Still awake... feels like I'm just awake all the time. I'm in a good mood, feeling fine... I notice I have a strange relationship with my bed now. It used to be a place of refuge and now its like a fueling station. I just go there to recharge quickly and then I'm on my way... I'm not sure if I like it that way...
I've been wondering if I should have an end goal for this experiment or if I am just supposed to do it indefinitely... I guess it all depends on how it works out and if I adjust to a point where it feels good. Not ok, but actually good. I want to believe that it can be a great thing but there is little evidence to support it. What is terribly odd is that there is little evidence against it either.
I spent an hour today trying to find any negative information I could on polyphasic sleep and really only found one by a Ph D in biology. He has some good info as to why it shouldn't work but has not tried for himself and thinks the idea of running tests is stupid. He makes a lot of strange logical jumps too that bother me because if this is something that has proof of being bad I'd rather know and terminate the experiment than bang my head against a wall.
For me it seems to be working and its honestly hard to believe... I've only had about 6 hours of total sleep since Monday and its now Thursday morning. I guess I'm just not sure how to process that when all logic says I should be dead tired and I'm honestly not.
Granted I am tired, just not in the way I would have thought. All I have to do is walk about or focus intently on something and I seem to recover to the point where I feel highly functional and lucid. I'm not feeling zombied out anymore so that is pretty awesome. I do have an hour left until my 4:30AM nap and I'm looking forward to that one.
So far this has always been the most difficult stretch and I think its cause this is a time that I'm always asleep, I can't think of many if any occasions where I was awake at this hour except for an occasional party. I thought about taking another nap at 1:30 but wasn't really feeling that tired so I skipped it. Now I don't want to nap cause I'd rather stick to a strict schedule than not. It seems like those who are successful with this are the ones who stick to schedule until the readjustment phase has ended.
My brother is having a hard time, he's had to take more naps than I have. I wonder if this works against him. I wonder if I'm fooling myself into thinking that skipping this nap is good when in fact it is not. Its really hard to tell but I'd rather have more days under my belt before I start doing any further tweaking. If consistency is key then I really should try my best to be consistent as possible.
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I have finally found some information that makes me think this experiment might not be the best idea. I knew that the body released chemicals at night but the impression some of the poly sleepers gave was that the body overcomes these and I'm starting to see this is not really true. The day time is the only time I feel even slightly normal and if I'm honest, its a far cry from normal.
I keep thinking to a week previous when I was sleeping 5 hours at night and taking a nap in the day and how fantastic I was feeling. I'm not making progress on my art the way I'd like, its taken me almost 4 days to complete what would normally take me a single day or two at the most and I've literally got most like 8 days in because I'm working around the clock. The payoff just doesn't seem like its there...
I'm still bothered by how little information there is on polyphasic sleep... There is only one scientific study that I've found and it didn't really end well for the subject. I've almost got a romantic attachment to a full nights sleep at this point and feel like I definitely need an end point to this, I just don't think its right for me. I feel like I can keep pushing if I want but whats the point? Ultimately to be more productive but right now I'm at an extreme loss in terms of productive output.
I have seen a few videos of people on week three and quite frankly they look awful. They seem extremely scatterbrained and unhealthy in appearance.
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Not sure if all my research into the negative effects had an impact on me psychologically but I overslept my 4:30-5AM nap by 2.5 hours and woke up at 7:30! I felt extremely good getting that extra sleep and combined with what I was reading I think I'm ok ending this experiment and moving to a biphasic sleep cycle. There is something inherently pleasing about getting a large block of sleep. To go to bed when its dark and wake up when its light feels natural. Having defined days feels right to me, the blending was getting extremely difficult for me to process. I don't usually feel confused about what time it is and the last day my perception of time has become so bizarre that I have started to crave normal sleep.
I gave in :) I slept another few hours and I'm still honestly tired. I think I need to catch up still but I'm going to stay awake and take a nap later and then return to a more normal schedule tonight. TONIGHT! I can actually say that and know that it means something!
I keep thinking about how I was feeling last week where I'd be sleeping 5.5 or 6 hours and taking a nap during the day. I was highly alert, functioning better than I have in years. This poly sleep was just prolonged zombie mode. Even when I felt good it wasn't really that good. It was just surprising cause 6 hours in 3 days in totally nuts.
I admire people who push to go a month but realistically I don't have that much time to waste. The experiment was to gain more time and I feel like all I gained was poor quality time. The trade off isn't really worth it to me.
I'm extremely happy I did this experiment. I could have pushed myself longer, I felt ok when I woke at 7:30 but my body is telling me this isn't right for me. Why fight it? In the end I got myself to start eating a lot better and exercise a lot more. Those are both positives to come out of the experience. Plus, its pretty awesome to push yourself in strange ways. I like knowing my limits.
I would be willing to try this again if I can find more research on it. Scientific experiments though, not blogs and personal accounts. I think the internet can be dangerous at times because there is so much information out there that we are basically able to find whatever we are looking for... The internet becomes a giant echo chamber and I for one don't like that... I need evidence in order to believe in something and it really started to become apparent that there is no real research on this subject. I think many doctors just take the stance that the body naturally releases chemicals for sleep so thats just how it is, no reason to do research into this idea but I wonder if there is something that could be learned by doing more studies on people who are willing to push themselves.
One other thing I noticed, no one who practices poly sleep lasts for very long. I couldn't find a single person who went for a year. Most barely lasted a month so I have a hard time thinking that its something we can train ourselves to do... Its a wonderful idea but unless I can see some hard evidence I'll just keep to more normal sleep.
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