End of 2 weeks: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I'm posting this a week in arrears, and have given things a lot of thought in the intervening time. So I'm going to post what I've seen as the pros and cons, plus the stuff that fits in neither category, and try to make some  decisions going forward from there. Before I do that, though, I thought I'd summarize my week.

On that last day of the 2 week period, I was sick. A cold had been going through the family, and when sleep deprived your immune system is weakened, so I'm not surprised that I got it. Still, I wasn't the only one, and I didn't get it faster or keep it longer than anyone else, so the immune system dysfunction must not be >too< bad. Either way, at 3 that morning, sick, a pounding headache, tired, and tired of being tired as I had been for the whole previous week, I decided to call it quits. I had reached my 2 weeks, and was in enough of a pickle that I thought I needed to at least recover before going further.

So I slept. It ended up being kind of a normal night, just as if I had been sleeping normally all along. In other words, the polyphasic tests didn't appear to harm my ability to sleep monophasically. But when I did wake up, I was still tired. Oh, well, I thought, I was sick, had been deprived, and so on, it makes sense that I'd still be tired. But the same was true the next day. And the next. In fact, I didn't feel any better (or worse) than I had during the polyphasic tests. My only conclusions are that either A) I've broken something more than I thought, or B) my perceptions are out of whack. Given that I've felt just as tired for strings of days many times before, I'm inclined to believe B, but I'm not ruling out A.

Now that it's been a week, and I'm still feeling just as poorly (though less sick), I'm figuring that really nothing is improved by going back to monophasic, and maybe I should try polyphasic again. If I do, I could try the same plan, the U6 plan, or an Everyman plan (3 hrs at night plus 3 or 4 naps during the day).

So last night I went to bed a little early (feeling tired!). I was woken up about an hour and a half later by a screaming infant who was pretty inconsolable, so I was very much awake by the time she'd gotten to sleep. At this point I decided to try polyphasic for the night since the monophasic was pretty ruined anyway. Good news again: I switched over just fine. I had a little trouble falling asleep for the first nap, but no trouble for the second. In addition, I dreamed pretty fully and memorably, and woke up 2 minutes before the alarm.

So I figure I might as well keep experimenting at the very least. Not sure if I'm going to switch poly styles, yet, but I'm probably leaning toward keeping to one style in hopes of improving things by adapting better. I'm probably also going to try to reread a lot of the articles I'd read before to see if any of them say things I'd missed about how to get better sleep or feel more refreshed.

So, the promised list, as I see things:

Pros:

1. Clearly, the time gained. By sleeping less than 3 hours per day, I'm gaining 4 hours from the normal 7 I had been sleeping. If I were to switch to an Uberman 6 and cut times to 20 minutes or 15, I'd be gaining even more time.
2. A new ability: sleep just about anywhere just about any time, and have it be more useful than previously. I can't say it's as perfectly useful as polyphasic proponents would have you believe, but more useful than a nap last month? Sure thing. I'm also less hung up on what bed or pillow I'm using; I used to be pretty picky just because I had trouble falling asleep with foreign ones.
3. Being a pinch-hitter. 5 times during 2 weeks, someone really needed something late at night, and I was able to volunteer and get it done 'cuz I was up anyway. Twice were dropping people off for red-eye flights, and three times were taking care of children. If you don't have children around or friends/family that travels, this might not be important to you (plus it's more benefit to others than yourself, if you're inclined to think that way), but I found this to be pretty useful.
4. A feeling of security at night. My wife mentioned that she does indeed feel safer knowing that if someone were to attempt to break in I'd already be up and aware and we'd have a leg up on handling the situation. Similarly for any other nocturnal emergency. Probably not a big deal, really, since those things almost never happen anyway, but again, the feeling is there.

Cons:

1. The extra time at night doesn't appear to be as useful as daylight hours. As I've mentioned, I've been feeling just fine during the day, but every night has been a struggle and I experience the night through a kind of haze. Sure, I've gotten some things done (some extra work, read a book, played a couple of games), but nothing truly outstanding was accomplished.
2. Being tired of being tired. As I mentioned, I'm always tired at the moment. That's not unusual for me, so I can't say it's due to the polyphasic, but at least for me, the feeling itself is compounded when I wake up, and I can ignore it other times. Since polyphasic means more naps, it also means waking  up more often, which means noticing my pain again. This gets old quickly.
3. Social calendar & inflexibility. I can't say for certain that you can't skip naps, or what the effects thereof are, or those of moving naps, or anything else. But I can say that if you're feeling crummy you're going to want to follow "the rules" as close as you can, and having to sleep every 3 hours kinda sucks for being out doing anything.
4. Having a different schedule from your wife kind of sucks. It'd be nice if we were able to go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time and all of that. We've both missed talking for a little before conking out.
5. Having a different schedule sucks, part 2. If your wife wants to watch a Dr Who marathon and you have to stop every little while for a nap it kind of puts a damper on things. You can't even watch 2 movies in a row. Maybe this goes with #3, but I'm mentioning it separately because, at least for me, this is really, really important -- I spend a huge amount of my time with my family and I'd optimally like to spend more, not less.

Weird stuff:

1. Dreams? I think I'm dreaming more often and remembering more often, but that's not saying much. Even if it were true, I'm not sure that'd be a real plus since I'm not convinced that dreaming is all that cool.
2. I'm still baffled by the fact that I'm getting 3 hrs sleep per 24 hr period, have a perfectly normal feeling day, and yet enter zombie mode at night only to be normal again in the morning. I assume that will continue now, switching to poly again, but I'll definitely mention it if not.
3. Unlike Pavlina, I don't seem to have a problem with days stringing together in my mind. For me, the light/dark cycle, and the zombie/not cycle are enough for my mind to separate things just fine. Even though this is the absence of an item, I'm marking it just because Pavlina thought it was incredibly important. Also, having the string of days experience might be kind of cool.

Polyphasic Day 13

First, as expected, I missed my 9pm nap, and also adjusted the 6pm and 12am naps slightly wider to accommodate my social life. There was a small down period while a passenger in someone's car, so I tried to sleep, but it was short and I don't think it accomplished anything. After the 12am (really 12:25) nap, I tried to get back to the normal 1.5 hr cycle (which I normally use as 2 cycles per sleep) by putting in a nap at 1:30 to make up for the lost one at 9pm. I then slept at 3am as normal and it is now 4:30am.

As far as sleepiness, I am somewhat pleased: I feel very tired, but not a lot more than usual for this time of day (night). I may be able to recover better from the loss of a nap now than last week.

Due to the fact that I have continually been having trouble in the night while being fine during the day, I decided to look up some sources suggesting what might be going on. Based on info from the Polyphasic Society, it seems as if I'm exhibiting classic Deep-Sleep deprivation.

REM deprivation is more common and the side-effects are more well-known, including hallucination. SWS deprivation, on the other hand, is A) less common (REM is needed more and more often. Think water instead of food), and B) more subtle. Classic SWS-dep signs: extra night-time grogginess, extra hunger, feeling cold, blacking out (no memory of time awake). I seem to have all of those: I've definitely noticed a few times where I overslept and had no recollection of hitting the alarm.

Given that I'm thus SWS deprived, there are 2 possibilities: either my system isn't adjusting properly to allow for SWS in my naps, or it has done so but is only getting enough SWS for steady-state, not to allow it to make up for the SWS I missed before. If the 2nd is true, a couple of extra long naps in the early night will refill the SWS meter, so to speak, and the problem is solved. If the first, though, the same remedy will likely solve the problems in the short term, but will make SWS adaptation more unlikely and more difficult. Instead, I should stick with it until the 2nd possibility becomes true and then follow that route.

So which is it? It's probably impossible to tell without better sleep monitoring stuff than I've got available (apparently there's a suite of products, now, that are very, very good at helping you figure out what kind of sleep you're getting. I've been thinking today of ordering a LarkLife, for instance, and I'd be interested in Zeo if it hadn't gone out of business). So I'm going to try getting more SWS without ruining my adaptation in another way. I'm going to try to get more SWS naps without changing their length.

To do this, I'm intending on increasing SWS "pressure" (the body's assumed need for certain types of sleep) by A) waiting until early night-time (standard SWS time), and B) increasing body temperature through use of a hot shower immediately before the nap. Once I've got the pressure increased, I'll take more naps during that period.

I guess we'll see how it works out. Tomorrow is the 2-week line, so I'll have some overall progress report info, as well as some decisions on how to move forward.

Polyphasic Days 11-12

So yesterday (day 11), I was going to post something like this: "I seem to be in a rut. It's not a terrible rut, mind; I feel mostly awake, I'm functioning pretty darned well on a grand total of about 3 hrs of sleep per 24 hr period. But I don't seem to be adapting or improving any further."

In fact, I was starting to write that just now because I'd been thinking it for a while and that was just what made sense. And then I realized that it was 4:30am and I'm really not all that tired. More tired than day? Sure. But I'm not nodding off (which is a change), and I feel cognizant and creative enough to sit here and think about what's going on and blog about it (which is also a change).

So I guess I can't speak for every day (this may be a fluke), but today I feel pretty good. 16 hrs from now will be Tuesday night, which is when I'll miss a nap again, so we'll see what kind of damage that does, but I have high hopes once again, whereas yesterday I was starting to doubt a lot. In fact, yesterday's day was one of the groggiest while tonight has been one of the least groggy. So maybe it's finally equalizing or something. At this point, really, though, who knows, since not much has gone the way I had expected it might.

Thursday during the day will be the 2 week marker, since that's when I attempted my first polyphasic nap, and I said I'd review things and make some kind of decision then. I definitely feel that I need the data from later tonight to make an informed choice, but even then I'm not sure I have enough data. I'll just have to make a decision of some kind regardless.

I know that even as recently as yesterday I was feeling really poorly and just wanted to go back to sleep, but I also know that I'm still curious and still functional, so there's no particular reason I can't keep going.

As a side note, my soft palate is killing me at the moment; I'm pretty sure I'm picking up at least a part of the sickness my daughters have both had. I'm trying to hydrate heavily, and it's possible that either the extra water or the sickness itself has been modifying how I feel today.

Polyphasic Day 10 (on time)

Day 10: 2013/8/24

This is the first log post to the blog that's actually (mostly) on time, only a few hours after written instead of days. Future posts will be written here exclusively.

Today was fairly uneventful. However, it is noteworthy precisely because it was uneventful. I was expecting the wee hours to be quite difficult, but really they weren't. I'm not sure if it's because I'm better at keeping myself awake or if my sleep is getting better. I hope the latter but expect that it's a combination.

Of further note in the "nothing happened" category, I hit all of my naps pretty much on time, I slept fairly quickly (I think that part is improving), and I appear to have slept well, waking up at the alarm and feeling fairly refreshed. This isn't refreshed like total Polyphasic devotees would have you believe, mind. Just standard "I just woke up" refreshed, which, for me, is sometimes >more< groggy than just before sleeping. 

Nap times are currently 23 minutes. Not sure if I should modify that or not. I'd like to get to the point where they're 20 minutes each exactly, but I'm not sure I'm falling asleep that fast, yet, and I think, for now, that I'd like to not buck the system too much.

Continuing the "nothing happened" theme, I still have been too groggy at night to really get anything interesting done. I've watched a few old movies, played a few new games, read a book (Starship Troopers), but nothing like what was on my mind as far as things I'd really like to accomplish. I just haven't had the mental capacity to even think of what to do, let alone actually do it.

In comparing myself to Pavlina at this point, I'd say I'm not as well adapted (still groggy), still sleeping longer total hours, and with no positive sides to it. I'm not sure if these are due to genetics, food, exercise, environment, or schedule, of course. 

I'm also still afriad, Pavlina notwithstanding, that Wozniak was right on the whole, my nights won't ever get better, and so on. We'll see.

Polyphasic Day 9

Day 9: 2013/8/23

After 3 days in a row of failing in some manner, I worry that I'm either not going to succeed, or have backtracked quite a ways, or something else is going to go wrong. Still, I think that's mostly empty worry as I don't really think I've lost much -- I just haven't succeeded wildly, either.

Today's naps seemed OK, though I had to adjust for social reasons more than I wished I could. It's early "night time" at the moment, and I feel pretty tired. I hope tonight's not as bad as the last few.

I think I've discovered the answer to that, though, and it is something I knew right from the get-go but that I forgot when the fog of deprivation made my mind turn to fluff: find something to do that wakes you up. Something that forces your mind to turn on. A new book or game, exercise, whatever.

So right now I'm pretty tired, but I've also been doing the same thing for a couple of hours, so I think I just need to change things up a bit.

Yes, I realize that this still means I'm technically sleep deprived, and that 'forcing myself to stay awake' is something I shouldn't have to do steady-state or the whole polyphasic sleep thing must be bunk. I figure I'm still within the 2 weeks, so anything goes. I'll worry about steady-state later on.

Later edit: At this point, I believe I can say that Wozniak at least is not correct. He states that it should be impossible to entrain the brain to undergo REM in less than half an hour. If that's the case, then barring 3 accidents of 2 hours each total (say 1 REM cycle each?), I've had no REM for 9 days. I'm pretty sure I'd be seeing pink fluffy elephants prancing around the room at that point. I guess I'm no expert, though.

Polyphasic Day 8

Day 8: 2013/8/22

So today was the day I could finally get more structured again. I did pretty good, but was 15 mins late once. At 1am, I'm feeling very tired again, but not yet as bad as the last few days. I'm going to try still doing every 3 hours, but extending naps to 45 mins instead of 25. Theoretically that will give me 2 cycles per nap. We'll see if it helps.

I'm finding that I'm eating more than I did before; I get hungry during my new waking hours. And given that I'm not really being any more active (most of my new hours are at the computer), that means I'm probably gaining weight. I'll have to check that. Clearly, if you're going to do this you'll need some kind of weight reduction concept in place. I plan to start lifting (not sure which day, though), so maybe that will help. I have a set of adjustable-weight dumbbells at home that I'll use.

Dreams: Many people have mentioned heightened ability to dream -- including lucid dreaming -- while polysleeping. I thought I'd throw in a more thorough description of my own experiences thus far. First, let me start with how I was before I started the experiment. While I have certainly had some very vivid, realistic, and "enlightening" dreams that I remember quite well, they hadn't been recent. For the past 10 years or so, if I dreamed, I usually didn't remember it. Even when I did remember, it was only for a short time and then it was gone.

Since starting polyphasic sleeping, I have noticed increased incidence of dreaming, a propensity to dream while still awake, increased perception of being awake while actually being asleep (or maybe the opposite?), and increased sense of confusion upon awakening.

Incidence of dreaming: Of course, this means incidence of >remembered< dreaming. I still don't often remember my dreams for very long, but virtually every nap, now, I realize that I had been dreaming at some point, even if I don't remember any of it.

Dreaming while awake: This has been limited, so far, to dreaming just before falling asleep. I'm clearly awake and can will myself to roll over or whatever, and yet I'm talking (without moving my lips) to someone that isn't there, or imagining I'm somewhere else, or otherwise hallucinating.

Perception of being awake: Combined with the above, it makes recording how much sleep I've gotten rather troublesome. Sometimes I'm really awake but dreaming (I can make myself turn over) and sometimes I'm really asleep but think I'm awake (if I try to turn over, I either imagine that I did so, but didn't really, or the request simply gets ignored and I forget about it a few moments later).

Confusion: Likely due to the extra dreaming and altered perceptions. At this point, when I wake, I almost always have to do the "where >am< I" routine. I certainly didn't have to do this before polysleeping.

Later edit: when I took my 3am nap, I apparently woke up to the alarm, turned it off, and then went back to sleep, all without remembering any of it. I woke up at 5am. I had been feeling pretty darned tired, but I'm now moving the alarm to elsewhere in the room, just in case.

Polyphasic Day 7

Day 7: 2013/8/21

With the screwed up schedule from the previous day, it would have been nice to have this be more structured and careful, but no, this was the day I had the most stuff going on with work and needed to be on-site. So after sleeping until 9, I then missed naps until 3pm. That extra couple of hours this morning was >very< helpful, but by nightfall I was starting to really feel it again. This was the 2nd worst night so far.

I tried sleeping a bit more often. Every hour or two instead of every 3. Didn't seem to help; it just meant I had more instances of awakening and attempting to sleep.

I was struck by something today: even on the worst nights, I seem to be fully awake and functional during the normal daylight hours. It isn't until the wee hours that I notice any negative effects.