Post your polyphasic sleep logs here

[Ati]

Interesting posts this past week....I'm back from my parents trip and will catch up sleep log a bit later. Briefly, I managed 4 out of 6 days to get a nap in and wake up at 345am the next day, not bad...

I'm curious about the idea of having naps less than approximately 90 minutes long. For one thing, I myself have found a real interesting facet of the 90 minutes to be a small window in time at which I often wake up spontaneously and if I do get up and moving and into some light, I wake up real well with loads of energy within say 7 to 10 minutes of awakening. The sleep cycle theory which holds that 90 minutes gets one from stage 1 to REM after deep sleep works well with this experience, conceptually.

At this point I'm really liking the 90 minute routine. At the same time, getting less than that seems often to work nearly as well or really just as well. I used to do 30 minute cat naps which also worked well, I woke up feeling good.

The one difference between naps that are less than 90 minutes and 90 minute naps seems to be the length of time the sleep lasts in regards to feeling rested. There may also be a difference in how well a whole program works over several days or longer. I'm still figuring that one out.

So for a 30 day experiment, I'd say I've learned a great deal. I want to continue this and refine it further. I think something biphasic fits my neurophysiology real well.

BTW, I really think sleep deprivation is a bad idea, don't you all, really? I'm quite sure it's not good for you and I'm quite sure it's not sustainable for that reason, the body will just say no after a while, I'd think and that must be a good thing.

Time for a nap, it's late, long day......

[taylor]

Sleep deprivation is definitely bad for you, but since it's temporary I'm ok with enduring it.

[taylor]

72 hours in. Had my worst drowsiness last night, I couldn't read, couldn't do anything, but just pace around and keep opening my eyes that kept trying to close themselves. This came after I missed multiple naps. I kept the schedule, but I couldn't fall asleep for some reason. I slept through my last two naps, and I still feel quite tired and my eyes still want to keep closing. I have headaches and dizziness. My eyes burn. A strange thing I noticed when I couldn't fall asleep - I could feel a strange sensation move over my body, like some chemical just flushed through my system. This happened several times. It felt like it was going to paralyze my whole body and put me to sleep, but it never happened. I could also see a strange bit of pulsing color in my right eye when I closed it. Weird. Family members commented "You don't look so good." Zombielike interactions with them. I zone out if what they're saying is too long. My mind keeps trying to have dreamlike thoughts and I close my eyes, then catch myself. This happens over and over. I wonder if I could be getting micronaps in the second(s) duration, which might interfere with my adaptation. I doubt it though.

Honestly, I was hoping to be more adapted by now, but rereading the everything2 node, she said she finally got the hang of this schedule on day 10! I think part of the reason I'm having trouble with this is that I have historically had bad luck with taking naps. Unless I was really exhausted, I'd just lie there and relax, never really fall asleep, but still get a little bit of rest in. But a little bit of rest just doesn't cut it on this schedule.

I'm just gonna keep pressing on towards this insane goal and pray I don't die.

[David Hausladen]

taylor: "Pressing on" is the term for it. I remember realizing back around Day 3 of my Dymaxion sleep trial that I was now able to start drifting while walking down the street. (Needless to say, I stopped walking during really tired times so I didn't walk into the path of a car or something.)

For me, social interaction was the best way to keep myself awake--anytime I was actively engaged in interacting with another person, I was easily able to stay awake. If you haven't already, that might be a good tactic to try when things get bad.

A lot of the symptoms you're talking about are (probably) from a weakened immune system--that'll happen when your body hits extreme sleep deprivation (usually around Day 4 or 5).

I hope this turns around for you soon!

[vuurstorm]

Hi All. I am going to start with polyphasic sleeping tomorrow.
I have stopped drinking coffee about two months ago and converted to a total raw fruit diet. My wife supports me in my effort to try polyphasic sleep and will help me in not oversleeping.

Taylor : Good luck in your attempt, I will be following your posts eagerly.
Thanks for describing exactly what you are feeling, most people just gave a number out of ten indicating how they felt. Your updates is better indication of what we might experience trying polyphasic sleep.
I really hope you make it. The amount of successful attempts are very few.

Hurricane : What happened no more updates either here or on your website?

David : Thanks for all your advice, I am sure that I will need some in the near future.

[taylor]

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.

[taylor]

Originally Posted by vuurstorm

Hi All. I am going to start with polyphasic sleeping tomorrow.
I have stopped drinking coffee about two months ago and converted to a total raw fruit diet. My wife supports me in my effort to try polyphasic sleep and will help me in not oversleeping.

I wish you the best at it! Since you already made it through those dietary changes, that already puts you ahead of the curve with this experiment.

Oh, I forgot to mention. I am on a vegan diet. I don't know if that had any effect, but it's worth mentioning.

[Ati]

Hi all Polyphasic Sleep loggers! This has really turned into a great thread, thanks David for "pressing on" yourself to get it going. The Switching to Biphasic Sleeping... thread is also great.

I'm going to be in and out the next week or so, due to the holidays but will post this below as a "start up" for what I'll plan to do after January 1. I've posted the same below in the "other thread ", then wanted to copy the essentials here as well.

-------
I decided this morning that once holidays are over (house full of company coming and I've no idea what I'll do til New Year's--probably free sleep like the rest of 'em ), I'll change the experiment......

Since I have gotten an amazing amount out of this whole thing in regards to energy level, focus while awake and actual sleep quality while I'm sleeping, I'm going to keep playing with it and see just what essential elements are most important for this particular individual (that would be me ) at this particular time (that would be now and the near future ). I've identified these elements after the last 30 odd days of experimentation posted mainly on the "post your polyphasic sleep logs here" thread.

-----I've found that planning for 90 minute cycles is real helpful and my sleep physiology quite easily takes to that pattern (e.g., this morning, with a long day and night ahead of me, I decided to add a cycle..so instead of getting up at 3:45am---alarm was set, but I woke up spontaneously at 3:36 to make that decision )---I decided to get up in one more cycle, at 5:15. Sure enough, I fell back to sleep, awakened very briefly at 4:15 then back to sleep and woke up spot on at 5:15am, ready to go).

-----I've found that sleeping in two shots per 24hrs allows me great waking time (focus and energy) and great sleeping time (sleep ), with for me, 6 hours per 24, while if I sleep monophasically, I seem to need 7.5 hours. Don't know why, just seems to be that way. I know that I come to feeling sleep deprived after about 4 straight days of only 6 hrs monophasic sleeping and if I cut that into two bites, it's fine.

-----For me, situationally, being able to get up early with going to bed "normally" is a hoot. I get up at 3:45am much or most of the time (with variances as circumstances change, like now), and going to sleep at 11:15pm seems to work great. It allows me to participate in evening activities with family and friends and to get up early to play and practice music while getting an early start at my "day job" , all in the same day.

-----Last, I think I've found that I can engineer the time slots pretty well while at home and while traveling (across two time zones once or twice a month for a week or so at a time), so that even if the times of nap and night sleep change, I can pretty much approximate something similar to my home biphasic sleep pattern and its benefits. That's almost like budgeting other things--I mainly have to work out a 1.5hr slot and a 4.5hr slot during each 24 hour period. 1.5 hrs on a plane is superb, almost like a free lunch .

So, come New Years, I think I will:
---- Aim at that 1.5 plus 4.4 hrs per 24
-----Generally aim at 11:15pm - 3:45 am night sleep and 1.5 hrs nap pretty soon after I get home at 5 or earlier, or later, depending upon the afternoon evening circumstances.
------If, due to circumstances (that's what it generally is), I need to alter those times, then keep to the 1.5 and 4.5 time slots.
-----Log the hours I actually do this and anything relevant about the effects (to see how my "engineering" works, stuff like how close to night can nap be, etc.)
-------

I'll be back to check in but less than before for the next week or so. '

Good luck, all and Happy Holidays!

Ati

[taylor]

No way. I slept for 8 hours straight. I had the volume knob turned down on my computer and missed the alarm. And I was starting to feel normal again. After just waking up from the 8 hour thing, I feel a little tired in my eyes, not refreshed.

Unbelievable.

Oh well, on I go. My body was midway adapted already so I hope I don't have to go through sleep dep. again, but I will if necessary. I expect to be tired for at least the next 2 days.

Will update with details...

[vuurstorm]

It has been 43 Hours since my last normal sleep session.

So far the whole polyphasic sleep adoption process has not been very difficult.
I stayed up through Thursday night and started with my sleep schedule today at 14:00.

We had a little family gathering at my parent’s between 14:00 and 20:30 so I had to take my first two naps at their house. Most of my family thought that I am crazy in only sleeping in half an hour sessions but overall it did not feel to weird having to take a short nap twice while everyone where socializing.

Since 16:00 my eyes started hurting a bit, after each sleep session it feels a lot better but the slight tired pain starts coming back about half an hour after every wakeup.
Since 22:00 I am beginning to get very tired and only started to feel more awake after watching some television and working on the computer.
So far I managed to fall asleep at every session within the first 10 minutes thus getting between 20 and 25 minutes of sleep per .

I defiantly think that staying up through Thursday night helped a lot because I usually would not have been able to fall asleep within half an hour during day times.

[taylor]

Couldn't sleep during the last 3 naps.

This would bother many people, but I don't even care anymore. I've seen polyphasic work for me great already, and I wasn't even fully adapted to it yet. I've already made it a part of my lifestyle. It's not even a struggle. I sleep every four hours. That's just the way it is. I don't fall asleep during some of my naps? It's not a problem. Eventually I will. I make a mistake? I oversleep? Not a problem. I'll just go back to normal sooner or later.

The key I think in personal growth is making an identity shift. This is the point behind affirmations, visualizations, and goals that begin in "I ..." If you want something, become that which will bring it to you. For example, let's say you want to get in shape. Don't struggle with something that goes against your self image, like saying, "I am physically fit. I benchpress 300 pounds effortlessly." That is an OK affirmation. It focuses you. It motivates you. But then what happens when you look in the mirror? You think, "Liar." The point is, you can't change how much you can benchpress. All you can change are your actions leading up to that goal.

Become the kind of person who always goes to the gym 3 times a week no matter what. That you can control. You can make an immediate identity shift to this, with no thoughts that you're fooling yourself. You don't have to spend 30 minutes listening to inspirational music or looking at athletic heroes, pumping yourself up to go to the gym. You just go. It's going to be hard. It's going to be painful. You won't see immediate results. Just accept these facts upfront. You go to the gym after all of this and you get what you expect. That's good. While it was painful, while it was hard, it wasn't THAT hard, because psychologically you weren't resisting it. It is who you are so you just accept it. You're making progress on your goal of benching 300lbs. But in another sense you've already completed it.

I know this post was kind of outside the scope of polyphasic sleep, but this great realization just came to me and I wanted to share! Looking back, I've always succeeded in personal growth following this method. I feel like I just ensured the success of my next few goals. Good luck to you all!

[vuurstorm]

It has been 58 hours since my last normal sleep session.

Usually I make my update just before day end but since this I just passed my first 24 hour sleep cycle I just had to make a post.Yes my first 24 hour cycle has just passed; I started Friday at 14:00 and just woke from my Saturday 14:00 nap. So far I seem to be adapting to the schedule very easily. The only negative effect I am experiencing at the moment is my eyes are a bit sore and I start getting tired about a hour before my next nap.
Currently I spend my daytime being mostly socializing, at night I work on my computer and after my 2am nap I get something physical to do like doing the dishes for about an hour then go back to my computer. I am not experiencing any set of hours that is any more difficult than the other, maybe the computer screen’s brightness is assisting in fighting the tiredness in the obscure hours. I original plan was to include some walks around the house when I am getting to tired but so far that hasn’t been necessary.
Falling asleep so far is not an issue for me at all, for example this morning I was working on my computer right up to the last minute before my 6am nap and wasn’t tired at all but again about 5 minutes after my head hit the pillow I was fast asleep.

Depending on how I feel after tomorrow morning’s 6am nap I might continue with my running schedule (I started training for the South African 2008 comrades marathon about two months ago) Currently I am running a distance of 8km and I think it will be interesting to see how it will effect my adaption to the polyphasic sleeping.

[vuurstorm]

Taylor: I hope you manage to pick up your schedule. Currently your updates are a big inspiration for me. Your update where you had sleep depression's left me worried but the next day when you posted your update where everything started working better again really lifted my mood and gave me a lot of confidence before I started.

I don't have the luxury of cheap internet access ( pay for 500Mb per month usage bundle ) but still I can't help myself in logging in on and checking if you made a post. With you being a couple of days before me it also helps me in seeing what may happen in the next day or two.

I hope you can pick up the schedule and are as always looking forward to your next update.

[taylor]

Thanks vuurstorm! I think we'll both get there eventually, although you may be ahead of me now after my accident.

I slept during my last few naps. I don't feel tired at all right now. Maybe my eyes are a bit tired, but I'm reading like crazy so this normal. I have no idea how to intepret feeling fine since the everything2 poster said I would be tired for the next two days after oversleeping. Perhaps it will hit me later. Perhaps we're just different.

I've discontinued my Enya habit for the moment, simply for the fact that it takes up more time.

Since starting this schedule and going back home for the break, I've gone from spending 99% of my time with other people, to spending something like 10% with others. Fortunately, I'm one of those people who are fine either in groups or by themselves. I actually kind of like the change of pace. After the first night of not sleeping I understood Steve's thoughts on the passage of time being continuous now, instead of clumped into days. Actually, I found it amazing that I could just say, "no" to sleep, and the body obeyed.

I rented Taxi Driver and watched it with my family. I had to leave before the ending to take a nap. I came back 25 mins later to finish it up. It wasn't that big of a deal. I still got to share 90% of the movie with my family. I wasn't about to stop the movie so that we could watch the very end together. We even talked about it later when I finished. I remember Steve listed this hassel as a reason he quit. Uh, not even a big deal. He also listed how he liked natural sunlight to work in, instead of fluorescent, so perhaps Steve's a little sensitive.

The biggest downside I see this as potentially having is putting a hassel on others. I'm already a vegan, which is quite a hassel in having group meals with family members. Depending on how flexibile this turns out to be for me, polyphasic sleep might be another hassel to deal with when going out and doing stuff. But giving up 5 hours of life a day for this? I'll reserve my judgment for later, but it sounds crazy to give that up.

[vuurstorm]

Yes, perhaps we're just different, it feels as if I'm already starting to adapt to the new schedule, I didn't have any sleep depression's as yet but then again I'm only 71 hours into the schedule.

It was the same when I did the 3 day water followed by a 7 day juice fast. For me it was very easy not eating anything for 10 days, I didn't even experience any of the negative effects, when I told others of how easy it was for me and the amount of weight I lost they started as well but all of them found it very difficult. It almost feels dumb in me updating the blogs as I don't have any real advice to give as I'm not experiencing the same negative effects as most people attempting polyphasic sleep.

Waking up is getting easier as well. I set my cellphone alarm to wake me up and then as a backup I set my wife's alarm clock as well only 3 minutes later.
So far I have woken using just my cellphone alarm which is not very loud at all. My wife does not even wake up when it goes off. I never added any extra naps and once I even woke 3 minutes before the alarm.

That brings me to another point, Steve mentioned that another big reason he stopped was because he did not slept with his wife (I recall he slept on the couch) and did not follow the same sleeping rituals as her. My wife and I go to bed at 22:00, luckily for me she does not wake up when my cellphone alarms goes off and then on some mornings when I get up after my 6am nap, she gets up with me.

Anyways, I feel well capable of doing my 8km run this morning and will post an update on how it went, not that I think it will be any different than before my polyphasic sleeping started.

[kateryan]

please tell me more about this sleep system.

Kate

[vuurstorm]

It has now been 80 hours since my last normal sleep.

I ran 8.2km this morning, I was a bit doubtful to attempt such a distance so early in my sleeping schedule change but decided there is only one way to find out how my body will adapt.
I ran the distance with no more difficulty than any other morning, in fact I finished 4 minutes faster than my best time more due to a motivation boost since my energy levels are a bit on the down side this morning.Usually after running my legs are stiff for a day or two, it will be interesting to see how my body recovers since I am not sleeping near as much as before.

My wife and I went to church this morning, which as of yet must have been the most challenging. I did not sleep as good in my previous two naps and am more tired this morning.Church turned out to be quite a challenge. When blinking I could feel myself drifting away, fighting micro sleep every couple of minutes.

At the moment I am looking forward to my next nap.Yes half an hour is not much sleep but the energy boost I get after each nap is amazing.

I haven't hit sleep depression yet and are unsure as to what stages of sleep I am getting at the moment. I haven't experienced any lucid dreaming, in fact I can't recall any dream since I started which is normal for me as I could never remember my dreams.

I managed to finish my website color theme last night. All my polyphasic sleep posts are on there as well. Please visit Vuurstomr's Blender 3D and feel free to leave some comments.The about section still needs updates, I will get to that tonight.

[vuurstorm]

please tell me more about this sleep system.

The sort version: You sleep for half an hour every four hours.
For more details read through Stevepvlina's polyphasic experience

[taylor]

That's really cool vuurstorm, it'd be great if you didn't feel any bad effects.

Imagine this. You set your alarm for 5:15am. You go to sleep at 4:50am. You wake up at 2:10pm with a confused look on your face. That's right, I apparantley overslept somehow. I don't understand it. I must have gotten up, walked 4 feet, turned the volume knob down and also grabbed the mouse, turned the alarm off, then walked 4 feet back in bed, all while not waking up. I wasn't even very tired. I don't know how I could have done this. Anyway, I'm going to hide my speakers and make the mouse really difficult to get to. Crazy.

[vuurstorm]

Good luck to you Taylor. I can just imagine the disappointment after realizing that you overslept but I'm sure you will make it because after each oversleep accident you try to improve your method where others might have given up.

Do you have a cut-of time?
I for example have to go back to work on the 2nd and has given myself till this Friday to decide whether I will keep the schedule or turn back to my normal schedule.

[vuurstorm]

Today is my 4th day on polyphasic sleep. So far I had 8 hours of sleep in total.

Funny to think that I am now on day 4 of this sleeping schedule and has slept in total what most people sleep in one day. The days are now so much longer, I just finished my first weekend as a poly sleeper and it felt more than three or four days.Simple things like remembering what I did yesterday morning takes some thinking as for me that was almost like two days ago.

The last three sleep sessions are getting more difficult. I am feeling more tired after each sleep and keep reminding my wife to ensure that I get up after my alarm goes of in fear of oversleeping.Previously I felt wide awake after half an hour’s sleep but now it takes me a minute or two to get a clear head.

After my 10pm nap I was very tired my eyes wouldn’t stop burning, and if I closed them for more than a second I could feel myself drifting away and had to shake my head just to stay awake, concentrating was very difficult and I could feel my tong slagging behind when I speak, even when I ate something it tasted funny.My legs was hurting a lot, it felt like needles pinching me the whole time letting me wonder if I shouldn’t have waited longer before my jog.

After my 2am nap things got a lot better. My body must still be healing itself when I sleep as before my nap my legs where really hurting badly but now the pain is completely gone.It does not even feel like I ran at all. I am still a bit tired but recovered easier. After about 5 minutes since I woke up I started up the computer and are feeling much more alert. It seems that the brightness of the computer screen is the biggest boost in concentration. Socializing or physical activities just masks the tiredness but the computer screen seems to take it away especially when I work on something with a white background, games does not have the same effect at all.

I am still unsure as to what stages of sleep I am getting, maybe I am over the worst or maybe sleep depression is just around the corner, whatever the case at the moment I am just taking it day by day.

[taylor]

Yeah, I think for both of us, the computer screen reduces tiredness. The only problem is that I am doing it overkill and therefore my eyes themselves are tired of looking at the computer screen and want to shut, even though my body feels fine. That's interesting about your leg's healing up. You wouldn't think the body could do much in 20 minutes.

I have no dealine/cut-off period. I do have to go back to work after this next week though, then school 2 weeks after that, so hopefully any signs of sleep dep will be gone by then. Drawing from the concept of Overwhelming Force, I'm setting two more alarms for myself, and my mom agreed to make sure I'm awake when she gets up. I at least should only have a 2.5hr oversleep if I somehow get past my 3 alarms. Let's see you stop me now, sleepy taylor!

My family is totally against the idea. They keep saying stuff like "You're fighting nature." "You should quit." "I think you're crazy." "I love sleep, don't you?" When I show them study after study showing how vegetarians have significantly lower heart disease and cancer rates, they make transparent excuses for their diets. So their opinion means little, sadly. I just treat it like fear based, well meaning static.

Time for a nap.

[MultiDimensional]

Polyphasic Sleep Log - Day 1&2 by Nicholas Powell
As I type this monophasic sleep cycle (normal 8 hours a night) stopped 48 hours ago. Day 1 of the new polyphasic cycle was surprising interesting, it was too easy to stay awake. In fact I found difficulty with the napping. I feel mainly is because I am very interested maximizing opportunity to the fullest especially in the area personal development because I know in any undertaking that my perspectives will offer new insight about myself and therefore offering others the same thing about themselves. So in the passionate pursuit to get the most out of this experiment my proactive thoughts were running through my mental construction in a very clear way without hesitation for slowing down and relaxing, which as you well know is invariably needed to ease into the process we call sleep. Creating an obstacle to choose over one of two ultimate decisions:
1. Do I allow my thoughts to keep building momentum to come to various conclusions about my new found perspectives?
2. Do I interrupt and influence the thoughts to pursue a scheduled nap pattern and take advantage of the much needed nap because without the naps I will not be able to keep this experiment going seemingly disrupting any further insights?
Intuition was the deciding factor. I appreciate the conclusions of the inner-sight I received. The insight I received you can find be clicking here. This is why I decided to built a website in the first place because of the insights I discovered and continue to discover.

I typed as much as I could before I had to take the naps, but by then the schedule I had planed out was off course. I just took one nap at a time and eventually found a rhythm that matches my writing inspiration and extreme overwhelming tiredness causing forced naps. I can go 6-7 hours in-between naps. My main purpose is to write as much as I can and get it out so I don't loose train of thought between writing and naps.

After each nap I feel groggy and want to sleep longer, but I push myself through it and get up as soon as the alarm goes off my will is passionately forceful because I am getting the results I wanted to get from this experiment. The problem is that I was think this would happen after the adoption process when my body is used to the new sleeping pattern, but if I am too tired to where I don't think I can handle taking much more, and then I either walk around the block or take a shower.

I find taking showers works best because my body is used to taking showers in the morning to wake-up. My body has been conditioned in such a way that it doesn't matter what time I take a shower I seem to wake-up.

My progress is going quite well, but brings a lot of questions to the surface and discovering more about myself in simple terms. For example, I noticed that I used to do the things I do base around a schedule of day and night. I would go to the bathroom, take a shower, eat breakfast and brush my teeth after I woke up.

However now I have to rely on my body to tell me when I need to do these things because there is no schedule anymore. My night and days merge into one on-going process of one moment to the next and the 30 min naps are not long enough to see any difference so it is like I am not sleeping at all. I lost track of when one day ends and the other begins. I notice the day and night shifts but I don't shift with it.

I just noticed the 2nd day of this new sleeping pattern I have not eaten or drank anything in about 16 hours! So my suggestion for you if you are interested in experimenting with polyphasic sleep is to figure out the schedule that best fits your life-style and keep to it, apply in the schedule to make a list of every need you must take care of within the four hour naps. For example the human body is said to need to eat every four hours so I suggest you eat every time you wake-up so that your body has time to digest before your next nap. Then put in the schedule that every two naps (8 hours) you will shower and try to keep on a consistent planed schedule until you get used to your body giving you signals of what it needs.

My mental construction as of now is clear of all the mental chatter. Every thought I am having, I am conscious of. It seems to be that the only thoughts coming in are a result of one or more of the five senses. If I sit here with my eyes closed and ears closed to anything outside myself (which is easy to do because it is at night and nobody is around or sleeping) while also keeping my body very still, I notice my state is extremely relaxed. I would describe it at best a state of meditation: no thoughts. But, I also notice that I can stare at the wall and not see anything. In other words, the capability of my senses to bring input to my conscious is dull to the point of almost not being there because I seem to be able to sit in any position and be able to relax quite easily. I feel this is due to lack of sleep and sleep deprivation taking over.

Polyphasic Sleep Log - Day 3&4 by Nicholas Powell

I have been getting my naps on schedule now and still am forcing myself to get up without oversleeping (which seems to be a problem for most who have experimented with this) and the naps are starting to feel more restful. I am not having any dreams (having dreams means REM has taken place) that I remember, but I feel REM has begin to merge in to my new sleeping pattern.

My senses seem to have taken a more of a duller phase. My room-mates children were here watching TV and they turned the volume up on the TV to the highest sound possible. Walking into the room I didn't even notice it was that loud. My senses seem to be fading more and more.

I lay down on the couch and was watching the cartoon movie they were playing and I quickly realized that my conscious mind has dulled my logic mind and heightened my creative mind. I was watching the cartoon and couldn't make logical sense out of what was happening in the cartoon movie, but it was fun because it didn't have to make logical sense, even though I know there was an logical aspect to the cartoon by the way my room-mate was responding to it. It reminded me of being a child and how everything seems so much fun, new, and exciting. I literally felt uplifted by this feeling and an extreme sense that everything is perfect fine. As if I found a part of me that I lost and gained it back without ever noticing I was missing it. I truly see things in a different light now, but then again I could be suffer from sleep desperation too

I feel I have a basic schedule now to where I am not putting myself at risk and I can sense a change in the way my body is responding to me so I feel I can start listening to what I need by my 'body message.' I am still found amazement by how many things I did just out habit alone not because my body needed anything. A lot of my thoughts seemed to be formed out of habit as well and the two just 'do their own thing' without a sequence, you really feel a connection to every part of yourself that can't really be explained. It is like you realize yourself a lot more.

I am beginning to feel as if I were in a different universe then what I belong because everyone is always sleeping so long. I am the only one awake at night no matter where I go. It gives me a lot of time to think. I went for a walk late this morning and there was no traffic at all. The silence was peaceful yet eerie at the same time. Feeling like I am the only one left in the world. I guess I am just beginning to get used to the idea of so much alone time. Total in a week I now have 35 extra hours to myself.

It makes time non-realistic because there is so much of it and my life is no longer being programmed by time. Time is non-existent in my mind and how I understand it now. When people refer to yesterday I have a difficult time trying to remember which moment followed by another moment was yesterday. It is all a streaming reality with no approach on separation between day and night to me.

Polyphasic Sleep Log - Day 5&6 by Nicholas Powell

I have been a polyphasic sleeper for over a month now, if your still interested in hearing more then please click here… I continue to up-date it every few days.

[vuurstorm]

Polyphasic sleep day 4.So far I had 10 hours of sleep.

In the beginning I decided not to change my sleeping times and try to get to bed on the exact minute for about 7 days before attempting any experiments on delaying naps. But life has the habit of always ruining our plans.
Today was a very challenging day. I have decided to change my sleeping times.The original plan was to sleep for 30 minutes (included 10 minutes to fall asleep) but I usually went to bed about 3 minutes before my scheduled times thus giving my 33 minutes. The last couple of sleep sessions I was feeling very tired when waking up which led me to the decision to change my sleeping times. I fall asleep in less than 5 minutes and have decided to change my sleeping times to 25 minutes and never go to bed a minute earlier. So far this time change has worked for the better. My 6am and 10am naps was a lot better, I did not wake up feeling tired and even my eyes did not hurt.

During the day our Christmas day plans changed drastically. Instead of my parents coming over we where going to a family gathering of my wife and then to her parents afterwards. This meant almost one and a half hour’s drive. We arrived at our destination at 13:20 with my next scheduled nap at 14:00. With me not knowing most of the people I decided to take a change on seeing how it will work if delay my next nap with an hour or two. As things usually go with my wife we ended up at her parents at 16:50; that’s 3 hours past my usual scheduled nap time, I have now been awake for 6 and a half hours and wasn’t that tired at all.I slept for 25 minutes at 17:00 but yet again would not be able to sleep in four hours. We left just before 21:00, I drove the distance back with my eyes hurting the like hell and got to bed at 22:00; I have been awake for 5 hours).

Waking after my 22:00 nap was very difficult. It just turned Tuesday and my eyes are still burning the crap out of me. I decided not to make time for an extra schedule and will just continue with my normal schedule meaning that I will just have had 5 sleep schedules of 25 minutes each.It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to recover from one less sleep session and then directly after that delaying a sleep session with a hour.

[taylor]

Hang in there man!

[vuurstorm]

Polyphasic sleep day 5. So far I had 13.5 hours of sleep since 22 December 2006.

Currently my energy levels are way down. I haven’t experienced any vivid dreams (can’t remember any dream since starting polyphasic sleeping) Mostly I avoid working on my computer because my eyes hurt to much which causes to be a problem as all of the projects I planned to keep me busy are computer based.I started to worry about my energy levels but after reviewing Steve and Multidimensional’s polyphasic logs I saw that they too had an energy drop between day 5 and 6.

As I stated before I am currently following a mostly raw fruit diet, but the last couple of days with all the family get together events I have been eating a lot of meat and cheese.I think that what I am eating is having a huge effect on the whole polyphasic sleeping experiment.If I had eaten meat I seam to be more tired and my eyes hurt more for about two to three days. This let me think back a month ago with my juice fasting, my energy levels where at an all-time high since two days into the juice fast and my sleeping hours decreased to between 5 and 6 hours. I am going to apply some of that to my polyphasic sleep experiment as well. For the rest of the week I am going follow a 100% raw-fruit diet and as an extra rule ensure that I get at least one cup of fruit juice in every session that I am awake. This should boost my energy levels and require less sleep making the transmission easier.

I am going to drop my backup plans for oversleeping. It is now the end of day 5 and I haven’t overslept once. I can feel that by body is getting accustomed to sleeping in 25 minutes portions. Currently I am using my cell phone alarm as my primary wakeup method with a standard alarm clock as backup set to go off three minutes after my cell phone and instructed my wife to ensure that I get up. Up until now I always woke from just my cell phone and have decided not to set the alarm clock anymore. Luckily for me my wife does not wake from the cell phone alarm so the whole sleep experiment is not having any effect on her during night times.

On the 25th December I skipped one sleeping session and had to delay the next one after that. The next morning, I tried not to add an extra session in but due to my eyes hurting to much (I think driving an hour at night time being tired at the time caused this) I had to put an extra session back in giving me 6 sessions again. With skipping a sleep session I noticed that my body seems to be more tolerant as I can go past 6 hours without feeling tired and losing concentration. I will experiment with this at the end of the week because if I can eliminate one session at day and work it in at night it will fit better into my lunch breaks when I go back to work.

My eyes are feeling better now, but I have been avoiding the computer where possible the previous day. So yes the obvious has to be done: I have to be more careful to what I do during my night sessions. From now on I will allow myself to work on the computer during the day (I am a software developer), between 5pm and 10pm I will only spend time with my wife and daughter and only turn the computer on only after my 10pm nap.After my 2am sleep session I will try and work in as much physical sessions as possible also limiting my computer as much as possible. These changes will make the load on my eyes lighter which in turn will make the polyphsic sleeping experiment better.

The biggest things I realized with my polyphasic sleeping experience are the following:

What you eat is very important.
Try to eat foods that are the easiest to digest. This will give you more energy and should also require less sleep.

Your eyes are the most important.
When your eyes are hurting you can’t do anything and you automatically feel more miserable. Try to work some activities onto your schedule where you don’t sit in front of a computer or read books so that your eyes can relax more.

Be consistent
Sleep as close to your planned times as possible. Everyone, including me, wants to constantly change their times and experiment with different sleeping schedules but rather get your body into a schedule first and adjust the times afterwards.

Stay positive
Take one day at a time. Yes after day 3 or 4 you may be past the worst but you are still going to experience a lot of ups and downs. This is still part of the adoption process and does not mean that things are necessary going worst.

[vuurstorm]

Polyphasic sleep beginning of day 6. So far I had slep 14 and a half hours since 22 December 2006.

I had my first lucid dreaming experience this morning during my 2am nap. It is now 07:am and I can’t remember the dream anymore which is normal for me, I never could remember dreams. This morning at 5am as was feeling very tired, as I was laying down on the couch watching Starwars III on tv, I closed my eyes just for a minute and instantly started dreaming. I realized that I just felt asleep and as I opened my eyes I woke up and 5 minutes has just passed. After a couple of minutes still being tired I closed my eyes and the same thing happened again. After that I sat up strait amazed at what just happened but also very glad as now I had proof that I am definably getting REM sleep and that it is happening the instant I fall asleep.This reminds me a golden rule when starting polyphasic sleeping - KEEP BUSY.

One side effect that I noticed, when I wake up I am very thirsty. It started two days ago, being only slightly thirsty but now when I wake up from a nap I have difficulty speaking until I drank some water. As I stated previously I am going to start drinking a lot of fruit juices and will keep you posted if it solved the problem.
Reading through the other posts I noticed that everyone started feeling a lot better after day 6. I can but hope that this will be the same case with me not that I am feeling bad, I am feeling good, just starts to get tired at the last hour before my next nap.

[taylor]

Sounds like you've adapted already, now you're just going to sleep off some of that sleep debt and raise your energy level.

I had some pretty bad tiredness today for a 4 hour window--kept closing eyes, dropping head etc, but the nap at 1pm took care of it and I felt 10/10 afterwards. I'm about at 7.5/10 right now, which isn't great, but tolerable. Tired eyes, strong desire to sleep, minor dizziness when closing eyes. It's been 60 hours since I overslept last. I haven't missed any naps since the first few after oversleeping. I'm falling alseep easily now. I'm using 2 alarms in different locations. I keep the lights on.

[vuurstorm]

Polyphasic sleep day 7. So far I had slept 18 hours since 22 December 2006.

About two days ago I started noticing that my throat is dry after every sleep session, the dryness has increased over the last couple of days and I have mistaken it to something relating to polyphasic sleep. Now with the dryness getting worse I realized that I am coming down with a cold. I never read anyone getting sick during the adaption phase in any blog and are totally in the dark as to how sleeping less might influence it although after my running experience it seems that my body is still doing all the repair work just a lot more concentrated.

Yesterday night my brother and I decided to have a lan gaming night. We started just before 10pm and ended this morning after 4am. For some strange reason I was unable to fall asleep during my 6pm,10pm and 2am naps. This morning I decided to add a 4am nap and then continue with my normal nap schedule to try and compensate, but after not getting up after waking up after my 6am nap I overslept for 1 hour before my wife woke me up.

I suspect that I will feel like a train-wreck but so far I’m doing fine. I hope that this might not set me back to much in my schedule as I was hoping to be adjusted by now.

[vuurstorm]

Polyphasic sleep begining of day 8. So far I had slept 20 and a half hours since 22 December 2006.

Finally I am starting to feel like I did before the whole sleep experiment started. I went through day 7 feeling like any other day of my life. I am not feeling better or more alert than when sleeping monophasic but time may well change that; apparently it takes 10 days to get adjusted to the new program.

I was feeling very tired after my 10pm sleep session but I think this may be because of not sleeping very well three times in a row the previous day.The tiredness and grogginess passed in 10 minutes and I was for the first time able to actually really enjoying the extra hours that I have.

The extra hours that I now have are already starting to feel like belong there, it doesn’t feel weird doing a task like cleaning the dishes 2:30 am in the morning anymore . Yes people think that I am crazy when I tell them that but I don’t mind, now a task like doing the dishes, and spending time on my computer playing games or working on Blender between 22:30 and 5:00 means that I have more dedicated time to spend with my wife and 7 month old daughter, while not neglecting my own needs for relaxing and getting things done.
I might still be making some changes to my schedule to better fit into my 8 to 5 job and will post more detail when a final decision has been reached.

I hope that my posts are of some use to those attempting polyphasic sleep and am glad to say that my attempt can be added to the few success stories