Polyphasic Sleep experiment
Hello, hypothetical new readers this post may create! So exciting!
I recently came across an interesting new way of sleeping. Rather than one long 8 hour chunk, it breaks up your sleep into a series of short naps throughout the day. I was immediately intrigued and, after doing a bit of research, became determined to fit this into my life. I am plagued with mild to occasionally severe insomnia, and falling asleep has always been fairly difficult for me. In fact, I grew up thinking this was normal. Doesn't everyone take 2 or 3 hours each night just to fall asleep? Well, no, as it turns out.
So anyway. This isn't a true log of my activities, I officially started last Thursday and it is now Sunday night. (Monday morning? Days are so confusing to me lately.) I suppose that puts me officially on day 5 as of now. I initially chose an Everyman schedule, which includes a 90 minute "core" nap along with 4 or 5 20 minute naps. I specifically created the times so that it would not affect my school life, and I set aside one optional nap that I will probably be able to take during my lunch. I have since deviated slightly from the schedule, taking extra naps when I feel I need them, and I dropped the core as it was interfering way too much with my naps and I got far too dependent on it. On I believe day two I had a minor oversleeping issue. Not to worry, I am back on track as of now and ready to get this shit done. My current schedule is based largely on the SPAMAYL concept, or Sleep Polyphasically As Much As You Like. Essentially, you nap when you're tired, but there is a limit on consecutive naps. I hear it is apparently much easier to adapt to than Uberman or even Everyman.
My main problems thus far are falling asleep during naps, not surprising considering this has always been difficult for me. Even completely sleep deprived during the third day (my worst day thus far), I still found certain times where I lay on my bed for 25 minutes straight before my alarm went off. Hopefully this problem will go away soon. It was actually a major factor in why I chose to attempt this experiment, I hope to train my body to go to bed when I tell it to or else, bitch.
As far as REM goes, I have thus far had two dreams (that I know of, anyway) during my 20 minute naps. Both seemed much longer than 20 minutes, which I am pretty excited about. I had heard of people getting this, but actually experiencing the rush of waking up from a pleasant two hour dream to realize 22 minutes had gone by is just so hard to imagine. Today I had more difficulties falling asleep. My body just does not know when to quit this stupidity, I guess.
Perhaps some bio would be interesting. I am a 17 year old girl, very nearly 18. I am also already a vegetarian which I hear goes well with polyphasic sleeping. Coming up is my final year of high school, and I am actually looking forward to it (wut) because I have finally gotten to choose which classes I take, and they are all awesome. Man, I bet the freedom of college is just great. Anyway, I tend do lots of weird things to challenge myself, like when I switched my keyboard layout from qwerty to dvorak (and can now type easily in both). I do these things because I enjoy change, and I like trying to improve myself in different ways. Experimenting with myself always has risks, of course, but I'm almost always willing to try anything that may prove beneficial. Plus I get the added bonus of just being different from other people, which gives a sort of self pride that few other things do. Maybe that's an egotistical feeling, I don't know.
Man, I have been getting so much done lately. I cleaned my room (trust me, this is a rare occurance), completely devoured a few novels (I started on the Sandman graphic novels which I fell in love with immediately, so fitting to begin reading about the king of dreams during my sleep adaptation :D), and started working on a few languages, notably Norwegian, German, and Ruby (okay so the last one's a programming language~).
Also! Important to note, I think. Tomorrow I am having minor surgery done, getting my wisdom teeth taken out. I quite honestly have no idea how this will affect my sleeping patterns, and am willing to just see how it goes. I'll try my hardest to stick to the schedule, but being on so many drugs will probably make it difficult. If I do end up completely resetting, I promised myself I would not give up and will attempt this again as soon as I am well.
Well, that's all for now. Wish me luck! I can only hope this experiment will cure my insomnia once and for all!
I recently came across an interesting new way of sleeping. Rather than one long 8 hour chunk, it breaks up your sleep into a series of short naps throughout the day. I was immediately intrigued and, after doing a bit of research, became determined to fit this into my life. I am plagued with mild to occasionally severe insomnia, and falling asleep has always been fairly difficult for me. In fact, I grew up thinking this was normal. Doesn't everyone take 2 or 3 hours each night just to fall asleep? Well, no, as it turns out.
So anyway. This isn't a true log of my activities, I officially started last Thursday and it is now Sunday night. (Monday morning? Days are so confusing to me lately.) I suppose that puts me officially on day 5 as of now. I initially chose an Everyman schedule, which includes a 90 minute "core" nap along with 4 or 5 20 minute naps. I specifically created the times so that it would not affect my school life, and I set aside one optional nap that I will probably be able to take during my lunch. I have since deviated slightly from the schedule, taking extra naps when I feel I need them, and I dropped the core as it was interfering way too much with my naps and I got far too dependent on it. On I believe day two I had a minor oversleeping issue. Not to worry, I am back on track as of now and ready to get this shit done. My current schedule is based largely on the SPAMAYL concept, or Sleep Polyphasically As Much As You Like. Essentially, you nap when you're tired, but there is a limit on consecutive naps. I hear it is apparently much easier to adapt to than Uberman or even Everyman.
My main problems thus far are falling asleep during naps, not surprising considering this has always been difficult for me. Even completely sleep deprived during the third day (my worst day thus far), I still found certain times where I lay on my bed for 25 minutes straight before my alarm went off. Hopefully this problem will go away soon. It was actually a major factor in why I chose to attempt this experiment, I hope to train my body to go to bed when I tell it to or else, bitch.
As far as REM goes, I have thus far had two dreams (that I know of, anyway) during my 20 minute naps. Both seemed much longer than 20 minutes, which I am pretty excited about. I had heard of people getting this, but actually experiencing the rush of waking up from a pleasant two hour dream to realize 22 minutes had gone by is just so hard to imagine. Today I had more difficulties falling asleep. My body just does not know when to quit this stupidity, I guess.
Perhaps some bio would be interesting. I am a 17 year old girl, very nearly 18. I am also already a vegetarian which I hear goes well with polyphasic sleeping. Coming up is my final year of high school, and I am actually looking forward to it (wut) because I have finally gotten to choose which classes I take, and they are all awesome. Man, I bet the freedom of college is just great. Anyway, I tend do lots of weird things to challenge myself, like when I switched my keyboard layout from qwerty to dvorak (and can now type easily in both). I do these things because I enjoy change, and I like trying to improve myself in different ways. Experimenting with myself always has risks, of course, but I'm almost always willing to try anything that may prove beneficial. Plus I get the added bonus of just being different from other people, which gives a sort of self pride that few other things do. Maybe that's an egotistical feeling, I don't know.
Man, I have been getting so much done lately. I cleaned my room (trust me, this is a rare occurance), completely devoured a few novels (I started on the Sandman graphic novels which I fell in love with immediately, so fitting to begin reading about the king of dreams during my sleep adaptation :D), and started working on a few languages, notably Norwegian, German, and Ruby (okay so the last one's a programming language~).
Also! Important to note, I think. Tomorrow I am having minor surgery done, getting my wisdom teeth taken out. I quite honestly have no idea how this will affect my sleeping patterns, and am willing to just see how it goes. I'll try my hardest to stick to the schedule, but being on so many drugs will probably make it difficult. If I do end up completely resetting, I promised myself I would not give up and will attempt this again as soon as I am well.
Well, that's all for now. Wish me luck! I can only hope this experiment will cure my insomnia once and for all!