Jermil's Sleep Blog

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

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

I’m loving this polyphasic sleep experiment.  I can’t imagine going back but I know I’ll have to soon.  I’m living it up while I can though.

I came up with an idea that would allow the church that I attend to be able to spread their message across the world!  I came up with that during church but I feel like the level of creativity that I’m at these days is directly tied to polyphasic sleep.

I completely missed a nap yesterday because I was helping Narendra move.  I started feeling weird an hour after my scheduled nap time.  Weird like I started getting confused and life started feeling like it was a dream.  Not extremely dreamy but almost an intoxicated feeling.  It wasn’t bad but it was definitely noticable.

Obviously , I ended up oversleeping when I got to my next nap.  Your body needs so much REM sleep daily or you’ll eventually DIE or pass out in your mashed potatoes and gravy.  I slept for 2 hours instead of 20-30 minutes.  I felt great when I woke up though.  I think that’s better for me since I oversleep almost every other night.  I figure sleeping about 4 or so hours daily gets me more free time than sleeping for 8-12 hours daily like I used to.

The main benefit is this extremely creative mindstate.  I surprise myself with a lot of the things I come up with.  This is something that I hope sticks with me when this is over.  I’ll type something out and be amazed at what I just produced.  Or I’ll come up with an idea for a picture to take and when I do it, it’s stunning.  Maybe I’m just my biggest fan and the sleep deprivation tricks me into thinking that everything I do is awesome.  Maybe this is inflating my ego to monumental proportions and I believe I’m the best thing out there.

It’s been a week since I’ve started this experiment.  It feels like it’s been FOREVER.  The days are way longer and I have more time to do crazy things.

I’ve noticed my level of creativity is greater during the late night hours.  I believe that after midnight, my brain works differently than during the daytime.  And I’m able to express that creativity without having to worry about going to bed for the night.  I just take a break every once in a while to recharge.  Then I can keep on going with what I was doing.

Lucid dreaming is amazing.  I had a fantastic dream the other night that felt extremely real but was so preposterous that I knew it wasn’t real while I was dreaming it.  But it was still rather enjoyable.

This is an experience that everyone should try at least once!  I can’t imagine going back to sleeping all night like everyone else.  I know that I’ll have to soon but polyphasic sleeping is just incredible.  Even doing it for a week will change your life.

I plan to stick with it until I leave DC at least.  The only rough spots are around 3 or 4 in the morning.  I’ll have to figure out a way to still be productive during that time instead of being a zombie.  I can keep myself going if someone is here during that time. But when no one’s here, I slowly degrade into a zombie and only want to eat oatmeal cookies and cheese.

I plan to keep updating almost everyday and especially when something weird happens.  Sign up for the RSS feed or subscribe through email to get the updates to come to you!

I overslept again last night.  I guess I should’ve expected it since I missed 2 naps yesterday.

I tried to sleep at 6pm and just couldn’t fall asleep.  I tried again at 6:30 and was slowing dozing off.  Then I got a phone call from a guy who wanted to buy my table!  I was so excited I took a friend to dinner.

We got back around 9 and I tried to nap at 10.  It wasn’t working for me.  I decided to not force it and just got up and got to work.

We got a ton of things accomplished photography related and I worked on an idea for a niche blog.

I was able to sleep at 2am and I felt a lot better afterwards.

I want to see how practical this is in the real world when I have to deal with real people.  During this week, I mostly kept to myself and didn’t worry about anyone else’s schedule.  I did what I wanted when I wanted to.  That worked out great because I could head back home in time for my naps and not be concerned about it too much.

I miss that extra time I would’ve had this morning while everyone else slept.  I feel like I’ve wasted most of the day when I only lost 4 hours.

I didn’t think it would happen to me.  I thought I was stronger than everybody else.  I was wrong.

From what I’ve read, oversleeping is the reason a lot of people fail during the adaptation period of polyphasic sleeping.  Their bodies can’t handle the drastic change in sleep habits and somehow tricks you into staying asleep longer than the prescribed 20 minutes.

I remember feeling extremely tired around 4am.  I wasn’t scheduled to sleep until 6am.  Somehow I made it and  got in the bed at 5:45.  When my alarm went off, the time was shortly after 6.  I felt like a disaster and decided I’d give myself 10 more minutes of sweet, sweet sleepy time.  I reckon I set the alarm wrong and didn’t wake up until almost 11am.  I was devastated.

Physically, I felt bad.  My head hurt and I still felt tired. I imagine it was because I hadn’t “slept” in a few days and once my body got a taste of it, we needed MORE!!! I sat around like a zombie and got nothing accomplished.  When 2pm rolled around, I decided I’ll try to catch that nap and see how it worked out.

I fell asleep shortly after lying down and woke up 25 minutes later.  I felt a lot better afterwards.  Most of my headache went away and I didn’t feel quite so tired.  I was also glad I could still nap and everything seemed to be on schedule.  My 6pm nap went great too.

I’ve read that taking an extra nap during those late night hours aid in preventing oversleeping.  I’ll add one if staying awake during the night gets unbearable.

After my 6am sleep, I felt so refreshed that I thought I overslept.  It may have been due to the extra nap I took while watching a movie the morning before or maybe it was because my sleep schedule had been thrown off.  Whatever the reason, I haven’t that good since starting this experiment.

Today at my 10am sleep, I had an extremely vivid dream.  I remembered it when I woke up and while I typed this, it was still fresh in my mind.  It was about someone that meant a lot to me and I can still feel the emotions that were running through me during the dream.  It was very interesting and I hope I get more every 20 minute sleep I take.

After that vivid dream, I read about vivid and lucid dreaming on wikipedia.  During my next nap, I had a lucid dream where I realized I was dreaming and was able to stay dreaming and interacting with the dream world.  

During a discussion yesterday, a friend and I came to the realization that the times when I wake up and I’m tired are times when I didn’t eat before I went to sleep.  The times where I feel great after sleeping for 20 minutes, I had something to eat before I slept.  I’m going to keep track and see if the two have anything to do with each other.

I also noticed a few days ago that I’m paying more attention to how my mouth is positioned when I lay down to sleep.  I realized that I tend to keep my jaw clenched slightly.  I’ve been making an effort to keep it more relaxed while I doze off.  I never noticed that before I started this experiment.

Another thing… I can actually feel myself while I’m in the process of falling asleep.  When I would sleep only during the night like everyone else, I couldn’t tell if or when I was falling asleep.  Now, I can feel my entire body relaxing and my breath slowing.  My dreams start before I fall asleep.  It’s like watching a movie in my mind WHILE I’M STILL AWAKE.  It’s very comforting to get to the point where you know you’ll be asleep in less than a minute from the time you start to feel it.  

This experiment is really interesting and I think this is closer to how the natural human sleeping experience is supposed to be.  It sucks when sleep is just a time away from the world.  It should  be a time to live out your dreams that you haven’t quite reached in the waking world.  You should be able to interact with your dreams every night.  You should be able to actually feel emotions that you wouldn’t otherwise let yourself feel when you have full control of yourself.  It should DEFINITELY NOT be a time where you lay like a corpse until a buzzing sound wakes you up way earlier than you need.

What do you think about the common sleep pattern of the world?  It doesn’t seem to be working for most people since “they” say most people don’t get enough sleep.  Why don’t we try another approach???

I could barely make it to my 6am nap.  I had to constantly find something to do to keep myself occupied.  I sent some emails out for some things that I’m selling, I watched a little TV and some of a movie, played solitaire, and planned out things to do during normal hours tomorrow.  I felt really tired if I didn’t have anything else to do.  I think the symptoms of sleep deprivation were finally kicking in.

I felt better later in the day though.  I met with a friend to help her get her website going.  I was full of energy during that time.  It was like I had a normal day of sleep.  My friend said she forgot that I was doing polyphasic sleep because I didn’t seem like I hadn’t slept.

My appetite isn’t as crazy as I thought it would be.  I’ve read that people have to eat more when staying up 22 hours and that should be expected.  So far, I haven’t eaten more than I usually would.  I think it’s because it’s a bit weird to make pork chops and beans and whatever else at 3am.  I might eat an extra bowl of cereal or an additional yogurt or two but I haven’t had an extra meal so far.  Steve Pavlina said his appetite decreased during the adaptation phase as well.

I ended up missing my 10pm nap because I was out with friends.  It was interesting how my body reacted during that time.  Everything basically slowed down and if I had put my head down, I could’ve slept where I was.  I made it home by 11 and tried to sleep then but couldn’t really.  I got a few minutes of sleep and that was good enough.  I played it by ear in order to figure out the next time I should sleep.  I ended up going around 2:30 and slept the whole time.

Then I watched a movie with a friend and we both ended up dozing off.  I’m not sure how long I was asleep but I’m going to see how I feel for the 6am nap.