Improvement

Okay, today is Day 3 of my experiment. The rest of Day 2 was not that successful--once again, I was unable to complete my 11-noon nap (this time because of a phone call) and then my 2-3 PM was missed as well (for unavoidable reasons). My 5-6 PM was taken as planned, but I didn't actually fall asleep. My 8-9 PM was the same way.

A success, though: This time, during the 11-midnight nap, I actually woke up again! Of course, I fell asleep again around 1:30, before I had a chance to set alarms for my next nap. As a result, I woke up at 6:30 to my brother's school alarms.

My biggest problem is that I am awake during the day and asleep at night!!

As for today's naps: I've been lying down at the correct naptimes without any scheduling problems but with no actual falling asleep. I am no longer concerned with this. As soon as my body needs the sleep, it will take it during the naps (as long as I don't sleep through the night again).

Oh, another thing: I told my brother about the experiment. He was cool with it. Didn't seem too interested, though. I might end up telling my sister, too. Since the parents are at work often, having both of my siblings in on the project will probably be enough to control the noise level in the house during naps. It will be more interesting once they're done with exams and spend all their time watching loud music videos or bringing friends over...

But it will turn out all right. I'm already going on less sleep than I used to.

~Jm4362

One more thing: I am now taking half-hour naps.

Rough start

I went to sleep for my first nap as planned, at 2 AM. Thing is, I didn’t set my alarm properly and it ended up not going off. I woke up at 3:30 anyway, but couldn’t actually get out of the bed. So I dozed until about 6, through my second nap, and then I got up for good. I was really tired, but I did manage to eat breakfast and do some reading (didn’t feel like doing anything physical).

During my third nap, 8-9, I had some really wild sleep paralysis. I dreamed that I was in my bed, as I was, but that my sister came in and was trying to get me to wake up and do something for her. I couldn’t actually see her because of the blanket, and I couldn’t move or speak either. It was weird.

Well, it turns out that besides that chorus concert sabotaging my 5-6 and 8-9 PM, I had to take my family’s dog to the vet, canceling my 2-3 PM as well. Add that to my inability to get to sleep 11-noon, and I effectively didn’t get any sleep during all my waking hours. So it’s no wonder that when I finally went to sleep for my 11-midnight nap, I didn’t actually wake up until 6:30 this morning.

I’m starting to think it will be easier to adjust to this during school, because at least then I won’t have to deal with my family and all their errands! I had more free time during finals week!

But I’m not giving up. I took my 8-9 AM nap as planned today, although I don’t think I actually fell asleep. So far there are no errands that need to be run during naps except a (hopefully) quick trip to Wal-mart at 4:30, which can’t be avoided. This will be more convenient once I can whittle down the nap lengths a little, but I need to go at least one day with hour-long naps, I think.

Wish me luck! Looks like I’ll need it.

~Jm4362

The Countdown Continues

This is my last day of monophasic sleep. Last night was my last "night" of sleep.

I plan to start my first nap at 2 AM Monday morning (otherwise known as tonight), to end at 3. As previously stated, this first day of polyphasic will involve 8 naps, 1 hr each.

I already see a problem in scheduling on my first day. My sister has a chorus concert starting at 7 and running to an undetermined time. From previous experience, I know these things run for at least two or three hours. ( Don't know why they always schedule so many classes to sing, but they do.) So my 8-9 PM nap is probably going to be compromised: either skipped altogether or pushed back.

One good thing: I found I can get wireless here at home with my laptop, rather than trying to fight with the dial-up internet on the old computer. (Didn't realize how nice the wireless was when I was back at school, not until I re-discovered dial-up.)

(Can't believe it's already experiment time. Good thing I set a date in advance for this or I'd never have started.)

~Jm4362

Here's the plan:

Okay, here' s the plan for the experiment. The final goal is to have 2 hours total sleep per day, broken down into 8 chunks of 15 minutes each, ending at 12, 3, 6, 9 AM and PM.

I'm not going straight to that, though. I'm going to shift into it over a week's time.

1st day--60 minute naps
2nd day--50 minutes
3rd day--40 minutes
4th day--30 minutes
5th day--25 minutes
6th day--20 minutes
7th day--15 minutes, the goal.

After that, I'll have about 3 weeks for the total transition and living with the schedule, before I have to go back to school and decide whether to keep the schedule. This plan is compatible with my classes, so that won't be an issue.

Only 3 days left until the experiment start!

(On another note, only 9 hours until my last final! Awesome!)

~Jm4362

Hello everyone. I've created this blog to record my experiences with Polyphasic Sleep. There's plenty on the idea already, but doesn't seem to be much real-world testing of the idea yet.

About me--things that may affect the Polyphasic Sleep: I am an 18 year old female, trying this out during a period of no school, so I won't have many unscheduled interruptions (I hope). I've set up my sleeping schedule to be compatible with my next semester classes to make it easy to continue if I decide to.

I hope to make this as detailed a record as possible to serve as an example to skeptics/curious onlookers/adoring fans.