polyphasic sleeping experience of the last 24 hours wasn’t quite as good as that of Day 4.
My naps weren’t as restorative, and I spent much of last night feeling drowsy. I added a couple extra naps to make it through the night. That seemed to help, as I did finally have some dreams and woke up from the 5am nap feeling refreshed once again. The morning and early afternoon went well today. The nighttime drowsiness problem could partially be caused by my own behavior. Some people reported experiencing more vivid dreams and more lucid dreams from polyphasic sleep. I’m still experiencing some light “fog of brain” around the clock.
I’ve also been having some cold-like symptoms the past few days, especially sneezing and a running nose. My fine motor skills are a little off as well. Just to be safe, I’ve been avoiding driving a car during this adaptation period. Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 4. Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 3. It seems the polyphasic sleep adaptation is beginning to take root.
I’m finally beginning to have dreams during my naps, which indicates REM sleep. In fact, sometimes the dreams seem to begin even before I feel I’ve fallen asleep. It’s not quite the same as lucid dreaming. It feels more like being in two places at once. I’ve been feeling much more rested and mentally clear after waking up from naps when I have a dream, another good sign. An idea I have to make the adaptation period easier would be to increase the frequency of naps, but not their duration. I believe the idea is that after you’ve successfully made the polyphasic adaptation, six naps are intended to provide the equivalent of roughly six cycles of REM sleep, which would allow you to function as if you’ve gotten about nine hours of normal sleep. But what about during the adaptation period itself, when you still aren’t getting any REM sleep at all?
Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 2. So far, so good.
I’ve continued getting all my scheduled naps on time without oversleeping. This day was much harder than the previous one though. My best cycle of all was the 5-9pm one yesterday. I was in a state of relaxed consciousness, but with virtually no mental chatter. Polyphasic Sleep Log – Day 1. I’ve completed my first day on the polyphasic sleep schedule, napping for 20-30 minutes every four hours.
It’s been almost 36 hours since I last awoke from a full night’s sleep. “Day” is a relative term on this schedule, since the daytime sleeping schedule is no different than the nighttime one. I’m not sure whether to think of today as “day 1″ (the day after my first night of sleep deprivation) or “day 2″ (the second day after I officially started this sleeping pattern). I opted to call it “day 1.” No serious problems thus far aside from some fatigue, lower concentration, and occasional sleepiness.
Yesterday seemed tougher than it should have been, as I experienced some tiredness even though I was initially getting more sleep than usual by beginning the nap schedule after having a regular night’s sleep. Last night was semi-difficult, with lots of sleepiness and fatigue between the 1am and 5am naps. 5am was my normal waking time. Polyphasic Sleep. A couple days ago, I saw a post about polyphasic sleep on LifeHack.org. Since then I’ve been emailed about this topic as well, probably because I’ve written previously about becoming an early riser.
Polyphasic sleep involves taking multiple short sleep periods throughout the day instead of getting all your sleep in one long chunk. A popular form of polyphasic sleep, the Uberman sleep schedule, suggests that you sleep 20-30 minutes six times per day, with equally spaced naps every 4 hours around the clock.