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.