Jermil's Sleep Blog

I barely made it through my 2-6am time of zombie-like lack of focus on anything that wasn’t total brain shutdown mode.

But somehow I did make it. And when 6am rolled around, I was so proud of myself. I really felt like I earned this upcoming ~20 minutes of sleep.

I was imagining how great I would feel after I woke up and had just enough REM sleep to recharge and get through my next block of time before I could sleep again.

Unfortunately, it didn’t go anything like that.

I woke up to no alarm around 9am. I was confused at first but I knew almost intuitively what happened. I was so exhausted from being awake for so many hours for so many days that sleep demanded it’s time in my life.

I felt sad initially because I thought I was doing so well. But this has to be one of the hardest things for a mere mortal to do alone.

So I took my pity party out into the world and sought food. I made it back to my hotel a little before 10am and dove into bed for that nap.

I recently awoke from my 6pm nap and every nap is still full of crazy dreams that feel so real that I wake up so confused that it was only a dream.

So I’ll forge ahead. I won’t quit today because I don’t think I should. And the first week is the hardest, if not the only hard part of becoming a polyphasic sleeper.

Thanks for reading!

I started Tuesday. It is now Saturday at 12:34am PST.

I’m doing my online job and listening to music but all I can think about is how good it would feel to turn off all of my alarms and sleep until I’m fixed again.

I want to get a full night’s sleep and feel awake and completely refreshed tomorrow morning.

I want to flail around in this somewhat comfortable bed that the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino has provided for me.

I want to wrap myself in the covers until I’m all warm and cozy.

But I won’t.

I can’t.

Because I want to keep doing this. Feeling like this is a part of it. I have to make it through this hard part in order to get to the awesome part that I’ll find right around this corner.

Or it’s not. But I’m pretty sure it is.

I’ll let you know when I get there.

These are the times that I woke up and got in the bed for most of December. It seems like I would sleep for about 2-5 hours for 4-5 days then catch up with a night of 8-11 hours of sleep. I doubt that’s the best way to live.

12-02-2010
in bed at 3am est

12-03-2010
woke up at 7am est
in bed at 215am est

12-04-2010
woke up at 8am est
in bed at 2am pst

12-05-2010
woke up at 822am pst
in bed at 346am pst

12-06-2010
woke up at 1140am pst
in bed at 145am pst

12-07-2010
woke up at 741am pst
in bed at 445am pst (!!!)

12-08-2010
woke up at 805am pst
in bed at 130am pst

12-09-2010
woke up at 606am pst
in bed at 145am pst

12-10-2010
woke up at 7am pst
in bed at 455am pst (!!!)

12-11-2010
woke up at 702am pst
in bed at 1231am pst

12-12-2010
woke up at 1103am pst
in bed at 504am pst (!!!)

12-13-2010
woke up at 733am pst
in bed at 134am pst

12-14-2010
woke up at 7am pst
started polyphasic sleep

I believe one of my main problems with becoming polyphasic last time was that I didn’t have any real motivation to do it. I was bored at home, felt like doing something different, and decided that was it. And I failed.

This time, I took time to think about why I wanted to become polyphasic and what it would help me accomplish at this stage in my life.

The major reason is so I’ll be able to be awake and alert in Las Vegas and can take beautiful pictures of the city at any hour no matter what. I’m very excited to see what I can do with that superpower.

Another reason is so that I can do my online job for 8 or more hours everyday and still have plenty of time to do whatever else I want and need to do. I will be awake for 22 hours everyday. Subtract 10 and I’ll still have 12 hours of complete free time to do whatever it is I choose.

The last reason to succeed with polyphasic sleep that I’ve come up with so far is because I think it is one of the most amazing things the human body can do that most people don’t even believe can be done. To me, it’s like being able to see through walls. Most people won’t believe you when you tell them you can do it. Even if you prove it to them, they think it’s some kind of trick.

I expect these reasons to be enough to enable me to achieve my primary goal of being a polyphasic sleeper which will allow me plenty of time and energy to live my dreams, instead of just sleeping through them.

jjj
I just finished my third nap. Coincidentally, I was keeping track of what time I was going to sleep for a side project and thought those might come in handy as a reference to how horrible my sleep schedule was before this. I’ll post the times next.

I just woke up from my first nap from polyphasic sleeping again and I feel ok. I haven’t slept much at all lately so I figured I might as well not sleep with a purpose.

Since I’ve done this before and know it’s possible, I figured I’d set up a different system this time. I’ll come up with motivations and rewards for sticking with this and also a possible end date which I’ll post next.

I wonder if the sun in Vegas has different effects on sleep and wakefulness than the Virginia.

I am starting again in 1 minute. It is 2pm Pacific time and I am in the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV.

Alright so this is round two of polyphasic sleep. I did it successfully for about 3 weeks back in 2008 and now I’m going at it again.

I started yesterday evening with no preparation or anything. I don’t think it’s possible to even prepare for this.

Since I had my own posts to read from last time, I knew what to expect. Also, just knowing that I did it before is making this time a lot easier.

One thing I’ve noticed so far is that I get a really happy feeling every time I get into bed. Most people probably get that same feeling from time to time but I get it 6 times a day!

I’m already getting lucid dreams which is generally a lot of fun.

The night time was a bit rough and I felt confused and disoriented when I woke up around 2:30am. But I kept myself occupied and didn’t oversleep or anything.

But I remember it getting harder everyday until the week was over.

Out of nowhere, I decided to live polyphasically again starting today.

I realized that once again my time is my own. Then I also noticed that I have something I can fill with that time and make a bit of extra money.

I started today, Monday, April 12 at 6pm. In a week, I should be past the adaptation phase and sleeping only 2 hours a day. I’ll keep a daily log here of how everything goes this time around.

I was trying to read through all old posts and found them a bit hard to navigate. So I’ll put a list of them here to make everything a bit easier:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3 – Late For a Nap
Day 4 – Very Vivid Dream
Day 5 – Overslept
Day 6 – Missing Naps and Oversleeping
Day 7 – Week One Done
Oversleeping During Adaptation Phase of Uberman Sleep
Polyphasic Sleep Is Heavenly
Polyphasic Sleep On The Road
The Polyphasic Sleep Experiment is Over

When I started this trial, I had all my time to myself. I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Anyone who hung out with me was gracious enough to adapt to my schedule. When I napped, they napped with me or occupied themselves in other ways and woke me in a half hour.

But when I went home for Thanksgiving, I traded in that extreme freedom for the opportunity to spend time with family. It wasn’t a bad trade-off at all. I’ll always choose spending time with my family over a silly sleep experiment.

I knew that if I did keep up with my naps, I wouldn’t be able to go certain places with my family because I’d have a nap coming up in an hour or so. Or if I did try to nap while we were out, I’d have to go back to the car or something and take away quality time that could be spent with people who love me.

I tried to get back into polyphasic sleeping once I got back to my world. I couldn’t adapt back though. I would set my alarm for 30 minutes and wake up 6 hours later with no recollection of turning off the alarm. After that happened for a few days, I decided I’d stop fooling myself. Especially since I’m going back home soon and I’d end up in this same boat again.

It was a WONDERFUL experience. The main thing I miss is the extremely vivid dreams every time I went to sleep. They felt so real but I got to the point where I was able to tell when I was dreaming. For 20 minutes 6 times a day, I could do ANYTHING I wanted and I had complete control over it. It was like playing a real life video game where the only limit was your supremely ridiculous sleeping imagination. I’m sad to have to give that up.

I would still recommend it to anyone that has at least a month to do whatever they want with their time. Hopefully everyone has a month at some point in their life to take control of everything they do. If not, that’s a different issue that would be covered in my main blog.

Thanks for reading this and when I start this experiment again, I’ll write about it here.

I embarked on a 9 hour road trip from Virginia to Michigan the day before Thanksgiving.  I wasn’t too worried about it since I knew there would be rest stops along the way and I could definitely get my naps in.  But it started out much harder than I expected.

I left around 4am.  I felt fine for a good while right up until my 6am naptime.  I came across a rest area in Pennsylvania right near 6 and slept for about 20 minutes.

When I woke up, the sun was rising.  I hit the road again feeling refreshed.  But about two hours later, I started feeling really drowsy.  I found myself nodding off once or twice and realized I had to do something in order to not plow into the back of a 18 wheeler.

Oddly enough, around that same time, my sister sent me a text telling me to call her if I get sleepy.  I called her INSTANTLY and we talked for about an hour or so until it was almost my naptime again.

After that nap, I felt a lot better and was able to make it the rest of the way with no problems.  I didn’t get caught in any traffic at all.  I wonder if I had to go 10-20 miles an hour, would I have become sleepy again and nodded off in the middle of the freeway.  

Hopefully I’ll never know.