Polyphasic Sleep, Day 3
Difficulty 4 out of 5; while Day 3 was more difficult than Day 2, I was better prepared for it, having a better idea of what difficulties to expect and what tactics would help. Practically all of that difficulty of Day 3 came from the time from 4am to 12pm, which is now clearly defined as the main battleground for my polyphasic sleep adaptation. That makes sense to me, since those were almost exactly the hours during which I was sleeping monophasically before. I expect that over time my body will gradually realize that that's no longer time to sleep.
I managed to avoid unplanned naps through constant vigilance, though during the hardest part of the day I did zone out quite a bit (technically, I think my "zoning out" was involuntarily dropping into Stage 1 sleep for a few seconds at a time). I even discovered that when I feeling most exhausted, I could zone out while walking down the street! (This prompted me to decide it wasn't safe to go out walking during such times.) The crazy thing about this symptom is that it's one that I didn't experience even at the height of my bout with mononucleosis during high school--during which I fell asleep in practically every class, every day, no matter how hard I tried to resist. It's perversely fascinating to explore sleep deprivation at this depth, but I'll be very glad tomorrow or the next day when it begins to back off.
My report for Day 3 may sound predominantly negative, but I'm actually very optimistic about the present situation. I managed to not take any unplanned naps or oversleep despite the difficulties mentioned--this bodes very well for my long-term success, especially since I think I've gotten past the most difficult part. I'll know for sure in the next twenty-four hours.
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