Well, here I am. Still. You too, I guess.
Last night was interesting. I got some sleep between 1:30AM and 2:00AM, which was nice. I did notice what some folks call “sleep inertia,” meaning it was a bit hard to get my brain going after the alarms went off. At 5:30AM I slept even more of my allotted half-hour–but I woke up partway through and re-crashed. Maybe I should’ve gotten up right away, ’cause the wake-up when my alarms blared later was a bit tough.
Just at the moment I feel…odd. Sleepy, sure, but not in a normal sense of must-fall-down. More that the world occasionally shifts a bit sidewise and catty-whompus. I’ve read that “oversleeping,” aka sleeping some normal number of hours at a time, is the cardinal sin of this adjustment period–far worse than occasionally lying awake during naptime. Of which neither have I done, but they could happen. And Steve Pavlina suggested at one point that an additional nap from time to time might not be harmful, as long as it remains quite short. So if that’s the case…why would this ever be hard? If it works at all. IOW I figure this’ll turn out to be either easy or impossible. Will I be able to tell which? Maybe!
So far, so good. Still, it’s early. I’ll update this throughout the day.
9:30AM nap: worked out fine. I woke up after about 7 minutes, then went back to sleep for the rest of it. I remember doing that, but I don’t remember being alert enough to make an actual decision on the topic. Hmm. A bit groggy for 20 minutes or so afterward; no big deal. I’d read a bit of slightly boring nonfiction right beforehand, which seemed to make going to sleep easier.
1:30PM nap: Peachy. I woke up 15 minutes in, then treated myself to another 15. Not sure whether I should be doing that. Maybe I should shorten my sleeping period? But I woke up feeling reasonably alert and still feel okay so far. Read for 10 minutes before the nap; it worked well.
…and there you have it. About two hours of sleep in about 36 hours, assuming I make it till 5:30 before I crash. Neat, so far.
I expect things to get tougher tonight and/or tomorrow. And I’ll let you know how that goes. But I have other stuff I want to do today, so I’ll post this and…call it a day.
Have fun sleeping out there!
OK, David, I have to make this comment; that is, I have to Interrupt and make this comment, which means I also have not read everything you’re doing in your polyphasic sleep experiment. So take it for what it is or isn’t!
This type of pattern/nonpattern sleeping is not supposed to be such a flipping unnatural, forced, pushed event! Alarms are NOT part of this type of thing. Either it happens for you naturally, or it is not to be played with…except for fun, and we all know you’re all about fun, so I’m wasting my breath. But seriously, can’t you just do what is a natural rhythm for you?
Let’s take me (JUST for a second, though). I didn’t plan, or ask, for the odd sleep patterns I’m experiencing these days. It just happened. I do use my alarm if I do not wake up before a certain time when I HAVE TO do something. But the internal clocks have been set at “I’m a morning type” since birth. It’s just what it is.
Oh well, move on, my friend, I’ll read the next one…
I completely agree! OTOH, I think the same way about walking and running around whilst barefoot–but it took my feet several months to adapt to it. (If you think that might have cheesed me off…yup!)
If the alarms are a permanent feature…well, they won’t be. Because I don’t see myself letting it work out that way.
I have no idea what a natural rhythm for me might be. I could try to find out, but it’d be hard to re-create the “sleep when I’m sleepy, until I’m not” thing I did as a kid at this point. I’d have trouble making/meeting commitments, y’know? Of course I guess I could just head back to Vegas (or someplace) for a few months, and leave the fam behind. Short of that, where do I start? I’ve definitely been teaching myself to nap efficiently. So that’s…well, possibly reasonable. Maybe?
My plan is to see where this takes me, and see whether I like it, and tweak as I go.
Also, yes. The fun! It is. {8’>
-D