[Jeff Lilly]

Hi Steve,

It's been almost a year since I finished my own polyphasic experiments (inspired by yours, of course), and I've noticed exactly the same napping phenomena that you have.

The first time I tried it, last April, I adapted very quickly -- even faster than you did, I think. The special napping that's required was easy for me to pick up. I had very little trouble keeping to the napping schedule, and I found that I was pretty functional throughout the 24-hour period. However, I gave it up after two weeks, because my alertness and mood were still erratic and unpredictable from cycle to cycle. During some cycles, I was still fighting sleep for the entire four hours, which was not fun. During these cycles, I found that my mind started playing tricks on me, and I would look back at emails I'd written during that time and wonder what on earth I'd been thinking. I also had to drive two hours to Boston three times a week, and that just got scary. But other times, I was perfectly alert and had no problems at all. So I gave it up.

Since I can be a stubborn idiot sometimes, I tried again in May. This time the adaptation was much faster -- in fact, there was hardly any adaptation at all; I just slipped back into it. But I found that, after two weeks, the adaptation hadn't proceeded any further than it had the first time, and the driving was scary again. So I dropped it.

I should note that I am not vegan in general, but concurrently with the second polyphasic experiment, I was trying veganism for a month. I have no doubt that diet has a huge role to play in these sleeping patterns.

Anyway, I wish I knew some way to push past the two-week barrier here! I sure could use the extra time...