Well, it appears my attempt at uberman is over. Sometime last night while I was napping, my girlfriend convinced me to come to the real bed and just sleep. I vaguely remember this happening. This morning at 8am she said it was about 12:30, meaning I’ve completely destroyed my uberman schedule with nearly 8 hours of sleep. Sigh. I didn’t intend for that to happen at all, but it is probably for the best. Annoyingly, after a full night’s sleep, I still feel as tired as when I was ubermanning… Guh.

I’m not sure I’m cut out for uberman, despite my fervor about it. I had lots of trouble keeping the schedule, and even when I was getting my naps I was still feeling tired. Also, the last couple days I’ve been having some mild pain inside my chest cavity. I wouldn’t call it ‘chest pain’, since it moves around all over — it’s more like pain on the inside of my ribs. I’ve also been slipping into depression lately. No idea if these are related to uberman, but it isn’t preventing it either.

Sigh. I hate the fact that I’ve failed, but maybe I was just beating a dead horse anyway. I think at this point I’ll sleep normally for a few days, then converse with some friends and maybe attempt everyman. I’m already missing the extra time at night though, even if I was dying on my feet from sleep dep.

Polyphasic Sleep Log – Uberman Day 11

I managed to correctly keep my napping schedule last night, even though I was pretty damn tired. During most of the naps I had help from Chris Evans making sure I didn’t oversleep, but the 6am nap and wake up was all me. I even had dreams during most of these nap sessions, although they didn’t seem to bring me and respite from the sleep deprivation haze. This makes me think I must not be making it all the way through REM during my naps. I usually have trouble falling asleep quickly during the naps, so I think I’m wasting too much time falling asleep instead of getting rest. I’m going to beef up my nap duration from 30 min to 40 or 45 minutes and see what happens. Maybe I can actually make it out of this!

That being said, I’m getting awfully annoyed with being tired all the time. Yes, it’s fun to stay up all night, but it certainly isn’t worth staying this way all the time. Jess has been expressing her dislike for the schedule more and more, which adds more incentive for stopping. On the other hand, I hate the idea of being a quitter, or, worse yet, failing. Still, the ‘no quitting’ feeling is quickly losing ground to feeling like shit all the time.

At this moment I’m going to carry on with the schedule, beefing my nap times up as mentioned above to see if that helps. I don’t have a set ‘Feel Better By This Date’ threshold, but I’m at day 11, so in my opinion it is already out of hand. It’s probable that I ruined the whole conversion with my long long sleep (and many small oversleeps), which is both frustrating and discouraging. I hate to think I’ve been going through this discomfort for nothing.

Polyphasic Sleep Log – Uberman Day 10

Last night I was exhausted, again. I got my naps during the day, although my 10PM was rather fruitless, and the wave of tired hit me like a train. I tried to take an extra nap or two, but never ended up making it out of the stupor and into ‘life’. I slept a series of tight naps from about 11:30 to 5:30. This is my worst failure yet, which is surprising considering it day 9/10. What the hell?

Why am I getting so tired at night after a few days of being fine? I have no idea what is happening. I’m going to keep on keeping on for a few more days, but I just might not be cut out for the uberman. I really want to, but if I’m tired all night, I don’t see the point. On the other hand, everyman is still there, and I can downgrade to that like a crappy silver place medal if I have to. I still get more awake time, I would probably feel a lot better, and I’d be able to sleep next to my girlfriend again (uberman is causing some tension in that department).

But enough talk of failure alternatives! I’m still going, and for the weekend I get the big, good bed since Jess is out of town. I’m going to hit my naps as usual (although 6:00 AM did nothing, as expected) and give it yet another shot. I want to be polyphasic!

One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is caffeine. I’m wondering if small, controlled doses of caffeine could be beneficial right after a nap. It would probably take some experimenting, but it seems like there should be an optimum dose that will last around 4 hours to hold off the wall of sleep deprivation until its proper time. It also seems like this could destroy my already shaky schedule, so it won’t be something taken lightly. Still, I apparently need the support, so it is an option on the table before totally quitting.

Polyphasic Sleep Log – Uberman Day 9

Well, I feel like I’ve had a regression of sorts. Last night I was TIRED. Not as terrible as the worst day before (Sunday?), but it was really bad. I was having LONG blinks that I guess I was falling asleep in for a few seconds (was WREAKING my mario karting). I didn’t succumb and sleep in the good bed all night like I wanted to, but I did take an extra nap at 6:30 (in addition to my regular extra at 4:00). The weird thing is in my 4, 6, and 6:30 naps I fell asleep promptly, had dreams, and woke up before the alarm. This should indicate REM sleeping, which means I should be feeling great. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case. I’m picking up a little bit with the sunrise, but I’m still tired enough that I’m considering napping right now (8:00) as well as my regular 10:00.

The only thing I can think of as the cause of this is my small oversleeping over the last few days. I didn’t think it had affected me negatively, but SOMETHING has, and I feel like laying the blame there.

Polyphasic Sleep Log – Uberman Day 8

When I wake up from my upcoming nap exactly 7 full days will have passed since I started the uberman schedule. I’ve messed up my naps many times, oversleeping embarrassingly often, but it still worked out. With only one hard night that I couldn’t handle, the transition wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.

Some thoughts so far.

Despite other people’s blogs, I didn’t ever feel like a ‘zombie’. The bad night was definitely not ‘zombie’. To me, zombie implies a kind of mindless drudge. This was more like drowning. The entire time is actively spent fighting the sleep dep pressures from all angles, but it always finds another to push down on you from. Nothing is directly painful or anything, but there is no escaping it – you just can’t get away from the pressure (without sleeping). At the worst of it I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I was walking around trying to stay awake, and I couldn’t keep my balance very well. My speech was slurred and my typing was impossibly bad. I had to go back and edit my posts from that night because words were missing up to 3 letters at a time. But, as you may have read, I slept 3 hours that night and felt much better without affecting my schedule at all.

Reiterating the buddy system – my girlfriend and roommate are the ones who got me through the transition. Sleep deprivation is so much different than other things — it isn’t just a matter of willpower. I was falling asleep wherever I was without noticing it. They helped keep me out of these and, more importantly, they made sure I woke up on time. Extra thanks to Al for waking up at 2:30, 4:30, and 6:30 to wake my sleeping ass up, and extra special thanks to Jess for letting me sleep in the good bed and waking her up with the alarm every 4 hours.

Diet – Before I started the change I revamped my diet, cutting down on red meat and eliminating caffeine, soda, and alcohol. I also bought a bunch of fruit and veggies and have been eating them round the clock. I don’t know how much of an effect this has had. Obviously the caffeine and alcohol are important (can’t have uppers or downers), but I ate a bunch of hamburger and ribs at Jess’s parents house on Monday and slept immediately after with no problems. I suspect they do help though, but even if they don’t, it’s nice to be eating more healthy.

Alarms – My bedroom alarm is a bust. I turn it off without being fully awake, and oversleep. On top of that, I mis-set it (it’s a terrible design) and its pretty easy to accidentally set the volume too low to hear. I’ve overslept probably half the times I’ve used it. On the other hand, the alarm program I wrote is awesome. At this point it reads my alarm directory and allows me to pick any of the sound files in there. Then it mutes my system so I can turn up my speakers without random instant messages etc blasting me awake and shows the countdown. When it’s done, it puts the system at full volume and loops the sound until I get up and turn it off. Simple, but extremely effective. I haven’t missed getting up yet since the system volume changes.

Health – I’m looking forward to the point where I don’t need to worry about laying down. I’m functional mentally, but my body is tired from not getting much physical rest. The allergies are still as bad as ever – they haven’t been affected either way. Other than that I feel good. The worst I felt was when I slept most of the night like a normal person — for some reason this REALLY dried out my throat and sinuses.

Mental Clarity – I spent the wee hours of tonight coding, so I feel like I’m back up to speed mentally. I wouldn’t go so far as to say 100%, but I’m functional enough to do abstract mental work like programming without it putting me down like an anorexic on horse traquilizers.

Schedule – My schedule is still borked. I don’t have any natural timing thoughts about brushing my teeth, showing, or even getting dressed. I’ve mostly just tried to associate those with the 6 am and 10pm naps to try to keep them in line with before. I’d probably do more things in the middle of the night if there wasn’t such a risk of waking up Jess.

Dreams – I’ve started having dreams I remember, which is uncommon for me. This only happened recently, so I’m hoping and expecting them to increase in severity and vividity (yes, that is a word).

Nap Timing – I haven’t found it that necessary to hit the naps right on the head for my personal rest. I have, however, found that it is much better to do so anyway, for the OTHER people in your life. At this point pretty much everyone knows I’ll be down for 30 min starting at 2, 6, and 10. But if, like now, I wait a few minutes to get started, the timing will be off for THEM and they might unwittingly wake me up mid-nap, even if they have tried not to. So, be punctual for your friends!

I’ll share more thoughts as I have them.