Update

I haven't written on here in what seems like a long time. I don't know what happened but eventually I phased out of polyphasic sleep. I think probably it was because the experiments I was doing were too extreme and I  needed to recuperate. It's interesting to note that at first I found it difficult to sleep longer than 4.5hrs per day, but eventually I evened out at about 6hrs a day with a half hour nap. Recently though, I've been sleeping more and more again, to the point where I'm sleeping 7hrs at night and 90mins in the day, and it's not agreeing with me; I've just been feeling so tired. Past experiments have taught me though, that the more I sleep the more tired I feel, and so I've decided to counteract this problem by starting up with polyphasic sleep again.

I looked back over my logs and noticed that triphasic sleep was my favorite, and agreed with me the best. The problem I had, however, was that I couldn't always find 90mins in the day to nap. I initially decided to split it into two 30mins if I had to, but then I revisited the site http://www.polyphasicsociety.com/ and noticed the dual core schedules which seem to be new. The two that interest me the most are these two:

They very closely resemble the circadian triphasic, and substitute the longer nap in the afternoon for a slightly longer nap at the beginning of the night and one or two shorter ones in the day. The one I'm considering doing is the second one, except with a 30, 45, or 60min afternoon nap depending on how I'm feeling, unless of course I don't have time and need to split it into two 20min naps. My schedule will roughly go as follows:
11:00pm - 01:30am
6:00am - 07:30am
2:30pm - 3:15pm
Altogether this should give me around 4.5hrs sleep or so, and because it's fairly circadian it'll be fairly easy and I won't have too much trouble sleeping so little again. The first schedule is what I would revert to for a day if I ended up missing a nap. This schedule would be perfect because I would probably get all my deep sleep at the beginning of the night and the rest of my REM in the morning, whilst the afternoon would give my body a chance to catch up on middle sleep and any other sleep it missed.

I'm not particularly sure what I'm going to do with all this extra time yet, although I have a few ideas. I have high hopes for this schedule though, and if anything would like to try it out for just a week to see how it fares compared to the other schedules I tried. Right now it's coming up to 9:30pm and I'm functioning on a full 8.5hrs sleep that I had last night. I have been segmenting my sleep a little over the last week during the nights just to get back into the habit again, but I've been finding it hard to wake up, hence why I started this blog again, to give me motivation.

So without further adieu tonight I start my first dual-core sleep schedule. I'll make sure to update this as often as I can.

Monophasic every other night - update

I haven't posted on here for a while as I've been busy writing a new fic. So sorry about that. Here's an overview of the last few days.

Days 5&6:
I slept 8.45hrs which kept me going for the first 30hrs. I then went to take a short 15min nap at 2pm because I was tired, but I forgot to set my alarm and ended up sleeping 45mins instead. The fact I only slept 45mins naturally goes to show how little sleep I actually need these days. I was fine for the rest of the day.

Days 7&8:
I only managed to sleep 7.5hrs this night because I'd slept a lot the afternoon before. I didn't feel any different on 7.5hrs than on 9hrs and managed to stay up no problem. I went to have a short nap about 21hrs later though because I was bored and ended up sleeping a whole hour and a half. I'm not sure how because my alarms were all set and when I'd woken up they'd been turned off, yet I remember nothing. However, the next day I didn't feel tired for the rest of the 16hrs I was awake. I felt better sleeping like this.

Days 9&10:
I slept 9.5hrs, and was fine. Felt a little tired after 18hrs so I took a nap but I couldn't sleep. I was fine soon after though and woke up. Then I went to take a morning nap a few hours later and again didn't wake up for another hour and a half. So altogether I ended up sleeping close to 11hrs over these 48hrs. It felt a little too much, but I wasn't tired during the day, which felt good.

Today:
Decided to change my sleep schedule a little and sleep 7.5hrs the first night and then 1.5hr the next night rather than just trying to sleep only once every other night. As is probably obvious by now, I wasn't really sleeping only once every other night because I couldn't stop taking naps. To be honest taking naps has become so normal it's become addictive. I just love taking naps now, even if I can't sleep. However sleeping during the day every day can be a little inconvenient, so I decided to split my 9hrs over the two nights instead in a Biphasic like schedule, except over 48hrs instead of 24. I noticed when this happened I was never tired during the evening like on all the other schedules, and I didn't feel the need to take a nap so strongly. So I'm going to try this instead.

Also this isn't related so much to my sleep patterns, but after my hour and a half nap the other day I went to have a short 15min nap again two hours after it and accidentally ended up WILDing for the first time, which for those who don't know stands for 'wake induced lucid dream.' They're extremely difficult to have, and I had the most amazing experience so I might play more with that by taking a short nap after the first 1.5hr nap. As a side note, the amount of lucid dreams I've been having recently is incredible. Almost every week or two I'm having one. Yet they're completely accidental. So kudos to polyphasic sleep. It's awesome.

Monophasic Every Other Night - Days 1 & 2

Symptoms over the course of the day. (Bearing in mind that the first 16hrs are caused by the last night's oversleep rather than deprivation. My body still uses eight hours of sleep all in one go, which is something I'm not accustomed to anymore after polyphasically sleeping for almost three months)

11:30pm to 07:30am - Sleep.
9:00am - Paranoia & anxiety.
3:30pm - Tiredness, although not tired enough to sleep.
6:00pm - Irritability.
7:00pm - Nausea & headache.
8:00pm - Hot flushes & cold sweats.
11:30pm - Lowest dip, extreme tiredness. (Enter deprivation)
2:00am - Involuntary muscle twitching
3:00am - Euphoria
4:00am - Fight for consciousness.
4:30am - More euphoria
5:30am - Mild hallucinations.
6:00am -15min nap.
6:15am to 7:45am - Sleep inertia & micro naps.
1:45pm - 15min nap
4:00pm - Heavy eyes
5:00pm - Aching muscles
6:00pm -Headache
6:45pm - 15min nap.

Generally - Spaced out, depressed, high blood pressure, feeling inebriated, dark under eye circles, loss of motor coordination, euphoria, low blood pressure, temperature irregularities.

However they're mostly bad symptoms, which didn't usually last long. Most the time my energy levels were so high I'd actually forgotten that I hadn't slept at all the previous night.

I found though that I couldn't go on without a nap. So much for not having to nap. Thing is, because I was so deprived, I found it would take me about an hour and a half to come out of sleep inertia following a 15min nap. It was the worse I've ever been, I was practically a vegetable the time after, and it was a cause of many micro-sleeps. The naps themselves were extremely good quality though, and once I got over the inertia they would keep me on a high for quite a few hours later.

I was thinking about it yesterday and actually it's very similar to the Everyman schedule, except doubled. Instead of sleeping 3 to 4 hrs with 3 or 4 naps every 24hrs, I'm sleeping 6 to 8 hours with 6 to 8 naps every 48hrs. I'm not sure how efficient it is in comparison mind. It may just be better to do and stick with the Everyman schedule.

Saying that I like being able to sleep for as long as I can and wake naturally with no sleep inertia for my core sleep. Then again so far I've had to put up with twice the amount of inertia from the naps. I don't really know.

Oversleeps & Lack of Motivation + New Schedule

This week has been interesting. I started off with the Everyman 3 schedule, but ever so gradually I've been oversleeping more and more. The problem I've been having is that for some reason I'm not having good quality naps during the day and I'm feeling really shitty. At times I haven't even been able to sleep. It's frustrating me to no end, and it's causing me to oversleep during the night. This week I've slept an average of 5.7hrs, which is pathetic. I may aswell be back on my original biphasic, I'd gain an extra half an hour on that, and it'd be twice as easy.

Today is the final straw. Last night I woke after 3hrs naturally, and then for some reason I stayed awake for about ten minutes and then decided to switch all my alarms off and go back to sleep. I think I figured I'd wake naturally after another couple of hours. Well, you could imagine my panic when I woke from a really nice dream, and saw light seeping in through my eye mask. I'd slept eight fucking hours, straight through, and I was still in the same position when I fell asleep.

I'm not impressed. Especially as I had reason to wake up early. It's not as if I'm out of things to do. Right now I half-way through watching Supernatural, True Blood, Misfits, and Queer as Folk, plus I wanted to start on Stargate Universe. On top of that I'm writing a Supernatural fanfic, and I plan it to have at least around 120,00 words. I have two months to write it before the new series comes out, meaning I have to write at least 3000 words per day. As I'm writing it on iPod that can take between three to four hours, although I've been splitting the writing itself up. But that's not the point. The point is, I got nothing done last night and it's really irritating me.

In order to make up for all the oversleeping I've been doing I've decided to pull an all-nighter, I have lots of writing to catch up on after all. Eight hours should pull me through easily, perhaps with a couple of short naps, although I sure as won't be taking them during the night for fear of not waking up again afterwards. I remember the last time I slept 6hrs accidentally. It pulled me through for twenty hours before I had to force myself to sleep. Of course though, this will create a sleep pressure to sleep more tomorrow night. I've decided to go with this. I once read an article about a guy who was on polyphasic sleep, but had to return to monophasic. However, he found that eight hours could sustain him for two days, and now he only sleeps every other night.

Using this, I've decided to fast for at least 16hrs to reset my body clock, and then start on this strange way of monophasic sleep. That way my body can be satisfied with a full night of sleep. Plus it should be easier to stay up in the night as initially I'll have lots of energy, and I won't have to worry about waking up properly from a nap and doing stupid things such as switching all my alarms off and falling back to sleep. This sleep schedule hasn't been tried very often, although those people who have tried it show varying success with it. Some people even do it naturally as they have a rare 48hr body clock. So I think it's worth a try. I want to see how it compares to regular monophasic. There would be many advantages to this over polyphasic such as:

-No need to take naps in the day if you're unable to take them
-No need to nap during the middle of a party. You'd be staying up all night and morning anyway.
-No need to stop in the middle of what you're doing to take a nap.
-No trouble with unnatural sleep inertia.
-No need to rearrange your life to fit in with everyone else. It's more natural.
-Possibly being able to have up to half a day to yourself for projects, excetera.

As can be seen, most these advantages are nap based. I want to experiment with it though, because it could really help those people who need extra time but can't afford to nap in the day. I'm going to start with about 8 to 9 hours every other night, which will give me a healthy mean of about 4.5hrs per night. I'll probably do that for about a month. I want my sleep cycles to rearrange themselves naturally first, if they will rearrange themselves as I'm not exactly going back to sleeping normally. At the moment I fall straight into REM and cycle through every 45 to 60 minutes, which I'm not sure is healthy. I think last night I had about ten cycles, which is twice the normal amount. But that's what compressing my sleep polyphasically has done to me. I don't regret it though, it seems like it would be much more efficient as I'm getting all the important sleep at the beginning instead of the end.

I think though, if that goes alright I might do one of two things. I might either gradually cut my sleep down to six hours every two days, or stay with the nine hours, but let it hold me out every three days, perhaps with a couple of short naps. I do believe though, that six hours every two days would be more practical because nine hours of sleep can't be gotten very night.

It's gonna be weird though. I've actually only ever done one all-nighter in my whole life, and I passed out after 27hrs, which I know isn't particularly impressive. I was always afraid of all-nighters. I'm not so much anymore thanks to all my experimenting with polyphasic sleep, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to hold out a lot longer this time, but I have to admit the thought of staying awake all night still gives me chills. I'm not sure why, it's just always been one of those things for me. I really hope though that I can contribute something to the polyphasic community by doing this. It's not a polyphasic schedule in and of itself, but it could certainly be a very good alternative.

Back to Everyman 3

I think I've finally got fed up of constantly switching between schedules. It's starting to get very annoying. I had a good run on Everyman 1.5 for a week, with the intention of working my way down to Spamayl. I encountered one tiny problem though; boredom. Sure, there are plenty of things I could potentially fill my day with, every day, but as humans our attention span isn't that great and it becomes tiring mentally, even if you're not actually tired in the sense of the word. I found myself accidentally falling to sleep quite often due to boredom. At night I would finish whatever fun activities I was doing, reading a fanfic, watching an episode, chatting to acquaintances, and then I would just lay in bed mulling everything over, unsure what to do next. And because only sleeping three hours per day means falling asleep happens in under one minute when having a restful mind, I found I would either blackout and not wake up for a couple of hours, or I would end up micro-sleeping away a whole hour or two, just because I had nothing I actually felt I need to do. Also, my morning nap was confusing my body because it was so close after my core sleep, and so I would just think, "right, whatever, no point in waking up." I had no motive. And so whilst sleeping only 2 -3hrs a day is awesome, I found it a little impractical. And since I'm fed up of experimenting now, I've decided to just go with the schedule that's the easiest, the most efficient, and the most practical. I've decided to just try and stick with the Everyman 3 schedule.

I've fallen quite easily into the Everyman 3 schedule, albeit accidentally. I'll sleep between 3-4hrs per night between the hours of 3am and 7am. I'm not particularly a morning person, finding it easier to stay awake in the late night before a core sleep rather than after a core in the early-ish morning. And although I like being awake before anyone else, chances are I may end up falling into an Everyman 2 schedule on weekends or something, with a forfeit on the afternoon nap. But I should be averaging around about 4hrs sleep like this. Not too much, not too little. I've found it the perfect amount of time to sleep in the past. And of course if I ever do need to sleep less again I can always just postpone my core with another nap and then fall into the next Everyman schedule up like that. I've experimented enough now to be able to think that I can just switch between them as and when needed. No matter what though, I shan't be going back monophasic, or sleeping more than 6hrs ever again. If I do need to go back to monophasic then I'll just sleep 6hrs on it's own. This is my own personal Everyman guideline:

6hrs = no naps
5hrs = 1 nap (Evening)
4hrs = 2 naps (Evening, Night)
3hrs= 3 naps (Afternoon, Evening, Night)
2hrs = 4 naps (Late Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night)
1hr = 5 naps (Late Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night, Early Morning)

What's interesting is when I first started this experiment almost 3 months ago I started with the Everyman 2 schedule and found it unbelievably difficult and near impossible, giving up in favour for biphasic. Now look, I'm switching between all sorts of schedules with barely any hassle. I'm not saying it's consistent, but it's not difficult either. But now I favour consistency and am going to make Everyman 3 my lifestyle choice. I shall probably keep this briefly updated. I think if anything I'll just log the times I've slept and leave it at that.

Everyman Spamayl Adaption - Days 9 to 10

Day 9 was good. My nap quality went back to normal, whatever that was on day 8. Felt a little tired half an hour leading up to the nap times themselves but no biggie.

Day 10 went well as well. Last night though went a little awry. I accidentally fell asleep thinking at about 12:30am and didn't wake till 3am. I felt good upon waking but decided I should go back to bed to keep the pattern as I usually go to bed at that time now. So I put my alarm on for 5am like usual. Except when I woke I couldn't be bothered to stay awake. So I fell back to sleep at 6am and woke up at 8am. One thing I've noticed is that the more I sleep the more I feel the need to sleep, which is where all my will power disappeared to. So altogether I slept about 6.5hrs but in parts.

It felt like an eternity. I don't feel particularly bad since it wasn't anything like sleeping 8hrs, except the fact my head feels extremely sensitive, almost migraine like, but after looking at my sleep graph it's obvious that the last two hours were completely pointless. I don't like the way everything seems though. It's like the world seems different on more sleep, like it's there but it's not really. It feels like a dream. Which doesn't really make sense but I don't like it. And of course my day feels much too short.

I doubt I'll be able to nap today. And considering 3hrs of sleep can make me go 22hrs awake, I wouldn't be surprised if I stay all the way up to 3am without a lick of tiredness today. It shouldn't be too difficult to get back into it though. A sleep-in never killed anyone.

So today is a bit of a failure, but mainly out of laziness than anything else. I haven't actually slept more than six hours in over about two months. It feels so wrong.

Everyman Spamayl Adpation - Day 8

Last night I skipped my evening nap as I didn't feel tired thanks to that oversleep in the afternoon. The next nap I took after that was at 11pm, which went as normal. I was okay all night, no problems. I went to bed at 3am feeling a little hyper, as I'm still not used to going to bed so early. I got woken up by my smart alarm at 4:45am and was feeling a little tired but preocuppied myself with some more youtube fan vids until it was time for my next nap. For reference, I haven't had any hallucinations in the last 30hrs or so, which I really see as an improvement.

For some reason though this morning, I decided to take two naps back to back, which I think really ended up as three naps back to back and about half an hour after that of microsleeping due to laziness, but I'm not really sure as it was all a little blurry. I probably didn't actually sleep more than half an hour extra all together, I'm not sure. My need to stay in bed and think in the morning is my downfall. But I forgot that I'd had so many naps in the morning back to back, and so come my afternoon nap when I couldn't fall asleep even after 20 minutes I got really worried. I didn't feel tired, but I've fallen asleep to every afternoon nap for the last month now, so of course I was a little worried. But then I remembered all the back to back naps I had in the morning and it kind of astounded me. It really does work then with this SPAMAYL approach, that if I need to skip a nap later in the day, then I can take it back to back with the last nap and be fine.

Considering I may have had three back to back naps then I may not be able to sleep for my evening nap as well, but we'll see at the time. I shan't really be worried about it. If for some reason I have just instantaneously lost the ability to nap then I can just go full on SPAMAYL for a day or two and that should fix it, as I'll be so tired that I'll have to sleep during the naps. But that's a far away possibility at the moment. Otherwise, I've come to an average of four naps per day, this here is a pie chart I compiled of the times I'm roughly falling into sleeping:

I was initially worried about that large gap in the morning but two days into the schedule and it's caused me no further problems. I can go the whole morning with no tirednes, completely alert until the early afternoon when I just have to crash for 15mins. This is about 3hrs sleep altogether. I know that at the moment it's not exactly consistent (I'll make an excuse as it's the weekend), but the point is for the last four days or so I've been sleeping around 3 to 3.5hrs with no problems, except for hallucinations early on. I really love this schedule. It's the best I've been on as of yet. Also, it feels like the day almost never ends as the only credible amount of time I sleep for is the early-mid morning for a couple of hours. It's a very nice feeling. I have no plans to come off this schedule, or this amount of sleep. It agrees with me perfectly. Tomorrow I'll continue sticking to the schedule as I was before the weekend and we'll see what follows.