13 July 2006
PolyPhasic Sleep Experiment: Day 1
Posted by Greig under: Sleep Experiment .
It’s Thursday and I just woke up from what will be my last long night’s sleep in a long time. Yes, it is the first day of my wacky experiment with polyphasic sleep inspired by Steve Pavlina’s and loosely based on the Uberman Sleep Cycle. I say loosely because I have made some modifications that should allow me to adapt faster:
1) naps every 90 minutes if i need them.
2) naps no more than 30 minutes.
3) no longer than 3.5 hours apart.
With more frequent naps I expect my brain to be able to adjust to falling into REM sleep faster. The apparent downfall to this loose schedule is that I won’t get my internal clock adjusted to specific, scheduled nap times (ie. 1am, 5am, 9am, 1pm etc.) but I do think that after the adjustment period I will be able to gradually adjust myself to a more normal schedule.
However, even with these frequent naps, I fully expect I will be experiencing extreme sleep deprevation, but hopefully not for more than 3 or 4 days uh-oh… new information has a blogger say that the least productive and most difficult days are 3-10. That throws a wrench in things… however, I will continue nonetheless.
Normally, I find it very hard to go to sleep quickly, especially when I’m not completely comfortable (i.e. a bus, car, park bench, couch) and that’s one of my reasons for doing this experiment. Hopefully, after I’ve finished I will be able to fall asleep anytime, anywhere.
This weekend is a long one ( I have Monday off) so by starting this experiment Thursday I should only have to endure one day of extreme sleep deprivation. That is, of course, assuming I start to recover at least a little after 4 nights with no sleep. Tomorrow’s schedule is:
3pm-6:15pm elementary teaching
7:00-8:30 middle school teaching
So it’s not a busy day - none of my days really are - and that’s why I think my schedule could be adapted to suit this sleep style.
In the past two days I’ve tried to have a couple naps during the day to prepare myself. I found that in only one nap of the three or four I was able to have a dream. Today I will have at least one nap before heading off to school.
Here it goes!
