Thursday, March 25, 2010

Listening to the fat lady

I'd like to think of this as not so much giving up, but reaching what became the logical conclusion of the experiment.

Despite my foolhardy stubborness and resolve, my body has just been fighting against this experiment a little too much for my liking. After my rousing call to arms in the last post, and my certain belief that I would be able to hold strong through the night, I was woken at 7am sitting bolt upright in a lounge in Reception, once again having no recollection of getting there. From my best estimates I must have sat down there a little after 1am and just dropped off to sleep (whilst sitting bolt upright...for six hours).

It doesn't seem to make sense for me to keep pushing it at this point. From what I've read on polyphasic sleeping, the main reason for adaptation not taking place seems to be related to either not sticking to the nap times, or a poor diet. In my case, I have stuck to the times so religiously that at each nap I was sitting with a clock counting down to the minute, and my organic vegetarian diet really couldn't be much better in my opinion. I'd even completely cut out refined sugars before the experiment began, and I never take caffeine anyway.

When I also took into consideration the fact that not one of my oversleeps occured after a nap (that is, sleeping through an alarm), but most of them involved blacking out at some point during a waking phase and waking up in a different place with no memory of getting there, it also seemed that perhaps this wasn't the best thing to be doing to myself.

It's saddening and disappointing to be sure, but I'm happy with my decision to end it here. I realised that I was accomplishing none of what I hoped to - I was virtually unable to read or write due to fatigue, and simply ended up working more hours to stay awake. Part of my goal has been to actually work fewer hours (it's not unusual for me to rack up between twelve to fifteen hours a day here), so to have more waking hours that get devoted solely to work is a bit of a defeat in that sense.

Even more difficult was my huge drop in energy. I've always been quite fit, and during this experiment I went from running and swimming each morning, doing yoga and walking up a mountain each night to one walk a day that rarely stretched to the top of the mountain without rest stops needing to be added. I hate that feeling of fatigue and lethargy, it doesn't suit my mental attitude on any level.

I do know that all of the above would have to be negotiated during the adaptation phase, I just expected that phase to be a lot shorter than it was. I suppose it also didn't help having some really frantic days here that, although I was still able to fit my naps in on time, would have contributed to my overall exhaustion quite a lot.

There are some psychological factors at play too, not least of all the fact I just really miss sleeping next to my girlfriend. Even if she does toss and turn and snore. Aside from that, being someone who has never taken drugs or alcohol, sleep seemed to be the one place I would be able to retreat to in order to deal with any kind of major stress or upset. I've had one of those patches during this experiment, and I noticed a few days later how much it had affected me by not having that space to retreat to. Obviously my brain has its own self help centre that only opens when my consciousness has shut down, and it probably needs that time to operate efficiently.

I will miss the amazingly lucid dreams I was having, although I've just been thinking that I haven't even had any of those over the past week. I don't think I've recalled a single dream since I posted that information about astral traveling, come to think of it.

So, that's it then. Thanks to everyone for the supportive words, and thanks to all the kids on the Trypolyphasic.com forum who gave good advice and support as well. I'll probably keep the blog going, although I may not update it quite daily as I have been. My life isn't really that exciting!

If anyone has any ideas for another crazy experiment they think I might be interested in trying and documenting for posterity, let me know. I'm always up for something fun. I might start working toward an old idea of a "Walk To Wauchope" - a 60km walk along the Oxley Highway that I want to see if I can make in a single day. I probably just need to get a good night's sleep before I set off.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Seventeen

Oh man, I knew this was going to hurt.

My night of transgression has come back and bitten me hard, but I don't think I've slipped quite as far down the zombie scale as I found myself the first time around. However, last night was a killer. I was doing my best to research some information for a story I'm writing and found myself looking at the same page for around two hours, I just could not seem to focus on any of the words, or the sentences, or practically anything. For all I knew, I was staring at a website, or my own reflection, or the answer to life, the universe and everything. None of it made sense, it just served as a meagre focal point to stop myself from collapsing head first onto the keyboard. I managed to drag myself through to my 6am nap, then had a different task of dealing with work.

Today has been hard, but not impossible. We had a few last minute trials to deal with, and I'm yet to decide whether my fugue helped me deal with them without too much stress, or whether what little stress there was came courtesy of the fugue. Sometimes it feels a little like the chicken and the egg conundrum.

I once read a story about Nirvana's singer, Kurt Cobain, when he was at school. It's probably a myth, but it's a great story. Allegedly there was a school bully who loved nothing more than picking on the poor Cobain, until one day he got more than he bargained for. He punched Cobain in the face, knocking him to the ground. As a group of fascinated kids circled around, Cobain pulled himself to his feet, faced his tormentor, and gave him the finger. Outraged, the bully threw another punch, harder than the first. Cobain dropped, then managed to stand and gave him the finger again. This drew some laughter from the crowd, which to the bully was like a red flag to a bull. He launched again, and again, and again. Cobain didn't once raise his fist, only his middle finger, each and every time. Eventually the onlookers were cheering him and villifying the bully, and hey presto, no more problems with the bully.

I tried to evoke the spirit of that story today, and every time I felt sleep come charging up on me like a driverless train I stood firm and gave it the finger. From time to time I fell, and it hurt, and I'm sure I'll be blowing blood from my nose for the next week, but still there was that certain smug satisfaction of fighting back without resorting to the same base violence. Of course, I say that now when it's not quite midnight and I still have the spiraling eons of the night to survive, but it's just one little finger you need to raise. Raise it enough and the rest should take care of itself.

Be careful what you wish for

Last night I wrote a very smug post about the lack of excitement in a polyphasic sleep schedule, how once the romance wore off it really became quite a dull topic to be rabbiting on about day after day. Of course, in the true style of a manifesting universe, I was handed something to write about approximately thirty minutes later when I fell asleep and woke up at 8am.

I didn't sleep the entire night. I think I drifted off whilst reading (lying down on the couch in the library with a faint lamp glowing, not one of the smartest things I've done during this experiment). I kept waking intermittently, blinking stupidly and thinking how I really needed to get up off the couch. This was usually followed by a prolonged period of sitting there in the dim light, staring straight ahead and trying to start my brain like you would a gas oven with a wet match. Eventually I would lie down and go back to sleep.

I did a lot of soul searching today to decide on my next course of action. If I listen to the kids on the forums, I think they would recommend my sleeping monophasically for a week or two then starting again. If I listen to my mum or my friend Kaz I would give the whole thing up and sleep like a normal person again. I have, however, decided to just stick at it. We have three fairly quiet weeks in a row here (at least, at the moment that's how it looks, but anything could happen), and if I reset my system now we'll be busy again right when I'm trying to adapt. I suspect my discretions have occured simply due to being exhausted from so much work (and so little sleep), so I think it's much smarter to try to get adapted when the job's not so demanding. I also think it will be easier to just knuckle down and harden up on my resolve and dedication than to start from scratch.

I also just hate to be beaten by an experiment. I mean, Pavlina made it look so goddamn easy.

If I'm going to make this work I have realised I need to put some precautions in place. Firstly, I need to stay out of the library except for when I sleep. It's a beautiful room, so small and musty and warm and dark and perfect for falling asleep when you least want to. It's such a shame, I love spending time in there and it makes so much sense to make that my room away from room at night, but it's a deathtrap for someone trying to stay awake.

Actually, that's pretty much the only precaution. None of my over sleeps have actually happened at the end of a nap - all of them have been in the middle of a waking period when I've simply blacked out. I suspect this will happen a lot less if I spend more time in the office which I mentally associate with work mode. Perhaps eventually I'll be able to slide back into my beloved library, but until then I think it's down here.

So here's hoping it works, if I continue to crash I may have to accept it's just not going to happen for me. But for now, I'm all about the naps.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Fifteen

How quickly an experiment can lose its charm, its interest, its sex appeal. I'm just over two weeks in and I can't think of too much to say that I haven't said before. It's not that I've had enough of the experiment - to the contrary - I'm just struggling to come up with an angle that will keep people reading.

It's a strange thing to write about, when you really stop to think about it. "I'm going to write a gripping, on-going saga about not doing something. Entry 76: Today, I didn't do it again!"

Well, today I didn't do it again, although at times (such as during a three hour meeting this morning) I wanted to. Generally, everything seems to be evening out at the moment. The naps don't feel quite so far apart at night, and not quite so close together during the day. I feel tired from time to time, especially around 5am and sometimes between 6:30-9am, but it's not as debilitating as it has been on occasion over the last two weeks.

I have noticed an unexpected drop in motivation to achieve something over the last few nights, culminating in marathon Facebook sessions (with a nasty comedown once I realise I've spent four hours sitting there refreshing the same list of notes about people I don't even really know or care about), and a couple of long movie watching sessions. This wasn't what I signed up for! I signed up for growth and education and inspiration! No need to point out the irony of my degrading computer media in a blog either, I'm bemusedly aware of my own contradictions. I decided that I need to work out a schedule that involves yoga, writing and reading, although here we are, almost at midnight, and all I've done is chat to my mum on Facebook, chase some bugs out of our room for Angie, and write this blog.

Oh well, nothing like the present. This is the plan for the rest of the evening: From now until 12:30am I'm going to publish this then go and read (I still can't read too long at night without drifting off to sleep). From 12:30am-2am it'll be yoga and meditation. Nap time at 2am. From 2:20am or thereabouts I'll work on a short story for as long as I can handle sitting there looking at a computer screen. I'll go for a walk around 5am, right as I start to get the death sleep symptoms.

You are my witnesses, if I fail I give you permission to leave defamatory comments about my alleged sexual proclivities.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Mini meltdown

I write tonight's post wearing heavy boots, as Oskar Schell might say. Once again, as I felt some progress being made, I had a pretty disappointing set back. I'm still hoping it's a case of two steps forward, one step back rather than the reversal, but still, it's hard to swallow.

Last night, after a black out the night before and a day spent feeling hungover and groggy, I had the best night yet. There were no signs of tiredness at all until right before the 6am nap (although that may have been helped along by an impromptu two hour semi-business phone meeting with my business partner Morgs at 2am). I was generally feeling quite pleased with myself until after the 10am nap.

I'm still not sure why but after that nap I slipped into a foul mood that just grew more and more mephitic as the day wore on. It could have been the sheer pressure we were all under yesterday with four separate groups staying here - one of the more complicated logistical days we've had since being here, it may have been the guilt of trying to grab last minute naps in the midst of all that, knowing I was leaving everyone to deal with those pressures alone for up to half an hour at a time, it may have just been time for me to have a tantrum (I think we all need to have little tantrums from time to time and blow off some steam). Whatever the reason, I was an obnoxious jerk to most of my friends here (especially Angie, horribly enough - why do the ones we love most always bear the brunt of these things?), and retreated to the library at around 10pm for my nap and final escape from work.

Coming out of it, a couple of people tried to come in and talk and I steadfastly refused (including Angie). Normally in moods like this my body's only defense, its only means of coming back to some kind of equilibrium, is to shut down and sleep it off. This is exactly what happened last night, which means another five hour period slipped away from me.

As I observed last time, even with the heightened emotional intensity of this discretion in the schedule, I need to remember that it's just an experiment, and although I'm personally acting as lab rat, I still need to maintain some kind of neutral distance and simply observe what I'm going through rather than judge it at this stage. Now that I'm awake my anger's gone (leaving an uncomfortable, slight nausea in my stomach and my friend Dan's predicted metallic taste in my mouth), and I can look at the whole situation a little more calmly.

I guess no matter what the specific reason for my mood was, whether it was due to sleep deprivation, the workload of the past two days or just an emotional culmination of events that was bound to happen anyway, I really need to spend some more time on this schedule working on myself. One session of yoga and a half arsed five minute meditation around falling asleep each day is probably not sufficient. Instead of cramming more work into the night (a lot of nights I'm spending a bit more time working on accounts, cleaning rooms and other bits and pieces around the resort), I probably need to spend more time focussed on keeping my mind and body a little more healthy. Just eating really well, which I am, is not enough. This probably means less time on here as well and more time out walking at night, meditating, reading and writing. Funnily enough, all the things I wanted to do more of in the first place, which partly prompted this whole experiment.

So the end of result of today is another falter (not a failure), and a view of what needs to be done. Onward and upward, as they say!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Dream analysis

I've been talking with Angie's sister Jaclyn Cowen, who studies sleep and sleep-related phenomena (sorry Jaclyn, I don't know what you officially call your studies!). I specifically told her about the polyphasic experiment, the smells I've noticed in a few dreams, and the dream about the horse that I had (see Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Eight). She was kind enough to send me this analysis, and even kinder to let me post it on here. So, here it is!

Hey Craig!!!

Thanks for sharing that with me. Wow!! I just read most of your blog entries and I am very impressed with your stamina!!! I also found the entries highly amusing especially the chat you had with your brain!!

I would like to study your entries in a more detailed way, unfortunately I only have time for a quick take on what I think is happening. Some of what I say you may or may not already know.

The reason why you are feeling like a zombie many times after awakening is because you are coming out of delta phase sleep which is the deepest sleep phase of all. Usually a person will travel from delta at the beginning of a normal nights sleep and then move mostly through the other lighter phases of sleep for the remainder of the night. Because you are only sleeping for a short period, you are still in delta sleep after awakening. It would be interesting to know how your brain is responding when moving through the sleep cycles in such a short period of time. However, those times you are dreaming means you would have entered the lighter phases of sleep. You said you seem to feel ok after the morning nap so maybe you are coming out of those deeper phases of sleep more quickly??

When the body is put through extreme sleep deprivation it also tries to recuperate itself through disconnecting the astral body from the physical body. This is in an attempt to more easily absorb natural energy from the environment and makes you more prone to having out of body experiences. Some of those dreams you had, include aspects which suggest it might be an out of body experience. However due to your state of mind being affected by severe sleep deprivation most likely there would have been much interference from your altered perceptions, resulting in an experience that was a mixture of both hallucinatory dream images interspersed with real-time projective events.

Three aspects of your experience showed that it may have been an out of body experience, including:

1. Heightened sense of smell which occurs when using the more finely tuned senses of the astral body.
2. Telepathy or transmitted thoughts in which you heard the horse speak to you.
3. Your normal reactions to the event in which you spoke to the horse and tried to calm it down.

Of course having interacted with horses recently, as expressed in your blog entries, it seems you have established a rapport with these animals which may have been why you had the experience. You may have been communicating with a horse or your imagination may have led you to believe you were communicating with a horse. Nevertheless, as there was telepathy involved and you had normal reactions to the situation, of trying to calm the horse down, makes me think that some type of projection took place.

I hope you have more interesting experiences and I look forward to reading your future blog entries!!!

All the best and keep me posted!!

Love Jaclyn

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Twelve

I spent most of yesterday in the office, trying my best to refrain from looking like those guys in the movie The Hangover. My jaw kept slipping down and I kept tilting in my chair like a wobble head doll. It wasn't until my 6pm nap that everything started feeling okay. Strangely enough, that nap was also the first of the day that I remember dreaming in, and it only lasted ten minutes before I awoke feeling pretty good.

I decided to combat last night's troubles by setting my alarm in one hour increments when up in the library. I figure that when I'm down in the office there's a lot less chance I'm going to black out (although who knows anymore). Up in the library it's darker, warmer, much more comfortable.

Well, that's about it for tonight, with any luck today will be an easy ride, especially with another two groups checking in. I don't think anyone's going to want to see zombies in the office.

Friday, March 19, 2010

This means war

If you're wondering why I didn't post something last night (and don't deny the anxious movements of your buttocks to the edge of the seat, I know you feel it), I have a very good reason. I was ambushed.

The past two days have actually been bordering on torturous for me. My naps have not seemed to alleviate the weight of sleep so much as temporarily obfuscate it, like taking a shot of morphine to combat an amputated leg. You might feel okay for a small amount of time, but no amount is going to take away from the fact that you aren't going to be going for a run anytime soon. But I've religiously kept to my nap times, overslept very little, and I was confident that this would be one of the final blockades to a utopian sleepless existence.

By 6pm last night I began to feel reasonably in charge again (fortunate, considering we've got a big yoga group staying who all checked in last night). Around 1am I went to the library to do some yoga, and it was here, in my safety zone, where I was taken.

Sometime during my yoga practice I fell asleep and woke up approximately five and a half hours later at 7am, dressed and on the couch.

Now, the devil here is not in the details, it's in the things that are not being said. For anyone whose eyesight is not strong enough for them to read between the lines, I'll spell it out.

  • I didn't say "after yoga", which would be perfectly acceptable. Imagine lying in savasana, heart rate dropping, skin cooling, feeling the waves of yogic euphoria lapping against your eyelids. It's easy to see how you might fall asleep. However, the last thing I remember was doing what's called Uttana Shishosana, a pose that involves being on all fours on the mat and slowly dropping your chest to the floor, keeping your head up and pulling your shoulders right back. Not a pose I find particularly easy, restful or sleep inducing. I recall going into this pose, but not coming out of it. I also don't recall doing any other yoga poses after this.
  • I didn't say "I got dressed" because I have no memory of this either. In this situation, dressed means jeans and two t-shirts, no shoes or socks. Somewhere between Uttana Shishosana and waking, I managed to dress myself without realising.
I feel as if my brain lay in wait until I was in one of the more vulnerable yoga positions and unable to defend myself, then leapt forward with a chlorophyll-soaked rag in one hand and my consciousness in the other. I suspect this is in direct retaliation to the sleep form I drew up to counter its insidious whisperings after my naps that I hadn't actually been to sleep yet. I heard no peep from my brain for three naps after I did that, and now this.

I have to remember that this is just an experiment, and I shouldn't get emotionally involved in anything that actually occurs. I need to view it all objectively, take notes and record observations, and simply sit back and watch it like a student's art film that doesn't really make sense but is kind of interesting anyway. But still, when my brain takes over in that fashion I find it hard not to take it personally. I'm going to have to design some way around this for tonight.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Ten

I would have thought I'd run out of things to say by Day Ten...but sadly for you, dear reader, I have not. This will be short though - today was a Weary Day. I have been unable to shake the sleep from my bones the entire day. My head came within a hair's breadth of colliding with the keyboard in the office on a couple of occasions, and I have had to simply get up and walk, run, jump about solely to stay awake. I was just telling Angie how I was feeling a little better tonight but apparently I lied, for that stupor is already coming over me.

What is it about this crazy thing where you can start feeling good and then drop right back again, seemingly for no apparent reason?

I'm starting to suspect my brain of more serious treason than I first believed. I woke to the alarm tonight at 10:25pm, and as I searched for the phone (I'd stashed it up near the door so I had to go hunting for it), my brain started talking to me. We have actual conversations (and you thought the open letter thing was just for comic value, oh no) and I don't think I always win. Tonight I was lucky.

BRAIN: When you find that phone, you'd best set it to get up in half an hour.
ME: Why would I do that? I just slept for twenty minutes.
BRAIN: No, silly, you were going to set your alarm but you just drifted off, this must have been ringing from an earlier alarm you set.
ME: Oh really? (I start to reset alarm.) Hang on, it says 10:25pm on here. Don't I nap at 10pm?
BRAIN: That's it, you're supposed to, but you didn't. You just dozed off. Don't argue, the more you argue, the less time you'll have to get this nap in.
ME: Um, okay. (I continue resetting, but have now been semi-awake for too long.) Hang on, that can't be right, I remember lying down now. I remember setting the alarm and putting the phone here.
BRAIN: Damn, I'll have to work harder next time, I nearly had you there. Why don't you just lie on the couch and we'll talk about it?
ME: Oka...wait! No!

It makes me wonder how many times it's gotten one over me during the past ten days without me having any idea I've been duped. That might explain my tiredness today, perhaps I've been oversleeping and it's being kept from me.

I spoke with Angie's sister about my dreams and she sent me an amazing detailed response on them all. If I get permission I'll post it in here, it's fascinating! Anyway, that's it from me tonight I think. I believe I might go and do some yoga soon, have another nap, then go wash windows in the restaurant for four hours - that should keep me awake until 6am.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Nine

Well, almost at the end of another day. I find it funny that I persist in thinking of it that way, when so many other people sleeping this way very quickly start to think about time in terms of an infinite, rolling concept rather than a segmented one. Perhaps it's because I used to get up at 6:30am, and now that's the end of a nap, so I still think of each day as separate and whole unto itself. At any rate, the difference between my waking state between 6:30am and 10am as opposed to between 2:30am and 6am is vast to say the least.

I often find that latter shift a real killer - even if I have a terrific, energised day, I'll wake up at 2:30am and feel like I've been gored by a bull, or best case I'll have to dunk my head in cold water and slap myself around every half hour or so to refrain from falling asleep. The past few nights however, I found a temporary solution - baking.

The people I live with tonight dubbed me the "Midnight Chef", which is both superfluously flattering and incorrect. I'm clearly not a chef, and I do my cooking experiments at around 3am, not midnight. They do seem to be enjoying turning up for breakfast and finding treats cooling on the kitchen bench. Tonight was my fourth attempt. This is what I've completed so far:

  1. Chocolate chip cookies - the one thing I've baked numerous times before, and probably the worst of the four. I didn't leave them in the oven long enough and they were a little soft. They also seemed to give me a very mild heartburn when I ate them. I should note that this did not prevent me from eating them.
  2. Raw chocolate balls - these are awesome little round things made of raw food and coated in desiccated coconut. Angie wrote a little recipe out for me before she went to sleep and it was ridiculously easy. Angie's sister Daniella asserted they were "the best chocolate balls I've ever had in my life."
  3. Lemon tea cake - I just started getting cocky here, and it actually paid off. I remember sticking the skewer in when it was due to come out of the oven and realising it came out clean. I couldn't believe it, and so reenacted the shower scene from Psycho, refusing to believe I could have actually pulled a cake off. Despite not coating it in syrup in the proper and timely manner due to an unfortunate clash of coating and nap, it was still really good. I just had another piece now to confirm it.
  4. Chocolate beetroot cake - I hate beetroot. I always have and I suspect there's a good chance I always will. The smell sickens me, the texture disgusts me, the stains it leaves on everything it touches actually amuses me. But Angie has made this a couple of times and I swear it is one of the tastiest cakes in the world. I am also aware that beetroot is a super healthy vegetable, so I thought I'd give this one a go tonight. My cake mix looked pretty red, enough so that I kept checking I hadn't chopped a finger off into the bowl. I've just put it in the oven now, and it should be ready to come out when I get out of my 6am nap.
 I'm normally so uncomfortable in the kitchen, but there's something counteracting that in the wee hours of the morning. It may be the music or lectures I crank as loud as I dare, and the knowledge that nobody's going to walk in to see me singing into an egg whisk. It could be the sleep deprivation numbing me from my usual kitchen phobias. I don't really know, but I do know I'm quite enjoying myself, and it's one way to get through those 2-6am doldrums.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Eight

I made it through the doubts and drama of this morning and am happy to report I've been feeling much better since my 10am nap earlier today. I spent a few hours conducting some more online research and found a lot of polyphasers found that extra bump when they least expected it, and I was warned it could last a couple of days, or even resurface again at some point in the future. But it does seem fairly common, so I'm content to work with it as best I can and keep forging ahead.

The rest of today has been much more bearable, and whilst I'm still a little drowsy even now, it's not that desperate, frantic fight against sleep that I had earlier. Of course, it's not yet midnight, and I usually hit my low spot after the 2am nap, so we'll see how I go! I plan to counter attack with cold showers, long walks under the spectacular starry sky I'm fortunate to be under tonight, and maybe another cooking experiment.

I thought I'd write a little bit more about dreams again. Since starting this schedule, I've noticed my ability to recall dreams has hit a success rate of nearly 100 percent, which is virtually every nap I take. This is remarkable for someone who rarely ever remembered his dreams, I'd guess maybe five to ten percent of the time if that. Obviously it makes sense if I'm waking up during REM sleep, but it's still so exciting to have this whole dream world open up to me.

I've had a couple of nightmares (my nightmares are often nothing like the horror films I love to watch, but usually involve very normal circumstances with the horrible twist of having loved ones die or something similar), and a couple of very strange dreams where I'm connecting with animals. I had a dream yesterday where I was in a basement somewhere with a large horse that couldn't seem to find the ramp leading up and out. He panicked to the point of squashing me against a wall, slowly but surely squeezing the life out of me. I put my hands up on his neck and shoulders and patted him, whispering, "It's okay, you're okay, calm down, you're okay." He finally quietened, then very clearly I heard a voice inside my head that said, "Excellent, I've never been able to connect to a human like that before," then the horse turned and calmly walked up the ramp and left.

Something that I'm finding really strange is the sense of smell coming in to my dreams. In that last dream, I could smell the horse so strongly as he pressed me into the wall. In my 6pm nap this evening I dreamed that the people who live here were having a huge party in one block of motel rooms, and when I poked my head in, I was overwhelmed with the odour of cigarettes, alcohol and that musty, seedy party smell so many parties emit. This was such a throwback to the parties that used to occur frequently in the share house I rented in Newtown with some friends, and the smell was so strong I was almost shocked into waking.

Angie's sister does a lot of study into this kind of thing, so I think I'll hit her up and see what her thoughts are. Perhaps I can be a study subject for her! At any rate, I'll post any information I find about it.

The blog of shame

I may as well get this admission over with right up front. Last night was excruciating. I wrote early in the evening about how curiously tired I found myself after having such a strong couple of days. Well, it all went downhill from there.

I spent about an hour cleaning a room down here, then went up for the 2am nap. I woke from this feeling utterly exhuasted, as if I hadn't slept a wink all week. I spent quite a bit of time in somewhat of a daze in the room, where I probably slipped in and out of sleep for seconds at a time. I finally summoned up enough energy to get moving, and came down to the kitchen. I made some raw chocolate balls (first time ever by the way, and am happy to report that even though I was so tired I barely remember making them, they taste delicious!).

I then decided to have an extra 4am nap. If you've read earlier entries you'll remember how well that worked out for me. Well this time I woke at 6:30am to a phone call from Angie, with all three alarm clocks that had been strategically placed around the room piled up neatly at the foot of the couch, like some kind of frightened offering to the gods of sleep. I almost literally had to prise my eyelids apart, as if I had fallen asleep in the snow and they had fused together with cold. Angie convinced me to go for a walk with her, and I spent a great deal of it trying to stay awake.

I have three theories at work here. Theory one is that earlier in the week when I surmised I was in the "difficult patch", I was sadly mistaken, and that was nothing but a precursor to last night's hell.  Theory two is that earlier in the week the difficult patch was indeed the difficult patch, and this is purely my body expressing it's veto power over any experimental designs I may have upon it. Theory three is that I had passed the difficult patch and was well on my way to polyphasic bliss, however a random input (such as a virus or something) has sent me off on a brief but overwhelming downward spiral.

I had a long think about it on the walk, for if Theory Two is the dominant choice, I should probably cut my losses now and either spend the next two days (which I have off) sleeping, and resume my normal schedule (or perhaps another polyphasic variant, the Everyman schedule, which I think I would take to without any trouble at all). However, if one of the other Theories are the winners, I just need to work out how to get through what may be simply a twenty four hour period of intense discomfort.

When you look at it like that, I figure my week's investment so far indicates to me that I should at least give it a shot. I sit here typing in the office with loud rock music blasting in my ear and I'm still drifting off, having to focus so intently here that my eyes are nearly itching. I keep editing as I go, finding spelling mistakes, typos and sentences that simply don't make sense, I hope I've nailed most of them. I think I need to work on what measures to take, but they might begin with:
  • Getting people to physically wake me here during the day, and at night perhaps hitting up the night owl Facebook brigade who I notice sit online all night, and see if I can get anyone to ring me and yell down the line until I'm up.
  • Once up, jumping straight into a really cold shower, then heading out for a walk to get the blood moving.
  • Definitely staying out of the library where I've been sleeping. I love the room so much I think I now feel very safe in there, which is a little too conducive to sleeping through alarms.
  • Aside from that, I'll just have to work out some better activities to keep myself occupied with.
Activities can be a strange one. On the one hand I want to be doing something reasonably physical so as to keep my body awake but on the other, it seems to me that my body still requires a certain amount of rest time, which would demand at least a few hours of seated activity. Anything less would surely just add to the fatigue. I just need to work out how to balance this and stay awake during any seated activity (even as I type now, my head is slipping forward here and there and I must blink repeatedly to stop the words from doubling when I read back over them).

Well, enough contemplation, time to get a move on with the day. I'm not sure quite where I'm headed with it, but with any luck it will be towards a much less sleepy and much more comfortable environment.

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Seven

I can hardly believe I've made it one whole week! I'm also surprised at what a struggle tonight has been, but on contemplation I guess I did just have a very hectic weekend, and chances are that I would have been dropping off to sleep on occasion even if I were sleeping a solid period during the night. Also, in the past twenty minutes, I just noticed a definite nose cold coming on, so that may have something to do with my persistent drowsiness tonight. I'm combating the best I can with Melvins turned up loud, and I might eschew the yoga tonight in favour of some cleaning around the place.

What have I learned during the week?
  1. There is no underestimating the body's ability to sabotage itself when it feels threatened.
  2. Refined sugar is never the answer to anything, except maybe how to get out of life earlier.
  3. The concept of time is one of the most unreliable ideas our species has ever come up with.
  4. I can actually have incredibly realistic and vivid dreams, and I only had to stop sleeping to notice them.
  5. People can be amazingly supportive of ludicrous propositions, even if in theory they're still considering having you committed.
  6. Having more time doesn't necessarily mean you'll accomplish more things.
  7. The eyelids are home to the strongest muscles in the human body. They just don't like word to get out.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

An open letter to my brain

Dear Brain,

How long is it that we've been seeing each other? Thirty three years? Has it really been that long? I know there was that little patch a while back where we agreed to separate, but really, I've been quite faithful to you, haven't I? I've never cheated on you behind your back. I've always been supportive.

I think I deserve an explanation, to be honest.

I'm a little saddened by your recent "games". I thought we had something special. I mean, neither of us are much to look at, but it was a mutual respect of each other's intelligence that drew us together. Do you remember when that girl tried to come between us, and you managed to win me over with your analytical sleight of hand and intoxicating arguments? Oh Brain, you really used to think I was worth fighting for.

But here I am, trying my best to do something new and exciting, to embark on a mystical sleep experiment, and where is the support? I would understand if it were hurting you, but I'm doing this for you, can't you see? If this little adventure works, I'll be able to provide you with all the books you could possibly dream of! Really! You know that time you were so upset by the thought that you would never live to read every book you desire, even if you lived to 150? Well my love, I am trying to make your dream a reality! I am putting myself on the line for you.

But this morning, you threw it back in my face. All I asked was that you let me wake after twenty five minutes. It's not so hard, I've been waking before the alarms ring anyway, all you needed to do was to make sure I got up. Alas, you had other plans. I'm not sure how you managed to keep me asleep whilst turning off two alarms, but you did. I imagine you injected some of that melatonin store of yours. You know how I feel about you doing that. It makes me feel violated.

I could probably have overlooked that though, I could have believed you just wanted to snuggle and carried your wishes too far. But then the next time I tried to wake, you actively set out to deceive me! That's right, there's no denying it! You saw me hide my phone alarm behind the television set, and then while keeping me as asleep as possible (no doubt through more melatonin injections - boy, you're going to be working hard to replenish that tomorrow, aren't you?), you stood there with a poker face and told me the DVD player was my alarm as it rang out! You stood by, watching me punch buttons on that player, watching the little tray rolling in and out, knowing that I had no idea it was a DVD player and not an alarm clock I was attempting to defuse. I can't imagine why you would do this.

Is there someone else?

Please be honest with me, I have always been honest with you, haven't I? I can't lie to you Brain, even though sometimes I admit I would like to. I don't understand why my efforts of strenghtening our bond are being treated with this kind of contempt.

I'm not going to stop though, I've decided that much. You can play with me all you like, but I know you'll appreciate my efforts in the end. And if you don't well, as Crowded House sing, it would cause me pain if we were to end it. But I could start again, you can depend on it. There are other Brains, and I'm sure many of them would do anything to be treated this way.

But I don't want to threaten you, my love. Please understand that I'm doing this for you, for us. You'll come round, I know it.
Love Craig

Friday, March 12, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Five

I just calculated this evening that it's been 135 hours now since I last had a full night's sleep, and in that time I've slept only around eight hours. Can you believe it? My mother can't, she sent me an email predicting a future in a mental institution. Hi mum, if you're still reading.

I'm happy to report that I feel she may be wrong with her dire prophecies (I wouldn't have been so sure two nights ago). I dropped the extra nap this morning and I have been feeling just fine. I did throw a small tantrum today, but looking at the circumstances, I probably would have thrown one under my old sleep regime anyway.

I've had moments of tiredness but they've been thankfully quite brief. I have had a very busy day and it's possible my brain has necessarily switched off in favour of dealing with work, but I definitely feel more alert and was told by a few people that I looked a lot more together today. I'll give myself a real test where instead of staying in the office tonight I'll head up to the library where it's darker and quieter, and see if I can make it through under those conditions. And besides, we have about 30 drunken bikers here tonight, I probably don't need to hang around listening to their party.

I've got my fingers crossed I'm out of the woods on this one by now, or at the very least can see the light coming through the canopy.

Extra note: I just saved this post and on the confirmation screen an advertisement popped up courtesy of google, asking me if I'm having trouble sleeping. I just thought that was amusing, targeted marketing at its most insidious - little robots reading blogs as we update them and knowing what to throw at you.

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Four

I'm writing a little later tonight, because I'm noticing a funny little trend. I'll hang out in the office all night, doing something worthwhile like this evening's activity (compiling a list of writing competitions from around the world to enter and make a fortune from...of course), or the completely inane (sitting on Facebook, which I am simply not going to do anymore, dammit). I'll come down after my 2am nap and write about how I'm really starting to feel pretty good, and oh, aren't I amazing and one of those reputed 2% of people who can comfortably live off a polyphasic sleep schedule, and did you notice how little time it took to adapt?

But then, about twenty minutes after writing, the sleep deprivation hits me like a brick (or in the immortal words of Nick Cave, like an ashtray big as a fucking really big brick), and I am reduced to a slobbering zombie scratching at his face and walking into walls. Last night it was at this time when the transformation took place, and it was all I could do to stay awake until 6am. It was actually all I could do to get the key in the office door on my departure and make it up to my room.

I woke up at 6:30am and bravely headed out for a walk, which culminated in me reeling from one side of the road to the other like a horribly naive drunk, staggering into the grass on each side more than once, and scaring the bejesus out of the cows that were down there having breakfast. I see these cows most mornings on my runs and they've learned to watch me with some level of trust and complacency. This morning they were all too aware of the howling, slobbering beast I had become, and took off with their tails between their legs, perhaps thinking I'd turned to the dark side and sold my soul to McDonalds

I inserted another 8am nap and felt quite normal by the 10am nap. The rest of the day was spent feeling quite good (although if I sit still for more than about ten minutes I'm still starting to feel the tug of my eyelids). Right now, here at the same dead spot as last night, I can feel that light headed sway but so far I am still in control of my senses.

Oh, did I mention I slipped up this morning? I had just one alarm set as I've been waking before them anyway. It went off and then I got up, except the time frame between these two seemingly consecutive actions seemed to stretch out to about twenty minutes. I have no recollection of those twenty minutes at all, so I can only assume I fell back asleep (knowing me, probably sitting upright and staring at my phone with open eyes). It's the first time I've fallen asleep after waking, and a frightening thought. The rest of the day however I managed to wake without an alarm, including after the hitherto dreaded 2am nap, so I'm hoping I really am making some progress.

But my planning is impeccable tonight - now I'm starting to feel that grip of death, I have plans to go clean a large rec room I need to get through before tomorrow. Vacuuming with loud rock music turned up as high as I can without waking anyone is just what I need to survive until 6am. Take that, death sleep!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Three

Only Day Three? Did I slip into some clandestine wormhole near the river that sent me back a week, or has it really only been three days since I began this little joyride? Let's see, I had my last monophasic sleep on Sunday night, waking at 6:30am. It's now Thursday morning at 4am so yes, looks like it's been three days.

I just looked back on my post from yesterday morning and had to laugh about how tired I was. That was nothing compared to how I felt after the 6am nap. I nearly crumpled in a weeping heap when I woke up. I could feel my eyes trying to lock themselves in and my limbs were shaking. Angie was fantastic though - she saw that I was on a knife's edge of collapsing into a comatose sleep, and she pushed me out the door into the very brisk morning air and took me on a walk up the mountain. It all felt manageable by the time we returned, but I was still completely wiped out.

Okay, I confess. I caved in and added a nap.

I don't think this is against the "rules", because Steve Pavlina did it on his much publicised blog about his polyphasic experiences. I just wanted to beat the guy though. I slipped in an extra 20 minute nap at 8am and it was really the smartest thing I could have done. I've been feeling almost good the rest of today, and aside from a quietly gnawing drowsiness right now, I'm still feeling at least ten times better than this stage last night. Do I dare believe I might be past the worst of it?

Aside from that period of perhaps twelve hours where I nearly wanted to drown myself, I think the experiment is going smashingly well. I haven't overslept once (indeed, I'm still waking before the alarm in most cases), and I've started dreaming quite vividly almost every time. The last one involved a country town op shop lady who called me to come and collect something and, after I drove for an hour to get there, told me they didn't have it and I should come back tomorrow. Incredibly banal dreams, but vivid.

I work in the office with music playing far louder than is acceptable for a resort office during the day, and I found time to bake some chocolate chip cookies last night. Once I get a handle on the tiredness I'm planning on spending a lot more time reading and writing (I have a list of short story competitions ready to enter). I'm getting back into German lessons and have uncovered a weird minor addiction to crosswords.

I haven't yet had the spiritual awakening that some polyphasers have had, where they realise time does not have to be the man-made construct we created but can instead unfurl in an infinite, mobius-strip-styled ribbon. The closest I've come is to shed my usual concerns of not having enough time in the day to get through everything (I call them concerns, Angie's aunt calls them fears, either/or). When you know you have at least another six hours to fill each night, you stop worrying about having to get through the accounts by 6pm, or cleaning the room before bed. You're happy in the knowledge that at some point in the next few waking phases it'll probably get done.

I'm hoping to not need an extra nap tomorrow morning but I'll see how I feel. That gnawing drowsiness has just started to bite a little, it might be time for a brief and cold walk outside.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Two

I thought I knew what tired felt like.

I've been really tired many times in my life, especially whilst on tour. I could tell you some excruciating stories about driving under the slumber influence, and stories about sleeping under the merch desk as punk bands sound checked not ten metres away. But I don't think I ever knew real tired until today.

I was feeling okay, especially after my 10am nap. That 10am nap is my best friend at the moment. I woke from that one feeling on top of the world. But the 2pm nap went all strange, and I spiralled downhill faster than a drunken skier. This is what happened.

I was down outside the office talking to Angie. Matt was just pulling out to go do a shop. I thought this was odd because I was pretty sure I'd seen him leave earlier in the day. Perhaps he had been doing something else. Anyway, a lady drove in and got out of her car. She looked after Matt, perplexed, and asked me if he was the one she had to speak to. I told her that Angie and I worked here too. She asked for a room for the night, and I told her Angie could help (it was, after all, my day off). Angie spoke under her breath and told me she was really busy with something, and I replied that I couldn't do it as it was time for my nap. She smiled and said not to worry, she'd take care of it.

Just then, all hell broke loose. A huge blaring sound errupted in the air, and I woke as I fell off the couch. You see, none of this had happened, although the dream felt more real than almost any dream I've had. I could have sworn I was awake, but the screaming alarm clock, the time and my body sprawled on the floor of the library said otherwise. I mention this not because it was odd to dream of such a mundane scenario, but that I absolutely believed I was awake. I don't tend to remember my dreams too much, and I think I usually have an inkling that I'm dreaming when I do. Too much weird stuff usually goes on (like the dream I had the other night with an elderly lady chasing me and my arms growing into lengthy, ape-like apendages to assist my escape...but that's for another time). This was so vivid and realistic that it took me a good ten minutes after waking to convince myself I was now actually awake and not the other way around.

My afternoon very quickly descended into the zombie-like state I've read so much about and had started, optimistically, believing might pass me by. At one point I actually felt my jaw hanging down a few inches lower than it should be. Angie has been hugely entertained by all this, taking every opportunity to come and laugh at  me. On the plus side, she's been around a lot to ensure I don't just curl up into a ball somewhere and fall asleep, which has been one hell of a strong urge to fight. I finished my 2am nap a little while back and have been feeling almost human after that one, although I can feel the weariness settling in again as I type now. Two and a bit more hours to the next nap though...

So, some things I've realised in the last two days:
  1. I haven't been yawning, until this afternoon. Normally when I'm tired I yawn like the television demon in Aphex Twin's Come To Daddy clip, but not this week (until this afternoon). I just find this interesting.
  2. I'm still mostly waking up before the alarm goes off (with the notable exception of my parallel universe experience this afternoon).
  3. Most of the time I wake before the alarm, it's about 15 minutes or so into the nap, which means I'm probably averaging close to an hour and a half's sleep each day right now.
  4. This is probably a good thing because it's really bloody hard to sync up a collection of analogue alarm clocks.
  5. I really need to cut back the activity. I've stopped running in the morning, but I'm still walking up the big hill for a round loop of close to 8km each day, and with the added activity of all the walking I do simply to keep moving and stay awake, I'm getting quite tired. I had to stop halfway down the hill tonight on a walk with Angie and sit down (terribly close to sleeping on the road). I also stopped my yoga session after about ten minutes because I knew if I didn't I would fall asleep, probably in a position that I would regret after a few hours of sleeping in it.
  6. I've found myself drinking so much water I could be mounted in the herb garden and used as an ornamental fountain. I'm not sure that this is a conscious choice - either my body needs the fluids or it's another reactive mechanism in response to the tiredness.

I thought there were a few others but everything's a little cloudy right now. I can feel that sleep net tighten as I type, pulling my eyelids down and constricting my muscles. The best way I've found to deal with it is to try to view it exactly as I asked for - as an experiment to see what happens. If I start feeling sorry for myself then the tiredness feeds off that with rapacious hunger. If I remember to keep breathing deeply and try to watch it all with a curious eye then it doesn't feel quite so bad. And besides, there's every chance that this will be the hardest day. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Oh, that's right, there is no tomorrow for me anymore. We'll see what the next waking period brings.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day One

I'm not really sure where Day One actually started or finished, but the last time I woke up from a solid rack of hours was Sunday morning at 6:30am, and it's now Tuesday morning at 3:05am, so I think I can safely say Day One is behind me. Yesterday morning was a little slow, but aside from feeling like I'd had a really late night I felt okay. After my 10am nap I felt great - very awake and energised and I really should have moved the couches into the restaurant right then instead of leaving them. The 2pm nap left me a little slow again, and post 6pm nap (after being woken by the dog panting in my face) I was feeling even slower. I've noticed that often after naps I feel very light, and as I walk down the hill toward the office I could believe I might just float down like a three-day-old helium balloon. Tonight I started getting the opposite effect, with heaviness setting in. Like the hero in Jonathan Safron Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, I had very heavy boots. I could also feel a small but noticeable tightness in my leg muscles that might have to do with less relaxation and more aimless wandering in the dead of night.

At 8:30pm I started watching a movie with Angie, and struggled to keep awake through it (which might have more to do with the movie - Julie and Julia - than with my experiment). I left her to finish and went for my 10pm nap and, like the two before it, woke after 15 minutes without the alarm. Although that might indicate a sign of adaptation, I really didn't feel amazing at 10:15pm.

I'm finding the whole process fascinating. When I wake up, I feel as if I've been asleep for hours, but it's been a matter of minutes. And yet I don't feel rested. It's like eating a chip, but thinking you've eaten a whole burger, and still feeling as if you haven't actually eaten anything in about three days. Truly bizarre.

My weirdest nap was the 2am one, just now. I did yoga from 12:30am again, and despite coming close to the brink of sleep during some actual poses (my balancing poses were totally shot to hell, by the way), it revived me slightly. But by 2am I was ready to pass out. I set two alarm clocks and fell asleep almost instantly. I then woke fifteen minutes later (again!) standing next to my alarm clocks. I wasn't turning them off or anything, just standing there looking at them. I remember looking at the time, then falling back down on the couch to go to sleep. I woke up ten minutes later - once again, before the alarms went off - and have been up since then, feeling tired but in control.

So many polyphasic attempts that I've read about have fallen apart due to oversleeping, could I be the first experimenter to have a problem with overwaking? The tricks my brain plays are really remarkable. At any rate, this is the time when it's supposed to be about the hardest. I'm anticipating a pretty rough day today (fortunately I had the foresight to roster myself off, so I can spend the day throwing myself into the cold river if it comes down to that!), but perhaps by tomorrow morning I'll start feeling normal. I am encouraged by waking up before the alarms, even if it is in a slightly demented fashion.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Polyphasic sleep schedule Day Half

It's 3:54am as I start writing this, and last night was my final night of a habitual sleeping pattern. I was at first a little surprised at the level of tiredness I've been feeling, but then I had a little look back over my day.

a) Firstly, I was woken early by Angie getting up forty five minutes before my normal wake time in order to prepare breakfast for a huge group of people. I love her dearly but she's not the quietest of people. She does try hard, and she was quieter than she normally is, but still I woke to the sound of a slamming toilet lid and a blowing nose.

b) In what might seem to be a diabolical plan but I am sure wasn't, during two naps today Angie accidentally woke me. I'm pretty sure it's not a plot to overthrow my experiment, she did seem suitably apologetic about it, and in the first case I was sleeping in the middle of the recreation room of the resort at 10am, so I was probably asking for it.

c) For some strange reason I ended up engaged in a bit more physical activity than normal today. I went for a run at 6:30am, carried a hell of a lot of chairs from one room to another around 11am, played an hour of tennis around 5pm and went for a 4km walk around 7:30pm. Pile this on top of a couple of disturbed sleeps and you have a sleepy person on your hands.

d) Right, and I just finished two nearly 15-hour work days back to back with a huge group booked in over the weekend. Can't forget about that.

I was actually doing quite fine until around 12:30am, which is the time I've been religiously going to sleep for the past three weeks or so. Fortunately, that's the exact time I'd scheduled in an hour and a half of yoga (oh, add that to the list of physical activity!), and this almost instantly staved off the tiredness. During my ten minute savasana at the end I am open to the possibility that I slept for a few minutes. But then again, I almost always feel like this, so I'm not treating this as out of the ordinary. Strangely enough my meditation following lasted a good ten minutes before I felt my trunk slipping forward - lately I've struggled to make even five minutes.

After my 2am nap I headed down here to the office, made up a huge container full of a nut/fruit mix, and am thinking about going in to the restaurant to set up for breakfast tomorrow morning (Matt's job, but how awesome for him to turn up at 8am and find it all done? Plus, it'll keep me awake until that 6am nap).

I've been reading pages and pages of information on the Puredoxyk site as well, which is quite encouraging. It's interesting how large a part the mere thought of engaging in such a schedule as the Uberman affects your physiology. I have a sneaking suspicion the tiredness I'm feeling right now is largely due to the excitement, nervousness, trepidation, anticipation and sheer curiosity I'm dealing with now I've started.

Anyway, this is hardly a scientific report as I'm not even technically a day in, I've had longer spells without sleep in one whole day of work. But it passes the time, right?

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Alarming

Two days ago I bought two new alarm clocks from The Department Store in Wauchope. One is a little square thing that ticks like Captain Hook's nemesis and brays like an electrocuted donkey, and the other is a traditional circular clock with bells for ears and a high pitched, shrieking ring. I also have my phone alarm, which is far less abusive. If I have trouble waking up next week with these things placed strategically around the room then I will really need to question the experiment.