Cool… It’s now just about 5 in the morning, so before I take my 5:30 nap I want to write a post.  Tonight has been motivational.  I checked my gmailbox and found an email to moderate a comment from jorel314 who had some pingback links to other polyphasic sleep blogs.  A big thank you there.  It’s nice to know other polyphasic sleepers are out there.  So, since I found that I’ve been reading up on other polyphasic experiments.  Then I got to reading about John Titor… very interesting, if nothing else…

Anyway, as for the last few days for me things have been alright with my naps except Monday morning.  I didn’t wake from my 1:30 AM nap till 6, but as for the rest of my naps I’m getting them within an hour of the time I’ve scheduled them… 1:30, 5:30, and 9:30.  Yesterday at work I took my 1:30 nap at noon since I had some meetings at work, but didn’t have any problems with it.  It’s kinda funny calling that yesterday.  I really want to call it today since I haven’t had a nights sleep since then, but it’s like that in several ways.

As for my alertness and overall feelings, I’ve felt fine.  Shortening my naps to 25 minutes hasn’t had any visible effect so far… though I’m gonna work on some extra precautions to making sure I hear my alarm at night and get up for it.  I think my problem last night was that I was using my quieter alarm and set it across the room so I’d have to get up to shut it off and didn’t wan’t the rude awakening my loud alarm gives.

So far I’ve only made it a few days before I fall asleep for a few hours at a time, and I feel like that is sort of resetting my schedule and causing sleep deprivation effects rather than catching me up on sleep time.  Perhaps I can get past this hurdle by making sure I get up from all of my naps for several days straight.  I don’t quite feel I’ve fully made the adjustment at this point, but overall I’ve seen an upward trend in my alertness over the last two weeks.  It’s been gradual and some days have had dips, but that seems to happen most when I’ve overslept and is gone again when I get another nap.

I have noticed that when I’ve gone longer being consistent about my naps, I’ve fallen asleep during my daytime naps more and more.  It’s been getting hotter out in my car for those naps I take when I’m at work, but I don’t have much for options while I’m there, so I’ll just have to deal with that for now.  Anyway, time for a nap, and after that I’m headed off to work… Later!

I keep meaning to update this, but it’s easy to get sidetracked and start reading wikipedia articles and using my Stumble button.  Anyhow I’ve mostly been polyphasic.  I’ve been getting some unintentional core sleep this past week.  Things were going fine until Monday morning.  My 2AM nap turned into a four hour nap, so I just kept it normal from there.  In the daytime I haven’t really had any problem of oversleeping.  Really I only fall asleep occasionally during those naps, but it has been getting better.

It’s mostly just the night time that I’ve had issues with.  Tuesday I fell asleep for two hours, and Wednesday and Thursday for just a whole hour.  Friday went well though, no oversleeping though a few of my naps were a bit late, but last night’s 9:30 nap went through this morning.  I slept right through my alarm… and the night.  That was a little disappointing, but I’m not giving up.  I’m thinking of changing my nap times a bit, not in when they happen, but rather shortening them from the half an hour I’ve been giving myself.

I am wondering whether I’m sleeping right through my REM sleep then going to deeper sleep and thus sleeping through my alarm.  I think I’ll experiment with 25 minute naps first, then if that’s still giving me the same results I may try out 20 minute naps.  To me it’s seems like very little sleep, and that’s why I’ve given myself the half hour, but it also could be that this is causing oversleeping and thus not letting me fall asleep during my daytime naps.  Well… only one way to find out that I can see.

It’s Friday just after 3AM and I must say tonight has been a big improvement from last night.  I’m not sure what happened then exactly, but Wednesday night I got my naps except I was still pretty tired around midnight.  I decided to just plug along to my next nap at 2AM and was still pretty tired when I got up.  In fact I didn’t really get up.  I turned off the alarm, but got back on the couch cause it’s been cold here the last couple days.  I don’t know what’s up with that, I mean, it is June.  Anyway,  I was tired, so I sat there in a semi-conscious trance trying to keep warm under my blanket while not falling asleep.

After my 6AM nap, I felt fine though, and the rest of the day didn’t have any problems.  Perhaps I haven’t felt at 100% awake yet, but I’d say I was in the 90% range my whole awake time.  I’ve kind of drifted during my day naps, but I’m still not sleeping.  During my night-time naps I’ve fallen asleep quickly compared to what I’ve been used to on monophasic sleeping.  I’m glad for that, because falling asleep was always one of my big frustrations with sleep.  Sometimes I would lay in bed for hours not sleeping because my thoughts just kept going even when I was really tired sometimes.  I think that is probably my problem during my daytime naps still.  Hopefully that will pass.

Tonight has been good though.  Around 1AM I was feeling a little tired when my wife went to bed, but then I got to reading up on my Python tutorial and was learning some cool stuff and wasn’t feeling too tired at my naptime at 2.  That nap went well, and I wasn’t tired once I got up, though it is pretty cold right now.  I had to grab a second layer of clothing or I might’ve gotten under that blanket on the couch again.  I’m feeling above 80% awake right now, though I am a bit hungry.  This staying up all night forces me to realize how long it’s been since I ate last.  All in all I’d say things are going well, so after I get something to snack on, I think I’ll get back to the programming.

It’s Wednesday morning just after 5:00 and I’m feeling pretty good.  Monday and Tuesday I started napping out in my car at work to keep my schedule. I haven’t been falling asleep though, so I’m still wondering what I can do to get over that. I feel better when I wake up from a dream, so it’d be nice to be able to actually sleep. Though, I still do feel rested after my naps.

Now that I’m back at home I find it easier to take my naps on time since I’m not trying to keep up with the schedules of the rest of my family. For the most part I’ve felt pretty rested after my naps, but the night-time is still just a bit more difficult to want to stay awake when I wake from my naps. Actually, it’s really just the first little bit after I get up. Once I actually get up and start moving around I feel pretty good. Monday night I didn’t really do anything. My 10PM nap got pushed back to 11 and I actually slept through my alarm again, but only for about half an hour. I didn’t get up even then though, partly because I was tired, and also because my mouth was sore from going to the dentist earlier. So, I just stayed on the couch till my 6AM nap was over.

Tuesday was good though, nothing spectacular really, but after that lazy night I was tired in the morning. So, I took my naps on time and felt fine the rest of the day. I also didn’t have any problem getting up from my night-time naps tonight. I wouldn’t say I’m fully awake, but I’d say I’m around 90% or so. Hopefully tomorrow is even better. I’ve got a blanket and my sobakawa pillow in the back seat of my car and if I can just fall asleep during those daytime naps I think I ought to be doing pretty good.

I’ve found a pretty good use for some of this extra time at night. I’ve started learning the Python programming language. I’m working through a decent tutorial I found called How to Think Like a Computer Scientist. For a beginner like me, the first couple of chapters haven’t been any problem. We’ll see how it goes from here.

It’s been over a week now and I’m not suffering of tiredness right now or anything. The rest of Friday went alright, but I didn’t fall asleep during my naps till the night-time. That might have thrown my schedule off a bit, because when we took off for home at 1:30 in the morning, after an hour of driving I was feeling pretty drowsy and had to let my brother drive for a while, so I could rest a bit. I ended up waking up from a cool techno dream, but it was about 3 hours later. I was actually glad I could sleep in the car because normally I don’t. I started driving again, but was still pretty tired after only an hour, so I didn’t drive the rest of the trip. But after a short nap I was feeling good the rest of the day… with my naps of course.

I took a nap at 6PM for an hour unintentionally, but that was cause I didn’t set an alarm. Though I was glad that I fell asleep during my daytime nap. In fact in the last day and a half I’ve fallen asleep during each nap. Though my later nap last night was a bit after 11PM and went for 3 hours. I must have slept through the alarm that time, but my other naps at 6 and 10 and 3 went well. I’m finally getting to the point of falling asleep and dreaming soon afterward which is good news. Apparently, part of the theory of polyphasic sleep is that the body compensates the normal REM cycles of sleep by distributing them through the naps rather than spacing them through the normal 8 hour block sleep.

So, I hope my body is making the switch and I will get the rest I need every nap. I wasn’t tired during church today after my 10:00 nap, so that’s progress from last week, but I was kind of lazy this afternoon and kept laying down for a while even after my 2:00 nap was over. I think that affected my 6:00 nap because I wasn’t able to fall asleep again. We’ll see what happens during my 10:00 nap. All in all, I think I’m making progress, but the big challenge will be trying to do this with work since I work a normal day shift. I’ve talked with my manager about it and he’s cool with me taking two long breaks instead of two short breaks and a lunch. The real issue is going to be where to take my nap, since there is not really a place to take them there at work except in my car. I’ll have to just try it out and see how well It goes.

By the way, for anyone who may be wondering, I’m not a vegan or vegetarian, and I don’t really follow any diet, so I’ll just have to see how it works out for me.