Polyphasic Sleep experiment

2013/8/14, start of Polyphasic Sleep Experiment

I am undertaking today an experiment on the limits and abilities of the human body in regards to sleep. Rather than rehash all of the details here, I'll just ask you to Google "polyphasic sleep" to get as much info as you want. Wikipedia, Steve Pavlina, and Piotr Wozniak probably offer the best information, though the Polyphasic Sleep Society is also pretty detailed. Suffice it for now to say that instead of sleeping a normal 7-8 hours a night, I'll be sleeping half-hour naps 8 times a day, with no big block of sleep at all.

It is currently Wednesday, and it is my final "normal" day, as I slept a standard monophasic night last night. I tend to be an early riser, generally getting up without an alarm sometime around 5:30 or 6am. Last night, however, I'd gotten to bed late, so I'm not surprised that I woke up at 7.

I feel a little groggy today, but not terrible. I normally have trouble truly feeling "awake", but don't have any frame of reference, so I'd call today just slightly under average as far as feeling good & rested.

Previous nights this week had been just a little earlier than average: 4:30-5:30 am. I can't pinpoint any particular reason for this, and don't recall feeling especially tired in the morning, though I definitely did feel tired around 10:30pm, when I usually start thinking about bed. I had a house guest this week, so that could account for some irregularity, though you'd think it would be in the opposite direction.

I'm undertaking polyphasic sleep primarily out of desire to do something different, coupled with intense curiosity. I've always hated sleep -- it just feels incredibly wasteful to me. I'm very interested to see if there are good alternatives. I've read through Wozniak's page as well as Pavlina's; they're clearly at odds with each other on what's possible (and I'll post links at some point).

At this point, I believe that I've got a good 98% chance of success. I don't buy that only 2% of the world can do it (nor certainly that no one can!). I've got a lot of positive things going for me -- a flexible work schedule, a supportive family, age & experience (36), and so on. I'm not a vegetarian like Pavlina was, nor am I completely self-employed, so it'll be interesting to see what the differences are, but I'm pretty sure I can do it if anyone can. I've got some questions about the science involved, but I don't think Wozniak really answered those, and I remain optimistic. 

I'm interested to see what I can accomplish with the extra hours. I have several things I've been wanting to do but putting off since I didn't feel like I had the time. Exercise, more thorough investing, writing a novel, writing a pen & paper RPG, learning Spanish and the piano, things like that. I haven't made a lot of headway before this, so if I don't now, either, I won't be horribly surprised or offended; I just think it'd be nice. A perk, so to speak -- the icing on the cake that is not having to waste my life asleep.

I'm attempting to focus myself more today, too. It's completely separate from my polyphasic trial, but I've been trying to figure out exactly what I want to accomplish in life and how I'm going to go about it. I'm not sure how clearly I'll be thinking for the next week or so, but after that I'm interested to know if I'll feel much different about my life's goals. 

I will be attempting the Uberman8 method. Pavlina writes that his biggest problem with continuing polyphasic was that it was so inflexible. I'm hoping that by using an 8-nap schedule (vs his 6) I'll be able to miss a nap here and there and not have much trouble. If it doesn't work out that way, I'll probably try switching to an Uberman6, just to get some of that same flexibility back, since napping every 3 hours is worse than every 4.

I've got my adaptation schedule mostly worked out. As everyone knows, adaptation is the most difficult part, and I've looked up everything I can on the subject. I'll be trying for the fast method: I'm kick-starting the process by staying awake all night tonight, forcing my body to be in deprivation mode earlier (and wasting less time in ineffectual naps before the body even attempts to adapt). Once I'm definitely deprived (around 30 hours, after a "second wind" and starting to feel tired again), I'll sleep at twice the rate I intend to keep to, meaning every hour and a half in my case. I'll be starting with 30m naps, though I understand that I'll likely need to shorten that as the body adapts. I intend to follow good sleep hygiene: no bright screens for 15 mins before a nap, eating something small and healthy immediately upon awakening, and so on. I'll probably need to look up lists of that stuff again -- my habits to this point have been decent but not perfect.

As mentioned, I don't think I'll fail, but I figure I should set limits regardless. It wouldn't be good to be a complete zombie forever more.

 Limit 1: My wife. She's supportive at present, but she's probably a better judge of overall sanity than I would be if I were actually insane. If she says she really doesn't want me doing this anymore because it's affecting my mind, I'll back off. I've asked her to give it a couple of weeks, though she still can pull the plug regardless.

 Limit 2: Two weeks. Pavlina said he started feeling better by the end of the first week. I'd like this to be a real test, so I want to go further than that, but one month is probably plenty. Still, if I'm not feeling good about it at two weeks, for whatever reason, I'll stop.

I kind of wish I'd spent more time logging how my sleep has been for the previous few weeks so I'd have something to compare with, but this is the right time logistically for me to get started, so I'm starting anyway. I'll write more before attempting my first nap, and probably after each nap for the first few days, or at least once a day. At present I'm writing to myself in a text file on Dropbox, but I intend to make a blog out of all of this at some point. Maybe in the wee hours tonight.

My understanding is that the most difficult thing to do is stay awake when you have nothing to do, so I'm going to find some computer game to get involved with, I think, to help force myself to stay up.