Apparently, the luck I had yesterday didn't last much, seeing as I found myself quite unable to take the scheduled naps...even the damn 11 PM nap which is giving me a really hard time. Well, it looks like I can't seem to relax enough to fall asleep knowing about the timer and having to continuously change the alarm settings doesn't really help. So at 2 AM I was so tired that I just turned the alarms off...and magically, I fell immediately asleep.
So what to do now? I guess I'll have to think of a way to relax enough to overcome the anxiety of my subconscious, who apparently doesn't want me to change my sleeping patterns. I'll try not taking any naps till the fatidic 11 PM one, but before that I'll have a long, hot bath. And drink some tea I guess. And eat an early, light dinner.
Will that be enough? I certainly hope so...
Thursday, July 31
Wednesday, July 30
What a little luck can't do
Hi there, folks. If you notice the writing time of this post you may think I was finally successful in taking my first nightly nap; well, that's not really the case.
I had prepared everything: three alarms, and my grandmother to check on me at 11:30 PM. At 10:30 I was already in bed, sure that I would manage to get asleep in half an hour...
But then of course thing's didn't go quite as planned when I noticed I couldn't get asleep no matter how tired I were, thanks to noises coming from the TV downstairs but probably mostly out of habit. So at 11:30 I was still awake, had to change alarm settings, my grandmother came and took the alarm clock for her because she needed it next morning; so I found myself without the best one out of the three (the others are on my cellphone and my DS).
At this point I was getting so tired that I just shut my cellphone off after my DS "gave up" on its own, and tried to sleep normally. Well, I must have succeeded around late midnight, but then suddenly a stroke of luck: I woke up at four, after having a vivid dream. I took the chance and now here I am; with only little more than three hours of duration this can be considered as some sort of core sleep and therefore should not prevent me from taking my daily naps. I'll take the next one at 7 AM, hoping that this time I'll be able to follow my schedule more easily and closely. Even if I don't actually feel very tired... That's probably due to having slept for roughly 180 minutes, which equals to two complete sleep cycles in monophasic sleep.
On a side note, the dream was about me stealing a big television at school and the FBI being suddenly after me... I still managed to outwit them and get safely home though ;) I'm watching too much Prison Break lately I guess. But how could I carry the TV around while hiding it from view? Maybe I had an inventory...
I had prepared everything: three alarms, and my grandmother to check on me at 11:30 PM. At 10:30 I was already in bed, sure that I would manage to get asleep in half an hour...
But then of course thing's didn't go quite as planned when I noticed I couldn't get asleep no matter how tired I were, thanks to noises coming from the TV downstairs but probably mostly out of habit. So at 11:30 I was still awake, had to change alarm settings, my grandmother came and took the alarm clock for her because she needed it next morning; so I found myself without the best one out of the three (the others are on my cellphone and my DS).
At this point I was getting so tired that I just shut my cellphone off after my DS "gave up" on its own, and tried to sleep normally. Well, I must have succeeded around late midnight, but then suddenly a stroke of luck: I woke up at four, after having a vivid dream. I took the chance and now here I am; with only little more than three hours of duration this can be considered as some sort of core sleep and therefore should not prevent me from taking my daily naps. I'll take the next one at 7 AM, hoping that this time I'll be able to follow my schedule more easily and closely. Even if I don't actually feel very tired... That's probably due to having slept for roughly 180 minutes, which equals to two complete sleep cycles in monophasic sleep.
On a side note, the dream was about me stealing a big television at school and the FBI being suddenly after me... I still managed to outwit them and get safely home though ;) I'm watching too much Prison Break lately I guess. But how could I carry the TV around while hiding it from view? Maybe I had an inventory...
Tuesday, July 29
Resolutions
As usual, I couldn't get to sleep for my 11 PM nap and stayed awake for one more hour. This time I'm sure I had the alarm clock on and set at a half past midnight, yet when I woke up at 7 AM it was off and somehow set at 5:30 AM...that means it's obviously time to change some things.
I decided to keep 2 alarms set at the same time and a third "security" one to ring 10 minutes later. All the alarms will be out of my immediate reach...and set at their loudest. If even that won't be enough, well, then I'll think of something else, because I surely am not going to give up without even beginning the experiment.
Today I'm going to do some hours of physical activity to make it easier to fall asleep at 11 PM; I already went swimming and even caught a frog for the pond. :D
If I'm successful, I'm going to update after the nap. I sure never thought it would be that difficuilt to even begin with polyphasic sleeping!
I decided to keep 2 alarms set at the same time and a third "security" one to ring 10 minutes later. All the alarms will be out of my immediate reach...and set at their loudest. If even that won't be enough, well, then I'll think of something else, because I surely am not going to give up without even beginning the experiment.
Today I'm going to do some hours of physical activity to make it easier to fall asleep at 11 PM; I already went swimming and even caught a frog for the pond. :D
If I'm successful, I'm going to update after the nap. I sure never thought it would be that difficuilt to even begin with polyphasic sleeping!
Monday, July 28
...Again
Looks like I screwed it up again...
This night I just couldn't manage to get asleep for the 11 PM nap, so I had to wait until midnight before actually succeeding in that. The only problem was, I forgot to turn the alarm clock on... At least I think so, because I don't remember ever turning it off.
So I slept till 8 AM, and now I am as fresh as I could be, so I can forget about taking the daily naps. It seems like I'll have to try again with that 11 PM nap first, because after waking up from that getting asleep for the next naps shouldn't be a problem anymore...staying awake until them will.
This night I just couldn't manage to get asleep for the 11 PM nap, so I had to wait until midnight before actually succeeding in that. The only problem was, I forgot to turn the alarm clock on... At least I think so, because I don't remember ever turning it off.
So I slept till 8 AM, and now I am as fresh as I could be, so I can forget about taking the daily naps. It seems like I'll have to try again with that 11 PM nap first, because after waking up from that getting asleep for the next naps shouldn't be a problem anymore...staying awake until them will.
Sunday, July 27
Daily Naps
My daily naps went better than I had imagined after my little nightly oversleeping incident.
The 9 AM one went perfectly well, and after that I did not feel tired at all. At 1 PM I still didn't feel sleepy and was also hungry, so I decided to skip it completely to balance things out.
The 5 PM one went a little strangely, seeing as I was tired but could just not get to sleep, probably out of habit and because of noisy doors, inquising granparents and alarm clock settings I had to continuously change. That's why it became the 6:30 PM nap instead, after lying on my bed the whole time. When I woke up at 7 PM I really wanted to keep on sleeping, but now after getting up I feel pretty well, if only a bit drowsy.
At this point I guess I'll be forced to change my schedule to a 3-7-11 AM/PM, which also suits me better now that I think about it.
The journey of the average student through polyphasic sleep continues, stay tuned folks...
The 9 AM one went perfectly well, and after that I did not feel tired at all. At 1 PM I still didn't feel sleepy and was also hungry, so I decided to skip it completely to balance things out.
The 5 PM one went a little strangely, seeing as I was tired but could just not get to sleep, probably out of habit and because of noisy doors, inquising granparents and alarm clock settings I had to continuously change. That's why it became the 6:30 PM nap instead, after lying on my bed the whole time. When I woke up at 7 PM I really wanted to keep on sleeping, but now after getting up I feel pretty well, if only a bit drowsy.
At this point I guess I'll be forced to change my schedule to a 3-7-11 AM/PM, which also suits me better now that I think about it.
The journey of the average student through polyphasic sleep continues, stay tuned folks...
First Night, First Failure
Alright, I admit it. I overslept. Like most of the people who try this I fell right into my comfortable bed-trap. And just after my first nap, as well! I vaguely remember of turning the alarm off at 2:00 AM; next thing I know, the cat woke me up at 6:30 AM. That was a good save, otherwise I'd probably have slept till eleven!
Anyway, I have learned something from this: starting with the 1:30 AM nap might not have been such a good idea. Now, since I'm still quite tired, I'll try to follow a 1-5-9 AM/PM schedule starting from an hour from now, in hope that it will prove easier to adapt to the nightly naps by having the daily ones first.
In any case, I guess it was good it happened me at this stage, with no progress whatsoever to be damaged by the 4 and half hour nap! Now let's see what the new day will bring.
Anyway, I have learned something from this: starting with the 1:30 AM nap might not have been such a good idea. Now, since I'm still quite tired, I'll try to follow a 1-5-9 AM/PM schedule starting from an hour from now, in hope that it will prove easier to adapt to the nightly naps by having the daily ones first.
In any case, I guess it was good it happened me at this stage, with no progress whatsoever to be damaged by the 4 and half hour nap! Now let's see what the new day will bring.
Saturday, July 26
And So It Begins
After stumbling on Steve Pavlina's blog, I too like many others was enraptured by the art of napping, and strangely enough, I find myself ready to begin with my own little polyphasic sleep experiment. This is one of the rare cases in which my curiosity overcame my laziness, and after toying with the thought for some weeks and reading about the matter in other blogs in various languages I decided to start my own one, in hope that it will prove easier this way to adapt to the schedule thanks to the additional willpower boost that it'll hopefully give me, which I think will be definitely needed.
I know that if you're reading this you probably already know all about polyphasic sleep, but I still feel obliged to write something about it: to make a long story short, you nap six times a day every four hours for 20-30 minutes, as good Uberman told us. Yes folks, do the maths and you find yourself with only 2-3 hours of sleep per day and, to top it off, with increased concentration and reflexes. At the beginning it's hellish difficuilt to not oversleep and to strictly follow the schedule, but after a while you should start getting cool dreams and feel like never before.
Scientifically speaking, it's a matter of getting your body to adact to shorter sleep cycles in order to attain the all-important REM sleep as soon as possible: and by having six REM phases a day you get more of them as you would with the 90 minutes cycles of monophasic sleep.
There could be more to say, but I don't feel like that's really the issue here.
As I already wrote, I was inspired to try this by reading Steve Pavlina's blog; now it's just a matter of seeing if your average seventeen years old guy can accomplish what some sort of healthly superman did.
My reasons for trying? Prolonging my summer holidays is good enough, plus I get to try and become a little less lazy by having more time at my disposal.
Alright then. My (hopefully) last 6 hour monophasic night should help me getting through this first "polynight". I'll probably write my next entry in early morning, to keep me occupied...
That's it for now, thanks for following.
I know that if you're reading this you probably already know all about polyphasic sleep, but I still feel obliged to write something about it: to make a long story short, you nap six times a day every four hours for 20-30 minutes, as good Uberman told us. Yes folks, do the maths and you find yourself with only 2-3 hours of sleep per day and, to top it off, with increased concentration and reflexes. At the beginning it's hellish difficuilt to not oversleep and to strictly follow the schedule, but after a while you should start getting cool dreams and feel like never before.
Scientifically speaking, it's a matter of getting your body to adact to shorter sleep cycles in order to attain the all-important REM sleep as soon as possible: and by having six REM phases a day you get more of them as you would with the 90 minutes cycles of monophasic sleep.
There could be more to say, but I don't feel like that's really the issue here.
As I already wrote, I was inspired to try this by reading Steve Pavlina's blog; now it's just a matter of seeing if your average seventeen years old guy can accomplish what some sort of healthly superman did.
My reasons for trying? Prolonging my summer holidays is good enough, plus I get to try and become a little less lazy by having more time at my disposal.
Alright then. My (hopefully) last 6 hour monophasic night should help me getting through this first "polynight". I'll probably write my next entry in early morning, to keep me occupied...
That's it for now, thanks for following.
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