Alright I'm at 96 hrs in. I finally slept a full set of naps, well I just woke up from one a tad bit early because I had a fear like I was oversleeping. I also just experienced my first dream rememberance on polyphasic. The first day my naps felt like waking up from oblivion. Then progressively lighter. The last few have been really easy to recover from. The cool thing is I almost never remember dreams, so I feel like polyphasic could increase my dream recall. It was more vivid than most of my dreams as well. I also felt pretty conscious in this last nap. Like I said, I had a fear that I was oversleeping and woke myself up. I think this was because I was conscious of having a dream, which I wasn't expecting to be having. So maybe this experiment will also help with lucid dreaming, which I have yet to really experience.
I feel at about an 8 of 10, which is pretty nice. I'm getting the feeling like my body is finally adapting to it, and now it's just working off the effects of sleep deprivation. I've been feeling very tired around my 1-5am time slot every day. Steve Pavlina coped with this by adding another nap. I didn't even want to bother with that. This time it was reasonable, whereas before it was pretty disruptive and I'd have to go walk around or eat some fruit or something to stay up.
My legs hurt. I began noticing this at around 64 hours in. They're sore like I went running or something. As far as exercise goes, I quit my regular pushups/situps, and the only thing I have done on polyphasic sleep is pace around the house. I did do this quite a bit though, both to help me think and stay awake. I feel a bit of pressure on my head. Most of the dizziness is gone. I still feel a little 'tender' there though. My eyes have taken the biggest bruising from this experiment. They were sore almost the entire time. The reason is because I spent 85% of my time on the internet reading. Everyone said I needed a big list of stuff to do. All I did was spend an unhealthy amount of time reading all the stuff I didn't have time to before. This worked for the most part. If I needed to think about something, I would instinctively jump up from my chair to get a jolt of energy. I could retain what I read for the most part just fine. I was expecting far worse.
I still find it weird that no one ever really brought up not being able to fall asleep. I was really not expecting it. You'd think, you're sleep deprived, fighting to stay awake, why on earth would I not be able to fall asleep? I don't have an answer. It's like I developed insomnia midway through the experiment that later cured itself. Right now I can't lick my finger, stick it in the air, and tell when my next nap will be. My body doesn't always seem to get very tired, indicating when I should have a nap. Before some naps I can feel tiredness, others I feel pretty well rested. I actually think it will even out, it just hasn't gotten to that point yet.
After I had 3 good naps I wanted to make it to sleeping a full 24hr set, so on naps where I wasn't feeling very tired, I would turn off all the lights in my room, look away from the computer screen and turn on some Enya. I'd just relax for like 30 minutes before my nap. I suspect that my bright computer screen reduced melatonin production, causing me to be more awake than I should be. I'm probably going to continue this Enya habit until I feel an indication that my body wants to go have a nap at the right time.
I think I'm past the hump, which was pretty reasonable considering how little I've slept. I'm excited about the potential of this schedule. It was really not as difficult as I thought it would be. I must admit the figure that 12 out of 15 people failed at this concerned me. Just plan accordingly for the potential setbacks. I have to remember that those 15 were probably college girls, the least disciplined group I know of. No offense to anyone. ;p
Some key strengths for me going in:
1. I always had a game plan the moment I woke up. I never negotiated with the alarm clock. The second it goes off, you get up. I also downloaded the program Alarm Clock 1.0 from cnet downloads and cranked that sucker up. Simple.
2. I had a clear schedule. I just got out of school and didn't work this week. I had to forego some social engagements, like going to see a movie. Something about sitting in the dark in a comfy seat while you're sleep deprived seemed like a bad idea to me.
3. My mindset was that I was going to follow through on my plan no matter what, excluding serious physical danger. A lot of people tried this for kicks. Hey, if you enjoy sleep dep. more power to you. I wanted to do this for personal growth reasons. It is really a great amount of leverage when you think about it. 5 more hours a day of whatever you want. It's incredible!
We'll see how it works in contact with my tight college schedule. I planned it out thoroughly, but you never know.
