Suspension of the Experiment

As much as I hate doing this I am going to have to suspend the experiment simply because of the fact that I started too close to school and did not give myself enough time to transition. I started this experiment just over one week before classes started and I was still in recovery from a surgery (I still am). Seeing how one of the biggest things that helps staying awake is exercise, being strapped to a chair most of the time then it is near impossible. In my previous post I mentioned that I would try everyman and over the past week I have been and from what I can tell, it is very nice.

With everyman I was able to move my naps around up to an hour without causing any problems. Waking up was a lot easier with everyman and staying awake at late hours of the night was easier as well. With everyman I only entered the zombie state once or twice and it mostly was just extreme fatigue. Without this zombie state I was able to ovoid oversleeping much easier but I was always semi-tired and when I was in class I kept falling asleep. This is the main reason I am stopping, I cannot afford to sleep through my classes especially when I have a calculus test here in the second week of school. The biggest difference I noticed between the everyman transition and the uberman transition was that uberman was extreme sleep deprivation for a short period of time and then things start to get better while everyman has mild-to-extreme fatigue for a much longer period of time.

I really hate stopping this mainly because I was just beginning to experience lucid dreams. I had my very first one the other day and it was amazing. It was something to do with being on a rocket and I actually felt my body shaking when the rocket was taking off. Half way through the dream my brain was like "hey I've been asleep for like three hours, crap! I need to wake up" so I looked outside and it was still dark and was like "screw this, that's a cool dream" and then was able to consciously go back into the dream and start it up again...something I have never ever been able to do. Once back in the dream I was able to consciously control my actions and what went on in the dream. The coolest part was that apparently my alarm still had like five minutes on it and the three-hours was all mental. In fact just about every nap this past week while under everyman has felt like it was about three hours. I had at least five naps where I woke up on my own because I thought I overslept but I then look at my clock and I still had 3-5 minutes on the nap. So to those people who say that 20 minutes is not enough time to get a decent amount of sleep, I'm sorry but you are wrong and 20 minutes was actually just enough and your brain begins to compress the nightly sleep cycles into 20 minute blocks. Sadly I do not have enough time to transition to a system of solely naps but it is very possible.

Now please don't take this as saying I am quitting polyphasic or that I have failed in the transition...I don't fail. "Failure" is only the part of succeeding when you learn. I simply have run out of time this semester to transition into it and look forward to completing the transition either over the summer or next winter break. Heck, if I don't do anything cool for spring break then I might just try it then. In the mean time I have talked to very many people (mostly teachers) who live on four hours of sleep per night and am just going to do that so that I can complete my 20 credit hours. I have done four per night before just never long-term. I may throw a nap in there during the day but we will see. One of the advantages of doing this experiment is the fact that I can now fall asleep almost instantly for a nap and do so pretty much anywhere including couches, uncomfortable benches and propped up against a corner while sitting on the ground. I have also learned that, for finals week, taking a short nap every few hours will be much more productive than pulling an all-nighter and sleeping an hour or two right before class.

Now for anyone who is reading this and interested in trying out polyphasic sleep, here are a few dos and don'ts for ya.
Dos:
1) Set multiple alarm clocks. If you have only one you WILL sleep through it. The best idea is to use a stereo as an alarm clock and set it extremely loud so that it rudely jolts you out of bed. Also, the "clocky" alarm clock is great, but it does not work well on carpet nor is it as likely to jolt you out of bed. Instead it will most likely send you groggily around the house finding the clock and then you will go to bad.
2) Set aside at least two weeks for the transition period. As you can tell from my experiences, I took a week and a half and still did not have enough time. If you do not oversleep you could theoretically do it in a week but it is very tough.
3) Do it with a friend, if I had someone doing this with me I might have actually made it because they would have been there to wake me if I overslept.
4) Make a list of things to do, nothing too hard just mindless stuff like sorting clothes or cleaning. Almost every oversleep I had was due to the fact that I had nothing to do so I either dozed off or went back to bed. If you pick things that are too hard to do then you will have zero desire to do them when in your zombie state. However, if you pick things that are too easy then they will get done too quickly and put you asleep as well.
5) Buy A LOT of food, mostly healthy stuff but a lot of snack food as well because you will get hungry more as well as having a weaker immune system; the more vitamins you have in your body the better.
6) Play video games, they make the time pass so much faster when you are groggy and they also force you to be mentally alert without actually doing much physically.
7) Take an extra nap if you have to. It is better to take another nap as opposed to oversleeping. However, be very very careful with this because the extra nap could soon become a habit. Also don't take this extra nap unless you have been up for at least two hours. If you do it sooner than that then it will just be another oversleep. Time and time again my brain was playing tricks on me and was like "oh, take another nap right now, it won't hurt and will prevent oversleep" but looking back that extra nap was the oversleep.
8) Exercise! Even simple pushups and crunches will keep you awake better than sitting in a chair.

Don'ts:
1) Don't use any caffeine to stay awake. It will stay in your system for hours and hinder you from getting the REM sleep you need. You can use sugar in small amounts but if you do it within 45 minutes of your next nap then it is asking for trouble.
2) Don't eat right before you go to take a nap, it will make getting to sleep tougher and waking up harder as well.
3) Don't sleep in the same room that you are going to spend most of your time. You need a mental transition kind of thing. When you are that groggy your brain will sort of stay asleep if you just sit in the same room the whole time with the same scenery, so even if you just get up and move to the next room it will make a very big difference.
4) Don't hit the snooze button! I don't care how tired you are, I don't care how long it took you to get to sleep, don't do it. If you hit snooze and then wake up five minutes later (which you probably won't) your brain will be so foggy and out of it that you will most likely end up going back to sleep.
5) Don't sleep in your regular bed, you will be too comfortable and probably go back to sleep. Try the couch or a recliner instead.
6) When in zombie mode, don't try watching TV or movies, you will only fall asleep. I watched Crank and almost fell asleep. I mean Crank is like adrenaline in movie form and I was still out of it, imagine what anything else would do.

I think that is all for now, if I come up with any more I will be sure to post them here. Feel free to leave me your questions and comments if you are interested in trying this.
I look forward to completing this in a few months so keep checking back.
Till next time,
-Graham