Kenny's Polyphasic Sleep Experiment

Sigh. Hasn’t really been going well in the world of not much sleep. All this exercise really knocks one out. That is my main concern, really, is not being to do a good workout. I have been thinking about changing to either Uberman or Everyman. Although I hear many success stories about Everyman (2-4 hour core nap at night + three to four 20-30 minute naps during the day), I fail to see the logic behind why it works. Uberman (six 20 minute naps every 3.5 hours) seems like it could work, but I don’t like 3.5 hour or the six naps. I really want Dymaxion to work. Sometimes I take an extra 20-30 minute nap in between when I’m actually suppose to nap. I read somewhere that you should wait at least 90 minutes after one nap before you nap again.

In other news, I’ve discovered barefoot running, and it’s wonderful.

This past week has been very unsuccessful with many oversleeps and missing naps and such. Thus I have readjusted my mindset to try to…I don’t know, better motivate myself to stay up. So, sitting next to me is a 2 liter bottle of 34 grams of sugar per serving grape soda.

Since I’ve started running, I’ve been feeling more tired. Also, I think I’m somewhere in between normal sleep and polyphasic sleep…When I approach nap time, I get tired and want to nap, but I still want to sleep at night and not wake up in the morning.

Staying awake until 6am and waking up at 6:30am are the two hardest things about this. I may have to go biking or something to wake me up. I usually climb down from my bed, turn the alarm off that’s on the other side of the room, climb back up my bed, and go back to sleep. I’m actually quite surprised that I do that; I’d thought that if I had gotten out of my bed, I wouldn’t climb back up.

Still job searching. If I find one, it could potentially mess this up, but we’ll see.

I went to sleep at 12 and didn’t set my alarm across the room because I was lazy and thought that I could wake up from this nap because I usually have no problem doing it. Well, turns out I was wrong and overslept by two hours. When I woke up, I felt really tired and couldn’t get out of bed. I slept until like 9. T’was sad.

Then I took a nap at 1:30pm and woke up at 2:00pm or so. That felt okay. I was able to fall asleep rather quickly

Nap 1: 12am
Wasn’t too bad. Not sleeping deeply yet I don’t think. The night masks thing works well in the dark and blocks the lights in my room that come from the computer and other switches, as well as the unusually bright light coming from my neighbor tonight.

Nap 2: 5am
I wanted to go to nap earlier so that I could nap before we drive down for graduation, so I decided to nap an hour earlier. Woke up at 5:30. Don’t remember what I did, but I went back to sleep at 6:30 or so and woke up at some stupid time again. Might have been like 10. It’s still less oversleeping than before, but it still annoys me.

I don’t know if I napped during my oversleeping period. I might have. I remember closing my eyes and trying to nap on purpose, but I can’t remember what happened.

Last nap of the day: 7pm
Fell asleep rather quickly even though I didn’t feel as tired as I usually do before falling asleep quickly for a nap. I hope this time shifting doesn’t mess me up for tonight. I’m about to go running later so we’ll see how that fits in.

Nap 1: 12am
Felt a bit tired but couldn’t really fall asleep. Implemented my new alarm system (one across the room and one next to me).

Nap 2 and 3: 6am
I made it to 6am. I slept until 6:30. Then…I got up. I took a shower and walked around. Then I climbed into bed to read, but I fell asleep at like 8. Woke up at like 12. Took my 30 minute nap for that time. I don’t know if that’s a good idea- to take that nap even though I was still in bed.

Nap 4: 6pm
Fell asleep rather quickly since I was tired. I’m trying those things that you use that cover your eyes to make everything dark. The one I found is a bit too small, but it works. Still kind of tired after I woke up. Too much oversleeping makes it so that I don’t actually know what I’m feeling.

Nap 1: 12am
Felt quite tired for this one. Probably because since my last nap was at 4, it’d would have been 7.5 hours of being awake. Went to bed 5 minutes before 12 and fell asleep rather quickly I believe. Was a bit tired after waking up, but felt a little bit better after sitting around. I have to somehow figure out how to nap with these two graduation parties today.

Nap 2 and 3: 6am
Overslept like crazy. Woke up at around 10. Drifted in and out until 12. Lied there until 1. Felt not tired though throughout the day. I hope I haven’t reseted myself yet, although I’m not sure if anything adaption has happened at all. Missed the 6pm nap because of graduation parties but felt fine. And that’s why I think it’s a problem; I should not be fine. Sigh. Oh well. I shall keep trying.

I plan to set an alarm across the room, as well as have one on my bed. Also, I will start trying to get out of bed right away as soon as I shut off my alarm.

Nap 1: 1am
I couldn’t fall asleep at 12am. Probably because it was only 5 hours after the nap beforehand, so I just got up and exercised. Fell asleep not too badly the second time. Woke up kind of tired. Took a shower. My eyes still hurt. It’s probably from being in front of the computer so much. Or…whatever the reason is, I am not surprised about it.

Nap 2 and 3: 6am
Made it to 6am. Stayed up playing games on Newgrounds, then sat around. Woke up at 6:30…then all of a sudden woke up at like 10 something. Lied around until 12 to take nap 3. Kind of disappointed, but now I’m not feeling tired at all, nor do my eyes hurt. I hope it didn’t screw up my adaption too much. Normally, people who oversleep like this wake up feeling really tired. I feel really refreshed, even though it was only like 4 hours of sleep. Quite interesting.

Nap 4: 4pm
Once again, this nap was not on schedule because of prior commitments which were so well planned. Trying to get a nap in two hours early is…not easy. It took a while to fall asleep. I was tired but not tired enough to fall asleep. Kind of like if you’re sitting in class, and you keep drifting off, but if you actually tried to sleep, it’d be hard to fall asleep. But I don’t know if I actually fell asleep. When I woke up, I felt like I woke up from a nap. But as I was asleep, I felt like I was awake. It was weird. Maybe I had a dream. If so, then that’s good because that means I’m getting REM sleep. I don’t remember dreaming during a nap yet (just during the oversleep ones). I hope this works soon, especially since I want to start running again next week.

Nap 1: 12am
Still had trouble falling asleep. Also woke up up before alarm went off. But I guess I feel more awake than before I took the nap. Hope graduation rehearsal lets off before 12 today.

Nap 2: 4am
Still needed to add this extra nap. Everything sort of falls apart around this time. Woke up at at 4:30 feeling still tired.

Nap 3
All of a sudden, I wake up at 7:45 when my mom walks in to tell me to go to graduation rehearsal. I don’t even recall falling asleep again after waking up at 4:30. Felt really tired but drove anyways.

Nap 4: 12pm
Stayed at school and came back to take this nap. Fell asleep rather quickly and woke up feeling a lot better than before. Horray!

Nap 5: 7pm
Had to push because of dinner again. Felt a little bit better afterwards. Eyes are itching a lot and throat is a bit sore. I think those are expected? I don’t know. Looking forward to Day 3. I think I’m going to add a nap in between 12am and 6am. Maybe if I’m adapted later, I’ll try to get rid of it if needed.

Nap 1
Fell asleep like 15 minutes into it and woke up kind of lightheaded. Might have been from the light. Staying up by myself with no Internet is kind of hard. Normally, staying up until 6 would be no problem. However, I have not had good sleep in the past…7 days or so. So it might have been a good idea to have rested as much as I could the day before. But…knowing me. I make whimsical decisions and randomly decided to start this today.

Nap 2
At 4am, I decided to add a half hour nap. I ended up waking up at 4:30 but falling back asleep and waking up at 7:10. Sat in bed and read my yearbook for a while, then sat around some more feeling really tired. After getting up, I felt really awake.

Nap 3
Came back from biking. Went to bed at 11:50am because I expected that it’d take a while to fall asleep. I might have actually fallen asleep before 12. Woke up at around around 12:15, so I kept lying in bed. All of a sudden, I wake up and it’s 1:10. I check my alarm and realized I set it to go off at 12:30am instead of 12:30pm. Made me kind of mad, but it should be fine since it’s only the first day; and now I won’t make that mistake again.

Nap 4
Dinner woke me up from it 15 minutes early. Need to get this scheduling thing down. Also hoping to fall asleep quicker soon.

Polyphasic sleep is a system of napping throughout the day; as opposed to getting all the sleep you need at once (monophasic sleep). The schedule I will be trying is called Dymaxion, which is four six hour “phases.” I will take 30 minute naps four times a day. I have chosen the times 6pm, 12pm, 6am, and 12 am. So, every 5.5 hours, I will take a 30 minute nap and complete the phase.

There are many theories behind why this work (and many as to why it doesn’t work). Some claim that it teaches your body fall asleep faster and to achieve REM sleep faster. Something along the lines of that. Benefits of this, if done successfully, include more waking time, more energy, more alertness, and sharper thinking. The hard part is the adaptation. During this, which could last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, I will be sleep deprived until I get used to this system.

I have decided to keep a blog of my progress and encourage everyone to read it (unless if I fail miserably), and hopefully someone will join me.