Monophasic For Now

I decided to put my attempt on triphasic on hold. Besides, I still miss Everyman and I'm having an urge to try it again when I next attempt some form of polyphasic sleep. That being said, I'm going to stay monophasic for now. I'm actually liking it for a change. I'm managing to keep a relatively sane and regular schedule and my sleep quality has been very good. Once my sleep goes back off rails again I'll start the triphasic.

As for now, I'll keep on streching my dream recall streak, that is already 10 days. My recall used to be stellar, but continuous polyphasic sleeping, where I have to focus on getting up rather than remembering any dreams have deteriorated it. If I manage to hold this schedule I currently have, I'll obviously focus on perfecting the recall again and starting to have lucid dreams often. They really come in rarely these days - my last one was 33 days ago. Besides, their quality has not been good in ages.

So, that's all. I'll keep you updated on when I start some form of polyphasing. Currently I'm happy with my sleep.

Triphasic: Intro

I'm not starting the triphasic yet today. I'll start in a few days, and considered to the last moment starting today, but in the end I feel a bit sleep-deprived at the moment. I've been sleeping a little erratically lately and triphasic sleep doesn't take kindly to sleep deprivation.

So, triphasic sleep can be of varying patterns, but I'm going to use the simple three times 1½ hours program. According to the limited info available, it's relatively easy to adapt, but as you know, my track record isn't the most solid.

Tonight I'll have a full night's sleep and then consider starting tomorrow. It depends on how I feel, but you can expect this experiment starting soon.

I'm lacking concentration at the moment so I'll get back to you later more.

Starting the Triphasic Next Week

I was going to write here that I'm not doing the whole triphasic attempt at all, but then I made a total U-turn at the last second and decided that fuck it, might as well do it.

So far, after numerous attempts my success-rate is still round 0. So, I guess that doesn't promise much for this attempt. But from what I've read of triphasic it should be way easier than any of the other schedules I've tried and also more sustainable. Whether that's the truth... Well, we will find out soon enough.

I guess there's nothing more for me to say now. I'm going to prepare for the attempt by reading everything there is to read about the schedule and then it's time for the own effort. If I manage to hold the schedule something like 40-50 days I am going to be happy. Don't know whether I'd go further than that. I know, "Whoa there dude, don't talk about 40 days before you've even managed 5 days of any schedule without mistakes."

Everyman Over

I ended the Everyman attempt after 18 days. I know, it's pathetic. Did fairly well for two weeks, felt good, then the going got tough. But the fact that I just slept through all of my alarms like nothing, and considering that I've struggled with oversleeps all through the effort, means there's no sense on keep going. I have nothing to prove in terms of willpower and determination, if you doubt them read through the whole blog. It's just that my body is not accepting this. Only reason I would keep going would be if I had 100 % failure prove alarm, and I don't think there is any. Another human being is the closest to that, but I don't have anyone to help me at the moment.

This sounds pretty damning judgment, like whole polyphasic sleep is just a pipe-dream. I'm definitely not believing that, not yet. What I'll try now is to mantain my quick napping. I really have had that handled, I've missed hardly any naps because of failing to fall asleep. I want to keep that ability, so I'm going to try to increase the core gradually while having as many naps as I can, with a minimum of 90 minutes in between.

The first day didn't work though, I'm just no waking to alarm anymore, I slept through it and for 7½ hours. I'm still trying to get some naps in. I have plenty of sleep dep in the storage, so having naps shouldn't yet be a problem even with full "nights" sleep (it isn't actually night)

If I end up just slipping back into monophasic sleep, that's fine. Next effort will probably be in the latter half of the August on triphasic sleep, that has titillated me for long. I'd wish I had Zeo properly working though, perhaps I should just bite the bullet and buy some replacement censors.

I'll be posting new stuff here in the meanwhile too.

Two Weeks of Everyman and Oversleeps Just Keep Piling Up

It's fifteenth day and since I've overslept now two days in a row, that has taken the combined total to 6½ hours. It's tough to avoid those oversleeps now that sleep dep is starting to creep in. I am yet to find a way to consistently get up from the bed. It doesn't seem too hard to outsiders, but it takes quite a lot of willpower once you start to get sleep-deprived.

I'll keep thinking about it and if it depended on my determination alone, I'd not oversleep anymore.

So let's recap the first two weeks a bit. It's not really been tough, it has felt easier than during last year's Everyman adaptation. The numbers though tell a different story. I've overslept more than last year by now, at least in terms of times overslept. If I can't keep at least two weeks completely mistake-free, I'm just not going to adapt, that's a fact. Seems a bit overwhelming when you barely can string three perfect days in a row.

From now on I'll keep much stricter reins to my schedule. I won't miss any more naps. I won't shift the naps around. The schedule is bizarre enough as it is, I don't need any more changes to that. The time for shifting naps is much later than now. I need to stay the fuck active. The bed should be off-limits within an hour from waking up.

Next two weeks will be a lot harder, but it should be a lot better. Sounds an impossible combination, but just like that Adidas slogan said, "impossible is nothing."

Everyman Day 12 - Completely Unnecessary Oversleep

I was going to write a post anyway today to update what has happened so far. Before the last nap of today the answer would have been "not a whole lot", but I just woke up from 1½ hour oversleep. This takes my totals to actually worse numbers than in the December adaptation. Still, I'd argue I'm still feeling better. Anyway, let's see into the reasons of the oversleep.

Quite simple really, two things happened that made this easy if not even likely. First off I went to be really early - 15 minutes early in fact. I wasn't too tired. It was feeling a bit down and not feeling like doing anything that made me do it. I was planning to stay awake for a few minutes before letting myself fall asleep. I did stay up for at least 10 minutes, but any nap lenght of over 25 minutes is still very dangerous. You fall into too deep sleep and get screwed.

I had much trust on my alarms though. Being a veteran of this already I'd knew that I was risking an oversleep when I go to bed early. But I thought to myself, if I fall asleep early I have the safety net of the computer's alarm. I have not needed that many times and I'm certain it would work if needed. So the problem was... Well, I apparently had not activated the whole alarm. That's useful, right? But these things happen which makes me think if I should have two heavier alarms just as two softer ones. Maybe one more, if religiously used, would render oversleeps at least very hard. In fact, I'll start to think about where I'll get one so that I'm pretty well covered in all situations.

Overall program still feels good, no terrible sleep dep, just very short phases of heavier tiredness mostly upon waking. The middle phase of the day, 14-17, still is by far the most unproductive, but it is also the shortest, which is a win-win situation. Or less lose-lose?

The oversleep today was pretty bad, but for some reason it isn't actually bother me that much. I remember a time when an oversleep left me feeling completely fucked up emotionally. Now I don't feel anything like that. I was only a bit annoyed and feel normal now. On an emotional level it's not a big deal maybe anymore, but intellectually I still want to avoid oversleeps as much as possible. I'll think about making oversleeps even harder and maybe do a blog post about what I come up.

I still need to use my days better, not be so complacent and remember the mantra: Stay active!

I'm going to stay active and bugger off to run 5 km. Why don't you folks do the same?

Everyman Day 9 - Refocus

I'm going to hit the sack soon for the 10th core. I've been on Everyman now for 9 full days and if you have followed my Twitter, you'll know that I've had mostly easy time. Two oversleeps, the other for 2 hours few days back and then practically an extra nap, 30-minute sleep shortly after the main nap yesterday. I'd say it has been easier than I could've ever imagined so far. The oversleeps have besides been more than compensated by two shortened cores and two missed naps.

The reason I'm writing this post is that I've noticed some complacency creeping into my daily habits. I don't get up so fast and I sometimes lay down after a nap (that's so stupid - recipe for disaster). So far, those mistakes haven't cost me. But they will if I don't intervene early enough. So I hope that this post is more of a wake-up call for myself, a way to refocus my eforts on the schedule.

I have had decent amounts of REM on the naps so far, but I don't recall my dreams. I just remember that I was having a dream, but not anything of it. I should be accumulating sleep debt, and perhaps I am, but that's happening really slowly apparently, because I'm still very rarely tired and it is so easy, no challenge to stay awake, unless it's just after waking up when you're not yet thinking straight.

My body has adapted to napping already very well. As I said, there's been plenty of REM already, and also I've noticed myself waking up often before the alarm. What I should still do is condition myself to get up, usually I just keep laying down and maybe fall asleep again. That usually results in more tiredness upon waking. Regardless of this I'm still keeping my discipline with the alarms - all three are in use for every nap, even though the instances where I've overslept on a nap using Everyman are rare. I think it makes falling asleep later more unlikely, when you have to set off three alarms. It's not much, but still, like I've said many times, you need to do everything you can to tip the odds in your favor.

Which is why you really can't fall victim to complacency. Polyphasic sleep is a fine-margin game, especially during the adaptation. Considering how easy it has been so far, I really shouldn't even have 2½ hours of oversleeps under my belt. It's improvement, but I still can't be happy. I hope I manage to avoid mistakes during the next 9 days. Now you must be curious about how much did I oversleep during the first 9 days of my original long Everyman attempt (I know I am), so let's take a look... Well, actually, now that I read it, I only had 3 hours of oversleep from two instances by this point back then. That was with three hour core, so it was in general harder than my current effort.

So is all this talk of improving I just had only an illusion? Perhaps, at least it should make me take the rest of the adaptation very seriously. It's surprising to find out that you shouldn't have had any trouble so far anyway. What it does tell me though is that I can look to the previous adaptation for what to expect during next few days, so I'll have a quick look on that too.

Day 10: Solid naps, plenty of tiredness.
Day 11: Similar to 10.
Day 12: Reversion - nap quality seemed to be down, yet I felt better.
Day 13: Low amounts of sleep, but no big troubles
Day 14: Similar to 13.
Day 15: Better, but still tired
Day 16: Overslept core, tiredness escalates
Day 17: Decent feel and numbers.
Day 18: Tired, but good numbers

So overall it seems like no oversleeps would be decent, but not hard task to pull - during the next days I can expect the tiredness to slowly escalate. No reason to get excited for the "success" so far. The real adaptation is still long way ago - this is just the building sleep-deprivation phase. Still having said all of that and basically disproven my own claims of "best adaptation ever", I would still say that there's something going on with this adaptation that wasn't before. I'm confident of success this time. I will not bend over at the first signs of tiredness.

Speaking of tiredness, I should be going to sleep very soon - 15 minutes from now. I've said all that I want to say for now, see you guys soon again.

Everyman: Another Oversleep Debrief

So I had a couple of pretty bad mistakes today. Not in terms of setting me that much back, but in terms of how novice errors they were.

First off I woke up from my core and I don't know what the hell I'm thinking, but for some reason I put my alarm to 25 minutes later and then went back to bed. Now if I would have woken up 25 minutes later that would have been nothing too serious, but I slept through it and ended up sleeping 1½ hours over my regular core.

This wasn't the end of my mistakes though. I skipped the first nap, as I had slept so long it would have been too near anyway, so the time for the second one was today my first. It was a very solid nap, but I felt a little too comfortable in bed and didn't really get up. I ended up falling asleep for at least 30 minutes, but probably a little over.

I mean it's ridiculous. Beginner mistakes. I am very angry at myself - first one was simply avoidable by having multiple alarms and slightly more self-discipline. I really doubt I would have started to reset three or more alarms. As for second one, I should really get some one to shout me "GET THE FUCK UP!" everytime I go back to bed after waking up from the naps.

I had the midnight nap as usual. Overall I have no strong urge to shift any of the alarm times at all. It seems like they have fallen to good spots naturally this time. I really enjoy this long shift at night, I'm a night person and the tiredness seems to come at right time for core. During winter when I used Everyman I would have the third nap at 9 pm, which was too early, I guess. I rarely slept on that nap.

I got a new motherboard to my computer, but it's still acting up and not working completely properly. Which means that I might go yet another day without hardcore alarms... Well, I guess there would be alternatives, but I'm kind of attached to the thought of using my computer as the last stand for waking up. Anyway, I still plan to fix the issues before heading to sleep tonight... well, at dawn. Funny how polyphasic schedules work sometimes?

How to Have Your Core Sleep In Thunderstorm

Answer - it's pretty damn hard. So yeah, things keep happening, so updates stay frequent as well. Yesterday was pretty awesome, I woke up from all of my naps pretty effortlessly. Core got a bit tougher.

I woke up only after 20 minutes of sleep - my body must have thought it to be another nap, which is amazing in the sense that it seems to have already adjusted to waking up so quickly. Anyway, shortly after waking up refreshed and not really even feeling like going back to sleep to continue the core, I started hearing the first sounds of thunder in the distance. Soon enough a whole storm moved near and it was just like battlezone in terms of sounds. Every striking lightning brought this loud boom, a clear explosion sound.

I used to have a phobia of thunder and it still it raises my adrenaline levels. Besides, given that this was a particularly strong storm (for Finland's standards), I was even a little more jumpy than usual. So it was no wonder I really struggled getting to sleep.

I got under two hours of sleep before the alarm woke me and even that was marred with the occasional waking up etc. In the end I decided to have some mercy on myself and re-set the alarm to an hour later. However, once again there was another cell of thunder that woke me up with a heavy blast only half an hour later. But I'm fine with that, I didn't want to shift the times a lot anyway.

It raises a good point though. This was a tough circumstance so how do you deal with this kind of stuff? On the other hand, you don't want to limit your sleep too much, but on the other hand, you want to stick to your schedule. For me that has always meant keeping up with the waking times. But yeah, I think this was an acceptable spot where to shift a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if it affects me later today. It feels amazing to be at day four with such little trouble, but I haven't really even started yet.

What else... I guess that's it for now.

Everyman: Second Day Glory - Stay Active!

Being and staying active is one of the key components to being polyphasic. It isn't enough to keep yourself occupied, you really need to be active - either by being really engaged with your mind or doing something more physical.

It was this old lesson that was once again reminding me today, when I insisted on just laying on the bed with a laptop on my lap - not a good idea. Being generally passive just invites tiredness and soon enough I fell asleep.

I got lucky though - I woke up five minutes later, so it was so short unnecessary sleep, that I don't even count it as a failure. Beside that five minute moment of tiredness the day was absolutely awesome, even if my core didn't convince me at all. I felt like I woke up many times during that and felt somewhat disoriented. Getting up was easy though, as I already were awake. Same thing happened with first and third naps - I woke up before the alarms went off, completely refreshed.

I gotta be honest I'm surprised, the start has been far better than what I had expected. Sure, I was tired for the most of the day, but the naps itself were great and waking up from them has never been this easy - besides, no missed naps so far, it's awesome. Like everything is clicking right from the off. Of course when I'm writing this positively, I'm bound to fail soon.

In other news, you can now add me in Twitter and keep up to date with my progress. I'll be posting short status updates throughout my day there. Checkout PolySleeper. It's the best place to get regular updates as I probably won't be posting everyday like this, unless I keep getting these reminders that I think are worth bringing up in the blog.

I'll chill out through the night next, I have a bit of writing in front of me and then there's the first Copa America semi coming up later in the night. It's moments like these when I truly enjoy being polyphasic. Only bad thing going on at the moment is the fact that the motherboard didn't show up yet. Come on, of course the delivery gets delayed just when I need it the most. What that means is one more night without heavy alarms and that keeps getting me more and more worried, but as I said, signs so far don't seem bad. Besides, even if the oversleep comes, it's still early and it would only be a small loss.

Everyman: Past the First Day

So, I started the Everyman today - well, it's actually past midnight already so it was really yesterday. I'm pretty damn happy with my first day. I'm tired, but that much is obvious. What I'm happy is that I woke up from every nap and slept during every nap. I still have my doubts over the very uneven distribution of the naps, but it worked fine today.

I still have only two alarms as my computer is still broken down. I get a new motherboard tomorrow so I'll get that fixed to have a loud alarm as well. It will serve as a final back-up that wakes me up everytime.

It wasn't my most productive day, but I've been generally unproductive at recent times, so it my performance didn't go way down because of polyphasing. I'm still stating the obvious though that it's not the first day that's tough. I'm a bit nervous about waking up from the second core, as I still have only silent alarms, but it's only a slight worry - I doubt I'm yet that dead that I need the heavy alarm every time.

I guess that's all for now. I won't be posting every day of my progress, I'll just keep you updated if something significant happens or if I feel like saying something. There will be some miscellaneus status updates in some other posts that I have planned for this blog.

Update: New Everyman Adaptation Coming Up & Site Scrapped

It's been awhile since my last post, over a month in fact. I've been sleeping pretty normally meanwhile, polyphasing can be quite exhaustive, especially with the training amounts I've been having. But now it's time to stop resting on my laurels and get going again. I don't know how healthy this constant polyphasing is, but I haven't pretty much even gotten sick or felt bad bar the occasional sleep deprivation induced headache during past 16 months.

I decided to scrap the site, because frankly I don't think I know enough of polyphasing. Yeah, I do have plenty of experience, but it's all from failing - which is all good, as if I've just succeeded on the first try, I wouldn't have needed to grow as a person nor could I teach it to anyone as I would obviously be a natural. When I finally succeed - could be years from now - I would have made every mistake in the book and would have had to find a solution to everyone of them. But at the moment, I simply don't have any credibility to give advice to anyone.

All of my Zeo's censors though have gone past their three (or was it four, I don't remember) month period where they work and already I'm seeing that the readings have started to throw off. Besides, for some reason I have started to twist and turn in the bed so I can't even keep the band on for the most of the nights. Most likely I don't be using Zeo to track data this time for those reasons. I've yet to decide. As for when I start, it will be soon, probably in the next few days. Here's my rough plan of the schedule:
Core: 6.30-10.00
Nap 1: 13:30-14:00
Nap 2: 17:00-17:30
Nap 3: 0:00-0:30

Obviously it's only tentative at the moment, I will see where my natural tired moments fall and then shift it accordingly. The core can't be much earlier though - as much as I enjoy getting up early, my need of heavy duty alarms (I'm even more liable to sleep through alarms at the moment than I was ever before) forces me to get up in a time that doesn't interfere with anyone else's sleep. I can shift it a bit earlier if needed, but we'll see. The core is 3½ hours as it was before, it just works better for me than the usual three hour version.

The first nap is spaced the same way it has been in my most recent adaptations. The second nap is so close due to schedule constraints. If I shift it later, it will go beyond 21, but I think that I'm more likely to shift the rest of the schedule earlier. As for the last nap, I hope it's on the darkest time - I've not made much of the nightly walks this summer, which has been sad as I really enjoy it. Now I would be able to do that.

Why Everyman again? I could try triphasic, but Uberman is just no-go at the moment. The numerous attempts have really forced me the face the fact that I'm indisciplined. You need to get the Bachelor's degree before you can get to Master's. That's the way I view Everyman and Uberman - Of course you could do Uberman straight away, but only very few people can handle the intense adaptation of Uberman. I think I have to grow a lot as a person before I'm able to do Uberman, whereas Everyman, while very challenging too, is something I view very possible. I did go 20-something days using Everyman with minimal errors, after all!

Whether I'm physically even able to do either is a different matter all together - I believe I haven't gone nearly long enough on any adaptation to say that I simply don't adapt. Uberman is also so hard that I need to clean up my diet & just all around fix my life to tip the odds to my favor. My diet is pretty good, but not perfect. I've probably babbled long enough, so stay tuned for more soon. As that site project got scrapped, I might post a couple of posts I had written for the coming sites, if I still like them. Overall most of this blog so far has been just me spouting shit while sleep-deprived, I'd like to have more worthwhile content. See ya soon.

Decisions & Some Monophasic Data

I've been thinking lately about what to do in terms of polyphasic sleep and my situation really doesn't warrant me to go full on to SPAMAYL or Uberman at the moment. So, I've decided to give another shot to 4½-1½ type of schedule and supplement it with naps whenever needed. But the thing is that I love nothing more than being awake in the night in summer. So I've decided to have my longer sleep during the day. Here's the sleeping times that I'm planning to do:
13-17.30
1:00-2:30

It's not perfectly symmetric, but I don't think it has to. I'm gaining some time and most importantly sleeping through my most unproductive times. I'll still have my naps as a weapon if that amount of sleep leaves me tired.

The schedule is of course subject to any change Zeo might reveal that I should do. Also those times don't have to be as rigid as in Everyman or Uberman, so I'll be shifting them a bit if needed, especially the daytime sleep.

Speaking of Zeo, interesting thing I've noticed with monophasic compared to my Everyman is that I'm actually getting less deep sleep from it. I get around 1h 10 minutes / 8-9 hours compared to around 90 minutes of 3½ hour core. Most of my sleep is light sleep and REM, I've gotten some insane amounts of especially REM during some nights.

Just recently my schedule has been all over the place and I'm pretty sure I'm running a sleep deficit. Last night I slept 6h 22 minutes and got under an hour of deep sleep. So it's not best foundation to start a new schedule from, but I'll do it anyway.

Next Plans

So I've been living monophasically, with my typical schedule; sleeping days, staying up nights. I'm procrastinating on something else so I decided to give some sort of update on my plans.

Thing is that I don't really see Uberman as a viable long-term option, even though it fits better to me than probably for anyone else. Figure that out. Still, I would like to adapt to it. I think long-term Everyman is the best for me, but I still want every now and then to go into "work-mode" and then use Uberman. Wish it'd be that easy though. Here I am talking about living the live switching between Everyman and Uberman, while I haven't even successfully converted to either! Maybe it's the 4½-1½ style that fits me better.

But yeah, while I might not see Uberman as a long-term option, if I managed to adapt I could keep going for as long as I feel like. Besides, I really want to adapt to it, it's like the holy grail of polyphasic sleep and I'm somewhat becoming obsessed with it. I guess my friends think I'm a nutcase. Well, I am.

But yeah, next adaptation was supposed to be SPAMAYL, and it will be, sort of. I will be doing Uberman Steve Pavlina-style, with extra naps at night when I feel like it. Which is kind of SPAMAYL, right? It's hard to decide when to start though. This soccer-playing is really taking my juices out and I think that I need plenty of time to recover. In terms of responsibilities I could start in a week, but I just don't know if it is the right time to start.

I am consistently feeling like I need WAY more time though. Maybe I should just compromise my training, taking it a little easier and just start the adaptation. Still, there are the matches, those really fuck me up. Even if I train easy, I can't avoid exhausting myself in the matches. I could take it easy in matches too, but that won't really help much in reality.

Taking naps so regularly is kind of rigid, but given that they're only 20 minutes it's not as big of a deal as you would think. The same flow keeps on going, so I just view that as a healthy break from whatever you're doing to regain concentration.

Speaking of naps, I'm a bit tired at the moment, I guess I'll take one. I have a long night ahead of me and a ton of stuff to do.

I must do some thinking these next few days, and decide what I'm going to do with my sleep. I'll be back.

Oh, about the site... It's still coming, but I just have a lot on my plate at the moment and unfortunately it is the one to be postponed. I'm kind of frustrated about that, I'll make the site soon enough. It will combine my limited knowledge of polyphasic sleep, lucid dreaming and personal development.

Attempt Comes to an Abrupt End

The third strike and I'm out - at least it was what I would call an oversleep. 11 hours 20 minutes straight without waking up. I think it could have been avoidable though. I don't remember whether I have my cellphone alarm on, at least when you reset it, the time is the time I was supposed to wake up, so I guess it was set.

However my surefire Immortal alarm, as in my computer, was not set, or it was, but I was watching hockey in the middle of the night so I had headphones on, therefore rendering the alarm too silent when I fell asleep.

Also the nap was slightly too long. I fell asleep accidentally around 5.25 instead of after 5.30.

All in all this wasn't a very good attempt from a seasoned polyphasic adjustment veteran that I am supposed to be. Three oversleeps in just five days, that's just poor. Stupid mistakes, mistakes I've made too many times in the past. I will be re-attempting in early June - that attempt will shift to SPAMAYL if needed. Or it could be just SPAMAYLish uberman just like Steve Pavlina did - as in, putting extra naps every now and then.

I hope to be better prepared as well then, with myself properly trained to get up to alarm and a lots of stuff to do the fill the time - that wasn't the problem this time either, I had stuff to do all the time.

Shame about this, but now that I failed so badly I think it's best to call it quits. The timing is ankward also, in early June I'll be completely free in terms of schedule.

Now what... Well, I'm feeling sleepy, I guess I'll try to sleep even more and clear the debts before continuing my monophasic hell. Then again, I could try some weird biphasic program with naps every now and then - the kind that I won't go in the sleep debt but would still gain some time and be polyphasic. Kind of that's easy to come in an out of. Steve Pavlina is doing 4,5/1,5 biphasic at the moment. I did also that last summer for a few weeks, perhaps I should do that again. Anyway, it wouldn't be full on biphasic as I need to sleep a couple of full nights soon.

Day Five

Amazing that we are already at the fifth day. Just shame about the oversleeps and missed naps, I could be on the brink of adaptation but as it is, I'm still long way to go.

After missing the last nap of yesterday I didn't get that midnight peak moment in alertness, instead now after the first nap of the new day I feel very tired. It was a solid nap with a fine 16 minutes of deep sleep in it. I just transitioned instantly to the deep sleep from awake, the graph looks pretty crazy in Zeo.

Still, I'm tired now. It's nothing a little of the old "keep yourself busy"-metntality wouldn't fix. Once again I'm playing it safe by shifting the alarm around the clock. If I happen to fall asleep, fine. I've got reaction already planned. In fact, it's better for me not to write anymore, or I'm going just end up with that weird shit. My head is a bit messed up at the moment. I'll be back in some hours.

Then the attempt ended, but more that on the new post

Day 4

Day four, let's see if I can finally get some momentum going on.

It's now 6 am, and I feel fine, if not in fact great. I woke up from my last nap after 13 minutes completely refreshed. No REM, or there was four minutes but I don't any dreams so it might have been just some transition stage that Zeo interpreted as REM. But yeah, I've felt great all night, so far the easiest night, but it could be telling just about the fact that the tough moments are shifting later to the day.

I ate some (a lot) chocolate earlier and plan on consuming some in a moment more. This is the first time really that I've ate some sugar-heavy during this effort. I doubt that really has any major significance, just thought to mention it.

Alright, everything was fine up until the third nap of the day. In fact, I woke up from it fine, but due to my stupidity and seeing one of our kittens sleeping near my feet I turned around and started petting it while laying besides it. You see where this is going at? Yeah, I sort of dozed off. Luckily One by One started blasting after couple of minutes so the oversleep was averted. I just scolded myself for such a stupid mistake and thanked my luck.

Then I went outside to play soccer. Normally this wakes me up, but now the combination of sleep-deprivation and not eating or drinking enough meant that I ended up playing Zombie soccer instead of the ordinary one. Seriously my pace was slower than what 100-year-olds have when they play chess.

Now I'm in zombie mode. Not full-on luckily, but semi-zombie anyway. I'm really just staring at the clock, wishing the time would pass quicker - there's still nearly three hours until the next nap! I've taken precautions in case I happen to fall asleep. I keep setting the alarms again every hour to nearest even hour, so that if I indeed fall asleep that'll at least limit the sleep to a hopefully unharmful amount - in other words, to a half an hour or less. Of course if I just drop to sleep after re-setting the alarm I'll sleep nearly an hour and that would probably hit me back to the proverbial stone ages, uberman-wise.

Rest of my gameplan now is just to keep myself occupied by low-brainpower needing grinding activities. If I just can keep the mind occupied and off the tiredness, it probably won't be so bad. Besides, there's a lot tougher times ahead no doubt. I shouldn't think of that yet though.

That tiredness subsided pretty quickly and the rest of the day was fairly easy. However my schedule got a little awry and I ended up doing the last nap late - and then missing it. I've lately had my peak state during midnight, we'll see if that happens today as well even with the missed nap and all.

Day overall
Succesful naps: 5
Oversleeps: 0
Total time slept 1:47
Total REM 0:26
Total deep sleep 0:24
Streak: 0
State during the day: 4-4-3-4-4-4, average 3.83

The least sleep, but the best day. Tomorrow should be tough.

Day 3

It starts going a little tough. The night was once again relatively easy, but once I woke up from my second nap of the day, I was sure as tired as yesterday. I even hit the same symptom of not doing anything for some time which is always dangerous. Luckily I snapped out of it this time early enough, so I guess I'm learning something.

I went out and practiced soccer. I was really sluggish and lacked any desire to do that, but anything to weather through the rough patches. Remembering last year it has not yet even gotten tough. Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and the day after that will be the toughest, if I get through to them without oversleeps. My naps have been decent, not really that refreshing, but numbers look promising, once again nearly half-REM each of them, I mean those that actually last about 20 minutes. I still have some naps where I just about get to sleep before alarm goes off.

I've not yet at least needed any of the back-up alarms, I've always just gotten up to the normal alarm. I'm still suffering from coldness, but the temperature should be rising outside these days, so hopefully my symptoms of feeling cold go away. I've not eaten much since the start of this effort, no wonder I always lose so much of weight while on polyphasic schedules. I've eaten mostly healthy food, fruits, vegetables and such. Little meat, in fact I'm not sure if at all during these past three days, but I know I've eaten some eggs. I don't know what role the diet plays in adaptation, Steve Pavlina suggested that a lot, and maybe that's true, but I wouldn't know. All I'm trying to do is to eat my usual way - stay away from clearly unhealthy food and try to rack up a decent amount of calories. But overall I wouldn't call my diet healthy, even if a bit healthier than average.

Well, there it came - strike two. I don't have any clue how it happened - or I do, but I don't remember it. I remember waking up well from the two o'clock nap, but I have no recall how I fell asleep. I probably just failed to get up and passed out quickly. Another reiteration of an old lesson, you better move fast once you wake up. Not barely shut down the alarms and doze off again. Luckily I only slep an hour extra, but hey, that's enough as it is to ruin my progress so far.

I can still afford one mistake before I call it quits. Change from now on will be the fact that I'll get up quicker on the alarms and will go out right away upon waking up.

Day overall
Succesful naps: 4
Oversleeps: 1
Total time slept 2:52
Total REM 0:19 (at least, no data on oversleep)
Total deep sleep 0:28 (Same here)
Streak: 1
State during the day: 3-2-3-5-4-5, average 3.67

Everything after the oversleep was really easy. I'm having my peak mental state consistently right after midnight up until into the nap - that's why I've been struggling with getting enough sleep with the first naps.

Rest of Day 2

Let's ditch that damn typing test. It just too much to occupy my head, especially when I'm totally messed up. I still do it whenever I feel like it.

As for the rest of the day, there's really not much to say. I felt pretty damn good the whole day and there was some restful naps along the way with decent REM-numbers. However, I take them with a grain of salt, the oversleep of course helps and also before the naps are over 75 % of REM I won't call them real REM-naps.

But god damn I'm cold. I guess the weather is a little chill, but I still suspect some kind of slowdown in my metabolism or something, because I never felt this cold in winter etc!

Day overall
Succesful naps: 4
Oversleeps: 1
Total time slept 5:02
Total REM 0:49 (at least, no data on oversleep)
Total deep sleep 0:06 (Same here, probably over an hour)
Streak: 3
State during the day: 3-2-3-4-5-4, average 3.5

The Oversleep - What Happened & Self-Loathing

I remember being awake in 6:40 and just being zoning out. I can't believe I did nothing. My mind was all messed up when I awoke, all this stuff about ice hockey came in from my dreams and I was trying to make sense of it in context of real life. Of course once the mind fog cleared I realized that I had just been disoriented. Still, despite all these messed up mental images I managed to keep concentration and tried to have the ten o'clock nap. I didn't get any sleep on it after the oversleep.

I'm not home free if I survive past the night. I so often survive through it only to mess up in the morning. That isn't acceptable any more. After my 6 o'clock nap I am to go play soccer right away every morning to wake myself up properly. After that some fast-paced action game on the computer and closely monitoring my mental state. I guess the biggest challenge is to keep tabs on yourself without losing conciousness.

But yeah, I don't want to see any oversleeps like this any more. If I sleep through the alarms, I can accept that, but no more falling asleep out of schedule.

Day 2

Nap 1
Finnish - words - 355
Finnish - sentences - 346
English - words - 294
English - sentences - 303
Phase rating: 3

Well, Finnish was a little slower than usual, but English actually faster than normally. Weird as I'm very tired.

Nap 2
Finnish - words
Finnish - sentences
English - words
English - sentences
Phase rating: 2

Didn't do any as I presumably passed out.

Nap 3
Finnish - words
Finnish - sentences
English - words
English - sentences
Phase rating:

Day overall
Succesful naps: 2
Oversleeps: 1
Total time slept 4:30
Total REM ?
Total deep sleep ?
Streak: -

I was a little worried about the night, but the tough nights don't start just yet. I was able to watch some stuff on the computer without getting super drowsy. You might remember me complaining on many instances about how watching something passively makes you tired. So I'm not yet that tired. After spending two hours just watching stuff I headed out for my first nightly walk. I meant to make only short walk as I had only 1½ hours until the nap, but I felt like running so I ended up going around the village in an hour, partly walking, partly running.

The reason I felt the need the run was partly because it was cold and I just never put any more clothes on than what I have because I'm lazy, so I was under-clothed. But also my joints and muscles just craved for some more free movement. For some reason towards the end of the walk I got very sentimental. Sleep-deprivation might have some part in it, but also the situation of taking a walk for first time in many months got me going.

I didn't feel at all tired when I got back. It was a crazy feeling, just lie there on you bed with not the slightest of urge to sleep despite only having an hour in last 40 hours. Or something around that range.

However once I woke up from the second nap, I never really got going and I'm pretty sure I overslept for couple of hours. I have no idea what happened in that spot and my keylogger has obviously failed me. Frustrating, but easily avoidable mistake. That said, it's shouldn't be too serious. It made me miss the third nap though. I'm very dissapointed in myself. I can't conjure up a coherent thought at the moment as you can see.

That was the strike one - remember, three strikes and you're out. I won't allow any more mistakes like that, I let that happen too easily.

In fact, I'll stop writing this one no, do a little debriefing and then continue from clear table.

Day 1 - Uberman 2011

Time to start cranking out those typera.tk tests. I already got my first nap - no sleep, as expected. I got tired though. Kind of sad.

Nap 1
Finnish - words - 372
Finnish - sentences - 379
English - words - 273
English - sentences - 258
Phase rating: 3

Typing Finnish was at normal level, English a little slow.

Nap 2
Finnish - words - 377
Finnish - sentences - 353
English - words - 286
English - sentences - 300
Phase rating: 5

Nothing significant going on with these, except that my English is starting to pick up the pace.

Nap 3
Finnish - words - 320
Finnish - sentences - 367
English - words - 256
English - sentences - 273
Phase rating: 3

I guess the slight drop in my alertness and overall state can be read from the results.

Nap 4
Finnish - words - 374
Finnish - sentences
English - words
English - sentences
Phase rating: 4

I couldn't do other tests as my internet connection failed, but anyway, that was normal.

Nap 5
Finnish - words - 363
Finnish - sentences - 349
English - words - 267
English - sentences - 267
Phase rating: 3

Pace took a slight hit, but that's to be expected, I'm tired. In fact, I would have expected worse chunk off the pace.

Nap 6
Finnish - words
Finnish - sentences
English - words
English - sentences
Phase rating: 4

Didn't have time to do this. Wrote a lot though, and pace was normal.

Day overall
Succesful naps: 4
Oversleeps: 0
Total time slept 0:53
Total REM 0:04
Total deep sleep 0:17
Streak: 4

Alright, day one is finally over and I feel... Pretty good at the end of the night. But it hasn't been all sunshine for the day, I've struggled with slight tiredness during the day, but nothing really challenging has yet come up.

Obviously I missed the first couple of naps as you might have expected, but surprisingly I've gottten at least some minutes of sleep on every four that followed. Still the overall sleep numbers are really low and I didn't even get any REM. My first nap dipped straight into deep sleep, which is kind of weird, but kind of good, at least got some sleep that actually has some effect.

I kept myself wide awake in the morning by light soccer practice and some sprints. I'm not planning to do any heavy training during this adaptation, another advantage I have over last year's attempts.

I don't remember anything particular worth mentioning from the other naps. I didn't have much appetite today, but then again I rarely have. I was more tired than in the evening that I was at any other point, but like I said, that last nap cleared that up quite well.

Go!

Hi guys, I'm 30 minutes away from my first nap, just thought I'd post a little report on how I feel.

I didn't wake up exactly 10 am in the morning or whatever I said I would, I could have, but I didn't see it very important really so I kept sleeping. So it is likely that I won't be able to sleep for the first nap. But I guess that holds true for most of my first couple of days of naps.

I'll be revisiting the old classics, PureDoxyk's Ubersleep and Steve Pavlina's blog during the early hours of the night and all along the first days of the effort.

The way I do my daily reporting has changed, I'll be using the old 1-5 rating scale for my feel in every phase. Here's the definitions for it, in case you don't remember. I've posted it couple of times in this blog, but I'm too pressed to find it right now.

5 = I feel normal and there was no tiredness during this phase.

4 = I don't feel outright tired, but I'm not at my freshest either.

3 = There was some moments of slight tiredness.

2 = Multiple moments of fatigue and very little productivity.

1 = I felt extremely tired and started nodding or the whole phase was slight struggle with tiredness.

That was designed for Everyman purposes, but in the end I rarely had to use 1 rating for any phase. I can get even more extreme than that, but I'll report it in writing if there's anything worth mentioning.

I've gotten a keylogger for my new computer so if I happen to pass out amidst of using my computer, I know exactly how much I fucked up. Hopefully that won't be needed, but it is there just in case.

Also I'll be doing typera.tk writing test, both Finnish & English and both word & sentence tests in every phase. It isn't really a viable test to do for alertness and such, I mean I guess it can tell something, but I mainly just do it because I want to improve my writing speed. Just an excuse to do it.

So you'll get
- Rating of the phase
- Writing speeds
- Possibly REM/Deep sleep numbers. I think I'll just do whole days totals and go through individual naps in writing more or less. If there's some data worth mentioning I obviously point it out.

That's all for now, see you in about 20 hours for first post. Oh god, I hope I don't mess up in the first day. That would be embarrasing.

Going Uberman in... 18 hours

I will be heading off to sleep very soon for what will be (hopefully) my last sleep of many hours in a while. I'll get up 10 am tomorrow, have my last full day of monophasic life and then at 1:40 am. next night I'll have my first nap of 20 minutes. Here's my full schedule

1:40-2:00
5:40-6:00
9:40-10:00
13:40-14:00
17:40-18:00
21:40-22:00

What has changed since my last attempt and how does it affect my chances? Well, I'm now a bit better equipped in the alarm sector, but still, I'd love to have at least one alarm more. I guess I'll make do with these though and at least oversleeping should be less likely than before. Having said that, I did, sleep through my sisters attempts of shaking me awake last summer, so I don't know... I am hopefully more determined to succeed than last year, I have a lot more experience and ways to deal with tired moments, but I didn't have any really tough moments while being on Everyman and anything remotely difficult just made me oversleep, which kind of worries me.

I also have Zeo to really determine exactly how much I slept and if it was REM/some other phase of sleep. Having said that I think that Zeo often has the first 5-10 minutes as a REM, so it can't always be trusted on that sector.

I'm determined to succeed (I guess I've said that every time) and at least I'll do my record. I don't remember how long that was, but I have some vague recall that I did 18 perfect naps in a row last August.

I guess I'll allow one or two oversleeps before I call quits and then move on to quickly attempt SPAMAYL. I have not yet decided what to do after that, if anything. Playing soccer everyday, as I do in summer is a bit demanding for your body when you're only sleeping around two hours a day. I have already started to lose weight. I lost 6 kg:s last summer and thin as it is, so... tricky situation. Then again, even if I lose the weight and more importantly some muscle, the losses aren't that big.

But yeah, let's wrap this post up. See you in around 18 hours when I'll post the starting post and then again in around 40 hours when I post the first daily report.

About the site... I'll probably start working on it hard while on Uberman - it's good to keep thought focused on the task and what better way than to make a polyphasic site while being polyphasic! I've written very little content so far, I'm still very much at the planning stage still, which I'm a bit unhappy of, but it is what it is and I can only blame my own procrastination for it. It will be a site focused on polyphasic sleep and lucid dreaming with a personal development side in it.

Finally Giving Up

Sleep deprivation just keeps battering me into submission. I'm gonna go monophasic for a while to clear any possible debts. I didn't oversleep today, just fell asleep while at my computer as I was so tired.

What next? I don't know, perhaps I'll go Uberman early, as there's not really enough space before June to do any schedule.

Anyway, I won't be posting here for some time, it can be only a few days, or it could be couple of weeks, depending on how long I have patience with monophasic life.

Oops I Did It Again

Another barrier broken - I never expected to quote a Britney Spears song on my header. Anyway, my fears became reality. I still think that the method I have for waking up is foolproof, but that wasn't available last night.

I've overslept so much lately, that it's practically like I've had a monophasic week at this point. I think all of the progress on any schedule has been cleared. But I'll have one more attempt at making this schedule work with my foolproof methods.

Meanwhile, I was aiming to open the website by the end of the April, but I'm learning that I can be quite an procrastinator. Though I already knew that. Earliest you can expect the site is June, which would fit in a sense that I'll be starting Uberman then, so not only would there be interest in that sense but I would also have time to write more. Not that I'm lacking time at the moment.

Logging New Schedule Day 2

The first day was a catastrophe in terms of nap lenghts and such and to be honest while I managed to fulfill my own criteria of success this second day was still far from perfect.

The main core was nearly perfect though. Great amount of REM, decent amount of deep sleep. Overall I've gotten less than usual deep sleep during the past two days. It's a bit weird, but I'm not worrying about it.

As for naps, both were extremely short. I guess the lack of sleep deprivation is making it hard for me to fall asleep. Still I did get to sleep for a short while and the results from the evening nap were encouraging as I got five minutes of REM out of 10 minutes I was asleep. In the past over 60 days I've been polyphasing I've only had twice more REM on that nap, so considering it was only ten-minute nap that's great.

The other core was decent. I was asleep nearly the time I was supposed to, 1:25, but that was split as I woke up shortly after falling asleep. Like I've said, we are still long way from drawing conclusions, but that core had super-short amounts of REM and deep. So it still is for the most part ineffective. There's also no data yet to deduce the optimal lenght of it. I think I need at least a week before I can say anything. Meanwhile I'll keep that core around 90-120 minutes.

First nap, my usual money nap in terms of dream recall and lucids, was so short that Zeo didn't even register anything. However I felt that I was shortly asleep and I even had some vague recall of a dream, so it didn't just suck.

Overall stats for the day are: Total sleep: 4:55 / REM: 1:28 / Deep: 1:16
Effective part of the sleep 2:44
Percentage of the total: 56 %

That's a fair percentage, but I am confident that it can be improved from this at least slightly. I would aim for 65 %, but we'll see if that's too ambitious. Better than that would be amazing.

Let's Hope We're Finally Underway

Yesterday I overslept once again, but luckily got that streak over today. I'm a bit worried about tomorrow morning as I'm in the sort of mode at the moment that I, for some reason don't get up immediately when I wake up in the morning. I can't help it for some reason. It's hard to explain, so I won't even try.

Anyway, I'm still trying the schedule I outlined couple of posts ago. Tonight's stats got all fucked up, apparently my band was not properly on or something as only 41 minutes of data got collected from my 90 minute nap.

My sleep is probably because of the oversleeps in a sort of fucked up state. There's a ton of light sleep. In fact, out of the 3 hours and 52 minutes of data that got collected today, only 19 minutes were REM! There wasn't even the usual amount of deep sleep, only 1:11 of that. Weird shit, huh? Still, I didn't feel too tired today. I'm now 30 minutes away from my time to sleep, and now I am finally a bit tired, but it's no challenge to stay up for the rest of the time.

Like I said, I hope I wake up properly tomorrow. It would frustrate immensely to oversleep again. I'm doing all I can to tip the odds into my favor.

Oversleep

I suck. No updates coming today, I slept nearly 9 hours. For my defence it has to be said that I woke up from the core amidst of deep sleep. No wonder I don't remember much of it.

I don't know... But I'll keep going. Now it looks pretty bad again, like I'm doomed to fail, but at least I'll win some hours if I keep it up.

"Lucid Dreaming" Schedule Ended Up With No Dreams

It's true, my twelve day streak of dream recall is at ruins. I didn't remember any dreams.

But, on the wakefulness front the new schedule feels promising even as things didn't go perfectly today. I feel compelled to write in old log style as I'm again on a new schedule, so let's go through different phases quickly.

Core
Sleep: 3:22 / REM: 0:44 / Deep 1:33

Core went as I expected after an oversleep - I got all the sleep necessary for it. I was slightly tired upon waking up, but it was no challenge at all to get up. I woke up 5-10 minutes after my REM period was over, so if this keeps up, I need to shorten the core just slightly to hit the right spot. That said you can't put too much emphasis on this as it was after an oversleep.

Nap 1:
Sleep: 0:14 / REM: 0:06 / Deep 0:00

Well I guess I was really well rested after the core as I had huge trouble falling asleep for the first nap and even then it wasn't 100 % REM as it usually is. If this continues, my plan with this schedule might be in ruins. That said, this was probably one-off coincidence.

Core 2:
Sleep: 1:08 / REM: 0:15 / Deep 0:16

This was a little short, I aimed for 90 minutes, but I am not used to getting back to be so early. If this falling asleep problem continues with this nap, I need to shift my schedule a bit, which would be unfortunate, as the current time for this is a perfect fit. In fact, everything is perfectly as it is, I'd hate to break the status quo. That said, REM and Deep during this weren't as I expected them to be. I had really short phase of both in the middle of the nap. I expected something like a bit of deep half an hour in and after that some light sleep, then a long REM phase. Once again, I can still expect anything from this nap in tomorrow, perhaps I even manage to get this to the lenght I intended it.

Nap 2:
Sleep: 0:13 / REM: 0:03 / Deep 0:01

Once again I had trouble falling asleep and even though I shifted the alarm a bit later I still fell short of the intended nap lenght. As previous "core" was nothing like I expected it to be it was a little surprise that this nap would not work as it was intended to do. If I'd get the second core to act like a real core, then perhaps this would serve as an another high-potential REM-nap. We'll see.

Overall the day was very, very good. I felt completely alert all day without a hint off tiredness. I had my lazy moments, but they weren't down to physical or mental fatigue. This was probably the best day of the year so far when it comes to mental state. I wasn't very productive, which is unfortunate, but I expect things only to get better from here on.

Oh, and here are the totals:
Sleep: 4:57 / REM: 1:08 / Deep 1:50

Hell, that's more deep sleep than I get even while on monophasic. No wonder I feel so great! With normal, 9 hour monophasic sleep I do get about 2.5-3x the REM though, but maybe that isn't so important? Besides, I slept just over a hour less than intended and my naps didn't have the effectiveness they should have had, so there's potential to get over two hours with that. If I'd get that big numbers, I'd think we've found a keeper. I can totally see myself using this schedule permanently, after I'm done with all the testing of different schedules.

But whoa, I'm getting way ahead of myself. There's no quarantee that I can keep even these results up. Perhaps it will start to deteriorate just like normal Everyman did. Perhaps not. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow.

Another Oversleep, Changing Schedules

This morning, for first time in a few months, I genuinely slept through my alarm. Usually I just fall asleep again after waking up to alarms, so I guess in that sense this was more acceptable. I'd had my fill though, it just doesn't seem that I'm going to adapt to Everyman, even to my slightly looser version, not at least now.

I'm switching to another variation of Everyman I came up with. My schedule stays mostly unchanged, just the second nap turns to another core. I have a clear idea what I'm expecting of it, but of course I need to see it in action to see what happens. Lets get to it.

Core - 2:00-5:30
This has varied a bit for me during the Everyman, but overall 3½ hours seems the best for me, I get two short phases of REM and all of my deep sleep here. However, with normal Everyman this would change for some reason - I would only get one phase of REM and wake up very messed up. I believe that this is a part of adaptation, I just need to fare though that phase. However, I believe that the second core changes things, because oversleeps have reset this. Always on the morning after an oversleep, I've had a lot better sleep quality with my core and I wake up less tired. So let's hope that the added sleep to nap helps with this.

Nap 1 - 9.00-9.30 - "Lucid" nap
I have gotten plenty of lucid dreams during this nap. Why? Because it's all REM!

Stats tell you all you need to know: In last four days, average nap lenght has been 25 minutes, with 21 minutes of REM. In earlier effort this month it was 16 minutes of REM in 20 minutes of sleep. I know that this nap works like polyphasic naps should work, so no need to change anything.

Core II: 13.00-14.30
I'll be starting with 90 minutes, but I'll see how my body reacts. All I want is a one solid phase of REM and possibly a few minutes of deep sleep. I want to time my waking up perfectly in the end of REM. It might be best to have two hours here, or I might be able to do that with 60 minutes. We'll see.

Nap 2 - 21.00-21.30
I don't know where to put this nap to be honest. Usually I have a longer break between 2nd and a third nap, so maybe that's even more approriate now given that I sleep longer during the day. Anyway, I hope that the second core has the same effect as the first and gets me to have REM during this nap as well. I mean just overall this schedule seems perfect for having a lot of lucid dreams.

It shouldn't be too hard to adapt either, but we'll see. I guess the biggest challenge for me will be, once again, to get up once alarm goes off. In a sense this is more of an biphasic schedule with naps, so it shouldn't be too hard. I should have 6 hours of sleep everyday, so this doesn't even win me that many hours.

In a sense this is just a preparation for the real deal. I plan to stay on this schedule for at least a month. If it doesn't seem that I'm fully adapted to it in last week of May, I'll return to monophasic for a week to clear the worst of sleep debts away. Then it's time for the real deal: Uberman. June will be spent on that. If I don't adapt, I'll switch to SPAMAYL in July. August will still be open to pretty much anything. I hope that I do adapt to something. That said, I'll probably have to return to monophasic for last week of July, it's all still open

Anti-Climactic 200th Post

This is blog's 200th post - and most likely one of the last ever. In many ways it's a typical post - I'm moaning about an oversleep!

I got up from core well enough, but fell asleep fail sitting. Luckily it was only 30 minutes or so. Then cats or something disrupted my first nap. Anyway, today was already ruined by the morning core

I did stay under 4h 40 mins yesterday and it looks like that will happen today as well. In that sense I'm staying on track. At the very least I'm sleep-deprived... Yay?

Pattern Continues, No Oversleeps Though

I failed today again. Didn't oversleep though, at least in the sense I think of oversleeps. However, I slept too long in the second nap, going over the 25-minute mark to 30 minutes. It's not bad really, but by my new definition of failure, it's a failure. It also seems like I go over the 4 hour 40 minute mark of total sleep today.

Also, I didn't get up straight away on... well, any of the naps or core. I just laid down after waking up, it's almost a miracle I didn't oversleep.

Now this truly is a lack of discipline, instead of just bad decisions while tired. I need to step it back up.

Deterioration Hittinhg Again

I overslept again yesterday. It was a real moment of truth for me, as I realized I was falling back to the old deterioration pattern, which usually by the end of the month means I'm practically monophasic.

It's different kind of tiredness that fucks me up always this late in the month. I feel drowsy, but not total zombie, so it kind of lulls you into this false sense of security - "I'll stay awake fine, I can even lie downzzzZZZZZZZ..."

But I'll try to interrupt that pattern now. To be honest I'm still lacking weapons to fight simple lack of discipline in getting up. When you are in that tired mode it's not the same mind thinking that usually is. That's why it's no use to get too upset to yourself - perhaps on the fact that you couldn't find a way to prevent it, but not the thing itself.

Last four days has been of oversleep - good day - oversleep - good day -pattern. I would like to notch up a few good days in a row for a change. It's not gonna be easy though. I really should train with alarm, but it just seems I never find the time.

Overslept Again

Guess who? Exactly, didn't get up straight away. I need more alarms that require me to get up. It's simple luckily, I just have to put my Zeo further from my bed. I really pondered whether I should continue this as it looks like the same quick deterioration that my Everyman usually gets. But yeah, I'll keep going.

Uberman effort is coming also close, I don't know whether I'll start it late May or early June, but anyway it's only 1½-2 months away. Whether it's doomed to fail, we'll see. I'm hopeful as it really get you to different mindset compared to Everyman.

I Must Get Rid of Oversleeping

The details of the morning are a bit in the dark for me, but I did oversleep heavily after seven days of near-perfect adherence - only failed day was the day I last blogged where I had a 20 minute oversleep. I had gone through tough middle period of the week and I was starting to feel better.

This morning, I felt okay. I even typed it on the computer. I'm still keeping records on every phase with the old 1-5 scale. I had put 3 for the morning.

I made the obvious mistake of staying in the bed for extended lenght. In fact, I could from now on consider it a failure - whether I sleep or not - if I don't get up right away. That said, I did remember that after some time of that lying around I was getting up, after all I had already marked data into my records. But I don't know what I did do after that. If I continued to lie around, what the fuck man? It's never acceptable to stay in the bed after waking up, or hell ever, except when you're feeling very good. Then you can do it while you read magazines or watch tv or whatever.

I'm rambling a bit. I gotta get going, my schedule went FUBAR because of that oversleep, so I have to do some stuff that was supposed to have been done YESTERDAY.

I'll proceed as normal, but this time with even stricter conditions of failure.

Day Four - Zombie Mode

Remember last summer (if you were around here) when I wrote some weird shit half-asleep? Well, I'm in that mode now. Probably the first time that has happened under Everyman. I've been tired, but no as tired as this.

Overall there's something weird going on with this effort. It's a lot harder than it's supposed to be. I've been tired all the time. I guess that's because for once I've actually somewhat of adhered to the schedule. Today was the day I slept the most, 4½ hours, just the amount my schedule is supposed to provide. My average for four days is now exactly four hours.

I'll still trying to survive until 2 am, it's now only 0:45 here, so over a hour to go before core.

Day Two's End - I'm Tired

I've adhered perfectly now for two days. According to Zeo though I didn't sleep on couple of naps yesterday and one on today, but that's a bit bizarre when the graph shows a bit of sleep on every one of those. What's important though is that I remember sleeping, so I've marked up only a couple of minutes of sleep for those naps.

I'm very tired, the most tired I'd been for a while. I'm just writing this to stay awake for the last 10 minutes before I can go to sleep. My schedule basicly sets itself up for about 4½ hours of sleep / day, but I've gotten barely 4 hours, which basicly makes it more like standard Everyman. But it's the naps where the sleep is lacking - the core and the first nap are longer than usual still.

I'm still playing around with the core lenght. I thought I had it figured out but this morning, despite having 10 minutes more than yesterday I didn't get the second REM cycle which left me fucked up for the whole day. Yesterday I managed to get it fully, this time it didn't even start by the time my alarm went off. So today I'm probably going to sleep the full 3½ hours my schedule allows. We'll see what happens.

I put that bounty on my head also by the way, but I don't even know if anyone knows. I just put a note on the refridgerator that has my sleep times and that tells if you catch me sleeping outside those times, he/she who reads must wake me up and collect the reward. I don't know if it will matter at all, especially since most of my oversleeps come around 5 am, when nobody else is awake.

God I'm tired. I gotta go now, just going to grind couple of minutes more awake. I'm gonna pass out soon. Tomorow morning's gonna be tough, but I'm constantly psyching myself to push harder.

Restarting

Well I'm embarrased to make another one of this kind of posts, but what can I say... You can't change your results without changing yourself. That's apparently the case. I had heavy oversleep today so I might as well consider myself starting from day one.

I'm putting a reward on my head that if I'm sleeping outside my pre-planned zones and someone spots me doing that, I'll pay them. That alone probably isn't enough to change me, so I'll start training when I feel good by going to bed, setting my alarm couple of minutes away and then just instantly getting up. Repeat ad nauseam and maybe, just maybe I could get a pavlovian response out of myself when it matters and get up.

But anyway, the point of this is, that I'm going in again, and this time I'm going in hard - I have to have results before the summer, at least that's how I feel.

Three Strikes and You're Out

STTTTRRRRRRIKE ONE!

So I overslept today - it was the good old lack of discipline thing. I either should just practice getting up so much it becomes a pavlovian response to shut down the alarm and get up or just have many more alarms scattered across the room. I read about an alarm that shoots a ball when it goes off, now I do want that! But yeah, it wasn't bad oversleep, 30 minutes extra on core and 30 minutes extra on first nap.

I've recently decided exactly what I consider as a failure. For core, anything over 3h 30 min is an oversleep. First nap can be a little longer than the others, so I allow 35 minutes for it - I want to try WILD with this nap. The other two naps have 25 minutes max each. I guess that's really tight, but it's better to have tight standards than loose.

So how many times can you oversleep before you might as well quit? Well, in my experience, three times is a good guess. Obviously if you keep trying you're going to have a few oversleeps more before the schedule completely crumbles, but I feel that after three oversleeps you have lost all the momentum and have no chance to adapt.

That means I can still fuck up once before I might as well give up. That said, if the third oversleep happens too early in the month, I'll still keep trying, just trying to prove me wrong.

I haven't made any progress on the site (god I hate being lazy). I'll at least go through a tons of sleepwrite I've made here in case I find something useful for the site.

Into Everyman... Again.

I stopped my recent Everyman attempt... Or heck, I don't even know how to call it. Because in the traditional sense, the sleep deprivation isn't there anymore. However, I still oversleep like once in three days. So I'm like instantly half-adapted, but not fully. Because I'm not fully adapted, it causes my schedule to deteriorate eventually. The oversleeps get more frequent and eventually I just slide back to monohasic.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, I stopped. I stopped the attempt after 24 days. On eight of those days I slept over five hours. My average per 24 hours was 5 hours 44 minutes, which is kind of high. I got 1½ hours of REM everyday on average as I got deep as well. Deep sleep is constant for me - it doesn't matter whether I'm monophasic or on everyman, I still get the same amount of deep sleep. It's the REM that differs - I get 2½-3 hours of that normally, which is a lot.

So I guess I'd have to have 100 % optimization of REM & deep for my 4.5 hours of Everyman sleep to get my monophasic amounts. However, I don't believe that I need to have full amounts that I have usually. I think that 2 hours of REM will do well. That basically means that I need to get REM on all of my naps - that has not happened yet.

So basically my schedule has started to settle - My core is just over 3 hours, 3½ hours maximum but usually about 3:15 will do. I get two short spells of REM and all of my deep during that. My first nap is longer than the others because that is every time REM and I could probably go little over 30 mins and it would still be 100 % REM. Rest of my naps are the usual 20 minutes, but I can go a little longer as well if I feel like it, but I think that's unnecessarily risking an oversleep.

During my last attempt I didn't have traditional oversleeps on naps - however, I did have a number of times where I woke up too tired and once again didn't have the discipline to get up.

Core is the only spot where I sleep through alarm. Zeo is useless in that sense - I always sleep through it's soft alarm (I love the alarm, but it's just not heavy enough to wake up from core) - It's Immortal's One by One that blasts me awake every time.

That's all about that attempt. I've been monophasic for about a week now and I will go back to Everyman 1st of April. My brain has changed somehow because of these constant attempts and it's incredibly difficult for me to get to work mode while monophasic. When I wake up after 10 hours of sleep I already feel like day is half over and there isn't time to do anything so I just get very lazy. I know it sounds crazy, but that's because I am. I have honestly gotten a lot more done by 9 am. with polyphasic than what I get done all day when monophasic. It just completely shifts my lifestyle, it's like different mental frameworks are at work.

In other news, I'm working on a site about polyphasic sleep & lucid dreaming (and perhaps bunch of other stuff - that's still kind of a small niche) that hopefully will be online by end of April, but we'll see how lazy I can get. I still haven't written a word of it, just done research, and even that only a bit.

Speaking of lucid dreaming, my current Everyman absolutely rules in that sense - I'm getting more results than on monophasic ever! The first nap is sweet spot for getting WILDs and DILDs. It's weird because in the past I used to really struggle to even remember my dreams while polyphasic. I don't know what has changed, but I'm glad as it is.

My plans for summer have not changed, I hope to fully adapt to Everyman and once I accomplish that, I will go for Uberman. Then maybe in late July or in August I want to test out SPAMAYL.

My Plan Didn't Work - Let's Try A New Plan!

I'm frustrated. Not because I did fall asleep unintenionally again, but because I don't have any clue how long I slept. I woke up 7.30 but can't remember when I fall asleep. I was awake still at 6.00. Is that it? Did I sleep for 90 minutes?

Aargh, why didn't I get up or at least put the headband on as it seemed like I didn't have the discipline again. I'll mark it up as 90 minutes and next I'm gonna download keylogger to this computer as well to know when I last did anything. That will at least give me a clue about these unintentional sleeps.

In fact, now that this happened again I'm going to go with the flow instead of trying to fight it. So I want to fall asleep already after barely hour up. Fine! But now I'm going to really go for WILD in those spots, because I know that I'm highly likely to go straight to REM. The way I naturally go to sleep hasn't produced any WILDs in months of polyphasing, so I guess I have to just focus on it.

As I said, I marked that I slept for 90 minutes, but I can't be certain, it's possible I slept even only for 30 minutes. Thing is that I already feel like I'm liable to wake up naturally from that nap, which supports my urge to try to WILD during those naps. I'd just set the alarm to a clearly later time, either 45 minutes or 60 minutes and keep on shifting it later if I don't fall asleep right away. I also leverage the full potential of that REM-cycle that way. I usually had longer REM-phases than 20 minutes during my earlier attempts.

I just gotta play into the cards and even if I lose some of the efficiency, I still am very likely to mantain under five hours per sleep daily and I might get some WILDs to make this even more enjoyable.

I'm kind of frustrated it isn't tomorrow morning already! For one I want to make up for today's lack of discipline and also I am eager to try out this approach.

By the way, that idea sprang to me completely spontaniously during writing this. But it really does fit into what seems to be my body's natural cycle.

Snakes in the Paradise

This is starting to spiral out of control again. It's day seven now, and I again had problems, this time falling asleep for an extra hour. It's not too serious, I still can stay under five hours for today, which is my objective anyway.

The problem was once again staying in bed. Do what I say, and always get up immediately, not what I do, which is staying in bed, possibly staying there for the whole wake phase.

It didn't backfire for my first phase today, as I fel surprisingly good for the whole phase, but kind of hoped I could finally start sleeping again. When I finally could, I was again woken up by my dad, this distrupting me right in the middle of a sleep. I stayed bed and didn't fall asleep back right away as I was trying - there were still nearly 20 minutes until my alarm. I finally shifted the alarm later for few minutes and fell asleep. I woke up to alarm as intended, but again, for some reason, refused to get up and didn't even start doing anything.

Today's lesson is, whenever you get even a little bit of sleep, don't try to get more if your naptime has gone already. And remember yesterday's lessons.

I guess I'll set myself a minigoal of going right at the 5:00 to practice football during the next 3 days. That ought to snap me out of this pattern. If I do that, and get up right away from every nap, I'll treat myself to some... ultra-violence. Just joking, let's say chocolate.

First oversleep(s?) - Day 6

I woke up normally this morning, but instead of getting up and doing something, I just did the first deadly sin of Polyphasic sleep and just stayed there in the bed. I felt okay, but sleep can be tricky and the time passed so fast that I'm pretty sure I fell in and out of asleep. I didn't mind it too much, as even if I had slept the whole time I'd gotten 4,5 hours of sleep and that just the core for two-nap Everyman, and I definitely didn't sleep the whole time.

However, I did fall asleep some time later while listening to music, again laying down. Laying down per se isn't the problem, it's the fact that I to take action when I felt that I might start falling asleep.

But overall it's still not a too big of a deal. Minor setback. I still think I can keep my overall sleep for today under five hours. I estimated that I have slept four hours and twenty minutes today, which might be a slight underestimate, but it's close enough. I guess I should start wearing Zeo's headband whenever I'm tired, as the most frustrating aspect psychologically for me with these oversleeps is the fact that I dont know how long I exactly slept. Now I have decent indication though as I just need to check last.fm when my last song ended, and as it is it ended 30 minutes ago, so that's how long I probably slept.

This is annoying me a bit, but my only real goal is to keep and adapt to a schedule that required under five hours of sleep, so I'm still on my way to that if I keep this up. But yeah, the failure in itself doesn't bother me too much, it's the manner of it once again. Polyphasic sleep can really bring the worst out of people and it keeps on magnifying my problem's with self-discipline. I have to keep working on it. I know enough about polyphasic sleep that I shouldn't get arrogant, yet sometimes I still keep doing it.

So reminding myself one last time...

If I stay in bed...
...I'll do something!
....I'll Have an alarm set a few minutes away just in case.
...I'll stay there maximum of ten, maybe twenty minutes. Why would I stay longer, wasn't the point of this whole ordeal to gain more waketime? Why would I dump it by doing the same I would do when sleeping. Just doesn't make sense.

Also, if you start feeling tired, just get the fuck up and do something, you can't afford to keep lying down or sitting as it's DOOM for your polyphasic schedule.

Might seem a bit overkill to beat myself up so badly for such a small error that only sets me back one day at max, but no. I need to get these drilled in my head. It's been like 10 attempts on different schedules and it always seems to come down to this. Simply not taking the hint that my body was about to hit sleepmode and therefore falling asleep.

Lastly this means that I need to probably shift the naptimes slightly for the day, which is bad for overall schedule, but like I said, this will set me back and a day is probably how long for. For all the beating up of myself, I should take a look into some positives and the fact that I went for five days without oversleeps is kinda cool. However it weren't five days of perfect adherence because I missed naps.

Day Three, Over-confidence and Sleepiness

Hi guys, whatäs up? Decided to post on my progress so far.

So I'm on the fourth day and the first three days saw no oversleeps, but I didn't hit every nap either. The third and last nap has been somewhat tough for me, but last night it finally worked out too. What's been really exciting for me is the surprisingly good results so far. I'm tired at the moments as I just woke up from my core, but overall I've been feeling decent. There results Zeo is indicating at the moment are nothing short of amazing. My first nap has already been full-lenght REM-nap as it was in the original attempt. But it's not just the first nap - yesterday I had short bit of REM during every nap.

Problems haven't been there just yet, only tough spots has been the mornings and the evenings, but it's easy to strech for a little more in the evening - morning on the other hand, is more of a nightmare. I had my toughest test just now as there was a power break and I had to sit in the danrkness for a while. It's really tough when you're as tired as I am currently.

My is starting to settle at 3 hours and 25 minutes of lenght and Zeo seems to have picked up on my cycles as SmartWake wakes me at exactly same spot of the cycle every morning. I still start by getting all my deep sleep very quickly. The core finishes with one segment of REM - there is also a short segment of REM just after the deep sleep. Just makes me wonder overall, doesn't thig mean I have 4 cycles of REM? Well, I guess the short bit counts in the core, so it would be two cycles...

By the way I went really close to failure just now as I napped and accidentally left SmartWake on. It woke me up almost instantly after falling asleep, so I reset the alarm but apparently it didn't work right for some reason. I woke up 18 minutes after my alarm when my dad woke me up and asked about whether I should be going to the bus. I didn't have any other alarms on due to getting lazy / over-confident. But yeah, luckily I avoided the oversleep and while I woke up 18 minutes late, I had only slept 21 minutes overall on that nap, at least according to Zeo. Even if were a bit more it still wouldn't have mattered.

Other than that nap excursion I've enjoyed being polyphasic again as for now and I'm looking forward to having success this time.

I don't know what will I do this summer. I still crave for Uberman, so probably I'll try that for some time, but unlikely as much as last summer. Being monophasic would kind of suck though as I enjoy the nighttimes too much and sleeping during day is such a pain. But now I'm getting way ahead of things, I'll think about that more in the late April / early May.

Change of Plans

I intended to postpone another attempt at least until April, but now I've decided to go back to Everyman starting tomorrow. Monophasic life has been okay, but I see no need to stay in it and the fact of the matter is that I lack structure when I'm not polyphasic. My dream recall has been reviving recently. I hope I can keep that up while turning polyphasic.

So I'm going to continue with similar program that I used earlier. I'm going to utilize Zeo with my core and my core will still be over 3 hours. I'm not going to do the extra morning nap anymore as the extension to core made it obsolete. Also I've started with Uberman every time I've adapted to Everyman so far, but I won't be doing that now, instead I go straight into Everyman.
Core: 1.30-(4.20-5.00)
Nap 1: 9.00-9.30
Nap 2: 14.00-14.30
Nap 3: 19.30-20.00

These nap-times, of course, might change a bit as I adjust them to simply work better, but this will be my quideline.

I don't know how accurately I'm going to update my progress here. Perhaps daily at least from the start. We'll see that as well. But I'm not going to bore you any more, that's all for now.

Just an Update

I gave up 3 weeks ago completely and went back to monophasic to reset my cycles. I have no readaptation planned for a while, I might keep monophasic until around April/May. Then I would hope to adapt to Everyman and finally in the summer to Uberman/SPAMAYL. But everything is hanging in the air the moment and my plans might change very much in the coming months.

I'm content being monophasic at the moment. Sure, I won't have time to do pretty much anything but the problem has always been time management for me rather than the actual time. When I'm using my 12-14 hour day efficiently then I might start thinking about adding more wake hours into the mix. Besides my lucid dreaming has really suffered from constant adapting to polyphasic schedules. Which is kind of weird since so many report improving on those. So yeah, I really want just to get back to good recall and eventually getting lucids again.

I'm Mad at Myself

Phase ratings:
Core 4
Nap I 4
Nap II I
Nap III didn't bother
Nap IV anymore

Average 4.2

Total sleep around 7 hours
Total REM ???
Total Deep ??

I slept 3h 30 minutes for core, actually until the last possible alarm time. I went to sleep probably too late for SmartWake. It didn't matter, I felt fine. For the first nap I couln't sleep again, but decided to stay in bed. I finally got tired half an hour later and got my 15 minutes of sleep there. I really don't know what to do with that nap, perhaps I should shift it just later along with the second nap. I'll keep the schedule intact for the moment and get that nap late whenever I feel like it.

Crap. I kept pushing it in the second nap and finally overslept. For 2½ hours. This messes up my program.

You know, I'll return to you once I manage to string 7 days together again. No point of having million Day ones. So next time I'll post I'll be talking Day Eight. It might be 6 months from now... Or week from now.

Day 1 of 2011

Phase ratings:
Core 5
Nap I 4
Nap II 4
Nap III 3
Nap IV 5

Average 4.2

Total sleep 4:00
Total REM 0:55
Total Deep 0:45

Again I'm feeling great right off the bat after core. SmartWake woke me after 3h and 10 minutes of sleep, so it's not much more that I need, though it's too early to say anything. That's really the thing I hate about this, it takes so long to be sure of anything. But if it stays like this, the first nap will really become obsolete. I again missed it, though I got a little tired for it, but my mind was racing too much and I couldn't calm down.

I had a bit extended second nap, but nothing serious. The urge to stay in bed was extremely strong though. The third nap was weird. I barely close my eyes, yet it felt like I had slept for a while. I slept like minute or two after naturally waking up - so short time that even the Zeo didn't register it. I'm certain I slept though. I had a slight out-of-schedule sleep while watching football nearly two hours later. I slept accidentally around five minutes. So nothing serious going on here. The last nap was as standard as it gets, though I had hard time getting up. When I did though I never had any more trouble.

Well...

Day 2
Phase ratings:
Core 5
Nap I 3
Nap II 3
Nap III 4
Nap IV 4

Average 3.8

Total sleep 6h 05 min
Total REM 1h 35 min
Total Deep 1h 10 min

The extra time for the core seems to be making a world of difference. I woke up easily to the SmartWake after 3h and 20 minutes. However, the fact that the last alarm time was still 20 minutes away made my lack of discipline rear it's ugly head again. I fell asleep again, waking up only after my cellphone went off, luckily. The first nap was missed again, which makes me think that the extra sleep in the core might make this nap obsolete. However, I did sleep after my alarm went off for the core and I did sleep nearly 6 hours yesterday AND I did sleep practically two weeks monophasically prior that. So basically it's too early to know. Once I start to really hit adaptation again, I might appreciate that 20 minutes there.

As for the second nap, I had normal light sleep nap there, but yeah... You guessed it I didn't get up. I tried to read a magazine on the bed. I ended up hitting snooze for three hours while sleepin in short bursts. I marked it up as 2 hour sleep, but I didn't have Zeo headband on so I have no clue how long I exactly was asleep.

But the basic message here is that I suck. New year starts tmorrow, so I'll call that another day 1 (I know it's getting redundant) and reset this. However I'll remember the number 4.4 as the aim for phase rating average.

I hope the fact that I'll going to have a full schedule again tomorrow will help me get up instead of slacking off.