Today went really well with my new core time. Last night I had only a nap at 11pm as along with the afternoon nap I'd slept 4.5hours the night before and so had basically reverted to an Everyman 4 schedule. I didn't see this too much as a problem though because I was expecting to feel quite tired by 3am, which I was, which coincided perfectly with my plans. I fell asleep instantly. I actually woke up 15 minutes later, which is interesting as it appears my body really is adjusting to my naps. I woke at 4:45am without any problems with falling back to sleep. It was really weird going to sleep at 3am and waking up at the time I would usually go to bed though, it felt like the mental lines I'd established between night and day had been usurped. Now I have to establish new boundaries between day and night in my head. I have to admit though it feels much more natural going to bed at 3am, it still feels like it's night. In fact after looking back at my graph it's obvious to see that the quality of sleep was twice as good than at the time I usually take it at. The whole first 50 minutes was comatized deep sleep, followed by a second 50 minute cycle of all REM sleep. Absolutely perfectly partitioned I think. I hope it stays like this.
However, that was the easy part. For some reason I can't fathom I was out of it for the first hour upon waking and I couldn't focus properly. The funny thing is that I didn't realize this until looking back later. Here's a tweet I woke right upon waking: "That hasn't woken the nap quality was life xaving. But don't lice is hp omf, white.o" If I hadn't've looked back at it I wouldn't have realized how out of it I really was. What that was meant to read as I have no idea, but at the time I remember thinking it made perfect sense. I do remember fighting for consciousness though, despite waking after REM and having virtually no sleep inertia. I went to fight it off by pacing up and down my room for about 45 minutes. I actually even fell asleep whilst pacing and almost crashed into my bed frame. It was only my autonomic system sensing my weightlessness as I swayed to the floor that woke me up. I guess that proves that you can't fall asleep standing up or walking without waking.
In the end though I decided to change tactics and decided to try watching some Misfits since I'm really quite into that now and figured something interesting enough might wake me up. Well whilst waiting for the video to load I blacked out a number of times. I was sat up on my bed though and everytime I blacked out my muscles went limp and my iPod fell out of my hands into my lap, which ended up waking me up. This happened about five times until Misfits loaded, it couldn't have taken more than a minute or two to stream. And then as by magic as soon as Misfits started playing I woke up. Just like that. It was so weird. At least I know what to try the first thing I wake up tomorrow morning. Otherwise I had my first nap at about 6:30am, which I awoke from after five minutes. I decided to reset my alarm for another ten minutes, which went fine.
I was a little tired for the first couple of hours after waking but ever since I feel like I've had twice the amount of energy than usual. I've only needed one afternoon nap at 2pm so far. Also, my nap quality is still increasing in quality. I seem to be waking from deep sleep in all of them now. That's not too much of a problem in the afternoon, but in the evening when it's the strongest it takes all my will power not to fall back to sleep. I keep thinking I'll probably pay tonight with more blackouts, but I won't be so quick to judge yet. Also, the day feels like it's going so slow. I often keep thinking it's later than it actually is. Part of me thinks "how much more longer till the end of the day?" end of the day being 3am now. Considering I've been up since 4:30am you could imagine how that would feel. So far I've actually only slept 2hrs. I'm hoping to get another half an hour in at least.
As for oversleeping I've invented a better way to preventing that or blacking out from happening. Basically, every half an hour, nap times excluded of course, I've set an alarm. The purpose of this is to A) wake me up after 30 minutes maximum if I do blackout, and B) to keep me awake as I have to get up and do some pacing or stretching for five minutes after the alarm goes off. Also I have multiple alarms set for my core time, four set five minutes apart, with an extra set 20 minutes after. They all have difficult maths questions and other brain games that have to be answered before the alarm went off. I had a practice run last night and it went very well. I'm hoping this system will work tonight and perhaps for the next few nights as I try to adjust to this schedule. So far so good though. Then again the first day is always the most misleading.
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