[Warning: this video is a bit "out there." At the least, it will make you think. At best, it will reconstruct how you think about your past.]
The past is a tricky thing to manage. Over indulging in the past can cause one to lose focus on the present. Yet forgetting the past altogether makes us feel hollow, anonymous, and unknown. Where is the balance? This video explains my solution. My simple and very functional “mental framework”.
Let’s get to it.
Everyone has a past. Whether good or bad, how we think about our past effects us deeply. For me, there always seemed to be a difficult balance between remembering and forgetting. A balance between cherishing and moving forward in the present.
Recently I thought of a new way to imagine the past – and it works for me. It makes me happy. It simultaneously fills me up, energizes me, and centers my mind. This video is my attempt to share this mental framework with you.
Thanks for visiting my blog! My favorite part of blogging is hearing what you have to say – so if you feel inclined, take 5 seconds to let me know what you think of this post.
Also, thanks for all of the Facebook “likes” on my last video post. It encourages me to keep posting!
If you’re new to my blog, you might want to read about my “famous” (term used very loosely here haha) sleep experiment – where I slept for 20 minutes every 4 hours around the clock for two weeks. it. was. insane.
Well guys I can’t put it off any longer so I’ll just come right out and say it. The sleep experiment officially ended on Sunday November 29th – two weeks after it began. I’ve been avoiding this blog post because I am sad about ending the experiment and this seems to put a stamp of finality on the whole thing.
The experiment involved sleeping multiple times during the day – specifically, sleeping for 20 minutes every four hours around the clock. Instead of sleeping during the night and being awake all day I’m basically taking six powernaps (amounting to about two hours of accumulative sleep per 24 hour period).
Ultimately I decided to return to monophasic sleep for social reasons.
I cherish the freedom to be spontaneous – especially when it comes to spending time with friends and family – and I was having to make too many social sacrifices to maintain the strict polyphasic sleep schedule.
My first major social sacrifice came on day five of the experiment when I had to back out of going to an art and hip hop show in Indianapolis with my buddy, Nathan Monk. I wasn’t happy about it but I figured that after the first week or so I could be more flexible with my sleep schedule – delaying or possibly even skipping naps when necessary.
After the first four or five days of the experiment I was feeling great and spending more than 90% of the day awake. I felt more optimistic and creative than I’ve ever felt. I was working more, reading more, skateboarding more, writing more, learning more, taking more photos… It felt as if I was cheating in the game of life. I was hacking time. Not only was I functioning, but I was excited and productive on about two hours of sleep a day! I was optimistic from the start and expected good results but the degree of success was still shocking. Every day I asked myself, ‘How is it possible to feel this good on only two hours of sleep a day?!’ Did I mention it was the most optimistic and creative two weeks I can ever remember?
Now, I do want to clarify that although I was awake for 22 hours a day I was not functioning at 100% at all times. In the same way that most people feel a bit slow during the late afternoon I also experienced times where I felt a little hazy. For me these times typically came between 3am and sunrise. During these times I would focus on less demanding activities such as cleaning, washing dishes, laundry, and reading.
During the second week of the experiment (the week of Thanksgiving) I began pushing the limits of the schedule’s flexibility – sometimes skipping a nap and then taking a longer nap later to “make up for it.” This, however, did not work out so well. It turns out that if I’m going to be getting two hours of sleep every 24 hours my body needs the strict schedule in order to snap into a functioning pattern. My schedule was a 20 minute nap at 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, 2am, 6am, and repeat.
As the novelty of the experiment wore down I was less willing to make social sacrifices, therefore putting vibrations into my sleep schedule which caused strain in the experiment – sabotaging my optimism and commitment.
The final nail in the coffin happened on Friday November 27th when I stayed awake for over 18 hours. I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon and evening with close friends that I don’t get the chance to see very often – and I couldn’t bring myself to put my own sleep experiment before those relationships. It has become clear to me lately that no relationship lasts forever. Not to be a downer, but all relationships will eventually end. But this is what makes our relationships so valuable and worthy of being cherished. And yes, worthy of sacrificing sleep for.
After the night of the 27th I considered continuing the experiment but after a fierce discussion with myself I decided it would be best to return to monophasic sleep. Yep. Plain old boring monophasic sleep, ugh. The first time I slept for eight hours consecutively after my experiment I felt like a lazy bum. During the sleep experiment eight hours of sleep would have lasted me four days!
The transition back to monophasic sleep was actually a little tough psychologically – and I’m still bummed out about it. The days seem to fly by and I feel relatively unproductive. It’s difficult.
After experiencing the high that comes from “time travel” (essentially having more hours in the day), I think I’ll always feel awkward about monophasic sleep. It’s just not the most effective sleep schedule for me. But unfortunately it’s what we all do thanks to the day/night cycle of the planet.
In the end, even though I prefer the polyphasic sleep schedule for many reasons, I came to the realization that the freedom to spend time with friends and family is far more valuable to me right now. I will always daydream about those two weeks though… and I know I will again return to polyphasic sleep at some point in my life when it makes sense (likely this spring). I lived through a thrilling dream – and I must give it another go at some point. I’m addicted.
I had half a blog post written about my sleep experiment when I found my mind wandering. ‘Come on brain, focus!’ I took a break for lunch but was still struggling to write about the experiment. I finally gave up, opened a new document, and started typing. This is what came out.
I’m currently reading “Personal Development for Smart People” by Steve Pavlina (Amazon link). I’m only halfway through this book and plan on reading it again just as soon as I finish.
It’s easily the best book I’ve ever read. Meaningful, life changing, and delicious.
It’s so packed full of good stuff that I should probably write a page of reflection for each page I read – just to let the inspiration marinate and settle. In fact, don’t even finish reading this post – do yourself a favor and head over to Steve’s blog.
Anyways, I was reading last night and thinking about something that has troubled me for a couple years now. Why isn’t everyone actively interested in conscious growth? (aka “personal development”) The resources are available. The books and blog posts have been written. It’s all there within arm’s reach.
So what is it? Do people not know how to find the resources? What books to buy or what search terms to use? Maybe people don’t feel supported or capable of change? Or, what I fear is the case, are some people just not interested in learning, improving, and developing as a person? Perhaps some people don’t want to read books like these because they underestimate the chance of actual results? Maybe they’re trapped into a destructive “things are good, not great, but that’s just the way it is” mentality. Maybe some people would rather share complaints on a smoke break during their soulless job than admit to themselves…
“I alone am responsible for my life.”
It takes some humility and courage to buy a “personal development” book, doesn’t it? I noticed something curious about this book I’m reading. When someone asks me “what are you reading?” I actually hesitate for a moment because I feel slightly embarrassed! After I tell them the title (Personal Development for Smart People) I quickly follow up with a qualifying statement like, “It sounds lame, but really it’s a fascinating book.” I should read sexier books, ha! Maybe this is how others feel as well?
This post is hardly polished, but I will publish it regardless because I think it captures my current thoughts on the matter of conscious growth.
What are your thoughts on personal development? Perhaps we each grow in different ways and I shouldn’t rant about those who choose to grow in a different direction, at a different pace, or by different means than I choose.
[I suspect that my beautiful and intelligent readers aren't the type that need to hear a rant about the value of pursuing conscious growth, so thanks for taking a minute to read anyways. ]
As you know, my sleep experiment involves sleeping for 20 minutes at a time every 4 hours around the clock. Tuesday was rough, Wednesday morning was killer, Thursday was an improvement and Friday was fantastic, but I’m afraid this morning I’ve taken a big step backwards in the adaptation process.
The adaptation process is difficult and requires strict discipline when adhering to the sleep schedule. Skipping / postponing a nap or (much more likely) oversleeping would damage the learning process – and oversleeping is exactly what happened this morning.
As of this morning I had slept a total of 10 hours in the past 110 – averaging just 2.3 hours of sleep per day. Things were going well and I was feeling optimistic about my progress. I cannot describe my disappointment when I awoke from my 6am nap at 1:30pm.
Confusion. What? How… is this possible?
My mind raced as I tried to remember what happened. I looked down and my phone was in my bed. Not where it’s supposed to be. I use the alarm on my iPhone and intentionally place it on the other side of the room so I have to get up and walk in order to turn it off.
Over the next minute the details came back into my mind in fuzzy dreamlike images. Here’s what happened.
My alarm went off at 6:30am. Automatically (this was my 25th nap of the experiment), I got up, walked over and turned the alarm off, flicked on the lights, and walked into the kitchen for a glass of water. I woke my computer, checked email, and began checking twitter and facebook – those mindless things you do out of habit. I then opened my word document called “dream log” to record a dream I had (it was terrible. My teeth were shattered but wired together like I had braces so I couldn’t get the pieces out of my mouth – they just filled my mouth. I was freaking out and I realized it was a dream so I tried to wake myself up by screaming and shaking my head. I woke up, relieved to find my teeth back to normal, when all of the sudden they started to shatter again in a blinding pain.
I had “woken” from my dream into another dream. Something I’ve NEVER experienced before.
This time my family was there and I had to show them my shattered teeth. It was intense.
Anyways, I opened the document to record the dream details and noticed that my fingers wouldn’t type correctly. I was skipping letters and mistyping all over the place. I was frustrated and felt desperate. The next thing I remember was sitting at my computer but my eyes were closed. I didn’t remember closing them it must have happened automatically.
I felt hopeless. Sleep was going to happen and I felt like I had no choice in the matter.
I must have reset my alarm for 20 more minutes of sleep, because when I woke up at 1:30pm I checked and saw that it was set for 7am. And that’s it. I must have turned my alarm off without waking up when it went off at 7 and the rest is history. Tragic napstake.
That put me at a real crossroad in my experiment. It would be an easy time to end the experiment, since this likely took me back several days in the adaptation process… but I wasn’t planning on ending it now. I feel that ending the experiment under these circumstances be a weak end to an otherwise awesome experience.
After some more thought I’ve decided to press onward with the experiment.
It will be interesting to see how this affects me during the next 24 hours. Right now, as expected, I am feeling rested and alert. The good news is that I was still able to sleep during the 6pm rest today – which indicates that I’m not thrown off completely. I’m still bummed out about my napstake though.
On another note, I wish it was summer time. I could really use the extra sunlight. Right now 4 of my 6 daily naps begin and end in darkness. In July only 2 would be in darkness, since it would be light during the 6am and 6pm naps. Oh well. Onward!
Friday was the best day of my polyphasic sleep experiment so far which, in summary, involves sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours around the clock (More on my experiment, day 1, day 2, day 3, and “why polyphasic sleep?“). The most notable improvement was how I felt around 8am. As you know, this has been the toughest time of day for me. On Wednesday at 8am I nearly gave up the experiment because I felt so wasted. Thursday around 8am I also had a dip in energy level and optimism, but not nearly as bad as Wednesday’s. Friday, as you can see from the chart below, was overall the most positive day thus far, with no large dips or spikes. Progress!
Thursday Evening
11:43 pm – My optimism caused me to forget that I’m not totally adjusted yet. I’ve been dragging since I woke up from the 10pm nap.
I’m doing some aggressive planning though. I’ve broken the day into the six awake periods and categorized what type of work I’ll do during each period. With so many free hours in the day (22), there’s no need to do much multitasking in a single awake period. By limiting which tasks I’ll address during each period, I hope to spend less time switching between tasks and more time focusing on a single category of related items. For example, I’ll do all of my correspondence (email / calls) in the late morning period. By scheduling a specific time to address these tasks, it simultaneously frees me from worrying about them during the other 5 periods – allowing me to better focus on the task assigned to that period. Am I making sense?
Friday
1:55 am – I spent some time reading online about polyphasic sleep. Found a few great websites (here and here) with a lot of discussion on the topic. (my favorite quote left by a commenter, “If you have a girlfriend, than you are done.”). I learned that there are various polyphasic sleep schedules people are trying, and that the one I’ve adopted is called “the uberman” haha.
I’ve been surprised with how negative a lot of people are towards the experiment. I guess…
Some people approach something like this and they feel overwhelmed with all of the possible negative outcomes, while some people feel excited with the unknowns of adventure.
4:39 am – Ever heard of HDR photography? HDR is short for high dynamic range and is a digital post-processing technique that can create some stunning results. It is a process that combines multiple images (typically, three) of the same scene shot a different exposures: a normal exposure, a darker shot to capture the details of lighter areas, and a lighter exposure to capture details of darker areas. That sounds confusing but think of it this way: When you take a photo at a normal exposure, very bright areas of the photo (say, clouds on a sunny day) tend to just come out white – while very dark areas of the photo (say, the side of a brick building that is in shadow) come out black. The result is that the light areas are “washed out” and the dark areas lose texture and contrast. HDR would magically use the clouds shot in the lower exposure image and the shaded building shot in the higher exposure image to create an image that shows incredible contrast and detail across the entire photo. Here’s my attempt at HDR photography below. It’s not very good, but notice the added depth in the texture of the suede and the hard wood floor. This isn’t a very good subject for HDR photography… but it was 4 in the morning so I couldn’t really find much
Also – my HDR image doesn’t look very stunning for a couple reasons: It’s shot in artificial light, the subject is boring, not much depth to the photo, and I didn’t do any color replacement.
8:13 am – Wow, this is usually my toughest time of day… but today? I feel wonderful. I woke up in a small daze, but I got a bowl of cereal and took a shower and now that the sun is coming up I feel amazing. Love it! On Wednesday at 8am I rated my energy level as 2/10, on Thursday 5/10, and today a delicious 8.5/10!
9:54 am – I’m feeling fantastic. I want to go skate, but alas, its already time for my morning nap. I feel like skipping, but that might turn out badly. I’ll be surprised if I fall asleep at all. We’ll see. (my throat is feeling every so slightly sore… this could throw a wrench in my plans)
I lay there for maybe 30 seconds… just listening to my alarm blaze
10:54 am – Despite not feeling tired when I lay down for my 10am nap and only setting my alarm for 40 minutes I fell right asleep, had a couple of detailed dreams, and even woke up a few minutes before my alarm went off. I momentarily debated about getting out of bed early, because I woke up naturally, but that thought quickly passed haha. I didn’t pop out of bed at my alarm… instead I lay there for maybe 30 seconds… just listening to my alarm blaze (can you relate?). I feel fairly alert, despite having only woken up 4 or 5 minutes ago.
12:52 pm – Still feeling really good today! I’m feeling noticeably more creative than normal – and my language skills are sharp right now – lots of good conversations going on twitter and I’ve already written a couple pages worth of thoughts that might turn into future blog posts. (I’d say that for every page I actually publish I write about five). I am thinking very clearly – positive and creative – but not very focused. I’m finding it difficult to focus on accomplishing large tasks such as web development projects. Maybe the perception of having an abundance of time is causing me to ramp up the procrastination? I can tell already that I won’t be tired in an hour for the 2pm nap. It feels like an inconvenience at times but I know it’s worth it to ultimately sleep fewer total hours in the day.
2:19 pm – I was doing really great – almost better than I have since I started the experiment – I went out on a beautiful bright crisp clear (yay adjectives!) day and shot some photos (my favorite one below) and now that I’m back and 20 minutes late for my 2pm nap I can feel the fatigue coming in pretty strong. Interesting…
"Urban Command Station"
5:53 pm – Still feeling great. I worked on a large project for a couple hours so I’m feeling nice and accomplished at the moment. Very positive right now (slap happy?). I’ll postpone my 6pm nap because my 2pm nap started 30 minutes late.
This lightning fast sensation that starts behind my eyes, fills my entire head and then drops though my body…
7:24 pm – For the first couple of minutes after I wake up from a nap (normally the tough ones like the early morning naps) – as I walk around my apt to turn on the lights and get a drink I can actually feel waves of sleep attempting to shoot through my body. I never lose consciousness when this happens, but there is this lightning fast sensation that starts behind my eyes, fills my entire head and then drops though my body all the way to my feet – it feels like the razor’s edge between consciousness and sleep. It only takes about a tenth of a second for this entire sensation to shoot through me, but it catches me off guarge and makes me twitch and then blink rapidly for a few seconds. It sometimes happens 2 or 3 times during the first couple minutes when I’m trying to wake up.
8:57 pm – I’m feeling pretty chilled out and slightly zoned. Earlier I was hyper! I’m spending my time now working on projects that I need to be moving forward. Today was a really artistic day! Lots of writing and photos taken which feels great.
9:50 pm – I was just reading an article about time management using fixed schedules (via a Tim Ferriss tweet) and I noticed my eyes sort of tripping out – kind of like vertigo but nothing was spinning – just a shift in how I was perceiving the plane of my computer monitor. Wow, tired all the sudden. Right on cue – it’s 9:50
At midnight I decided to do something a bit more exciting…
12:42 am (Saturday) – I spent a couple of hours working on a website project and made some great progress. I now have a better grasp on the project instead of feeling like the project had a grasp one me (does that make sense?).
At midnight I decided to do something a bit more exciting. I thought, ‘enough coding, I want to skate.’ I was psyched! I haven’t skated (or done any physical exercise) since the start of the experiment. I walked out my front door and jumped on my board and, this is awesome, immediately hung up on the sidewalk and stumbled awkwardly into the street laughing at myself. (the bricks on the sidewalk make it easy to hang up – give me a break ).
After that I felt right at home – very comfortable and relaxed as I tore through the quiet streets around the courthouse. I felt surprisingly coordinated and had a lot of pop in my tricks. I cruised over to one of my favorite spots – two parking lots with a bank between them – and ollied the gap, landing it first try which always feels great (I wonder if I actually skated better because I wasn’t over thinking? hmm). Overall I had a blast. It was about 40 degrees so jeans and a long sleeved shirt felt perfect. It was the kind of night where your breath creates a bright white cloud – lit up by the streetlights.
I could tell that I hadn’t done any physical exercise in a while, however. At one point my stomach had the tiniest hint of a cramp just from breathing harder than I have in a week. It will be interesting to see if I sleep better in my net nap and then to see if this makes me tired later on. Now I’m watching some skate videos (Epicly Later’d – “Andrew Reynold’s Madness”) then I’ll shower and crash.
Today was outstanding. Sleep was dream-filled and restorative, mental clarity remained high, and my energy level was more consistent than yesterday. In this post I’ll share:
An in-depth look at my note-taking throughout the day
Unveil a dramatically improved chart for visualizing the experiment’s progress
Tweaks that have helped
Confess to cheating on the experiment’s original ground rules
Notes from the day
Tell you which song I’ve listened to 83 times today
First, I want to share a little number crunch that I did earlier: At the time of this blog post, I’ve slept a total of 6.25 hours in the past 78 hours – for an average of 1.92 hours of sleep per 24 hour period. When I consider these numbers and then look at my energy levels, state of mind, and productivity… wow, it’s shocking to me.
One of the things that attracted me to this experiment was that it seemed inconceivable to function on 2 hours a sleep per day. Yet, I’ve read reports of individuals doing it successfully. It seemed too good to be true. Skeptical but excited, I dove in head first to find out for myself. It may be too early for conclusions, but I’m blown away so far.
Note Taking
I’m at my computer for good part of my day, so I keep two documents open at all times: an excel document and a word document. The excel document is for recording my mental clarity, optimism, and energy level throughout the day. The word document is used for taking small notes throughout the day about everything from diet and strategy to thoughts and dreams.
The excel document ain’t pretty, but I use the data to produce these lovely charts to help visualize the experience. Which brings me to…
A new and improved chart
I realized today that the charts I have been posting (in the day one and day two posts for example) are really really bad. I mean, the concept is cool and they technically work… but they’re confusing and just plain gross to look at.
Well I spent some time making a better chart and I think you’ll agree its much easier to make comparisons between days, see patterns, and notice improvements.
Yesterday’s Chart (boo!)
Today’s Chart (woo!)
A couple things to note about the above chart:
I’ve changed “want to sleep” to “energy level” (I calculated energy level by subtracting “want to sleep” from 10. Easy enough). This way, for each of the three categories UP represents a positive state and DOWN represents a negative state.
Notice that today was overall better than the past two days!
Notice that I still had the difficult “dip” in all three categories around 8am this morning. (remember, yesterday I nearly quit the experiment around that time)
Tweaks that have been helpful
Until I learn to fall asleep faster (it currently takes me about 20 minutes), I’ve been giving myself 45 minutes for naps. However, this afternoon I cut it down to 40 minutes. I plan to continue cutting it down to 30 minutes this week – and possibly down to 20 minutes next week.
Drink a ton of water. I find the naps dehydrating for some reason.
Eating consistently throughout all awake sessions. Yesterday I made the mistake of eating less during the night (out of habit), but it made me feel worse. I am learning to ignore the time of day and act consistently during each cycle. I still feel drastically different between daylight and night (as evident in the charts), but I can tell this is a step in the right direction and I’m seeing improvement.
Shower twice per day – after the 6am and 2pm rest is working well.
Cheating on the ground rules
I had a feeling the “no candy” rule would be the first out the window! I happened to have a large Hersey’s dark chocolate bar in my apartment so I had a few pieces today – always within 20 minutes of waking up to minimize any negative effect on my next nap. I didn’t notice any difficulty falling asleep or damage to sleep quality – so today at Wal-Mart I bought another dark chocolate bar I think next week I’ll experiment with having a coke and see what happens…
Notes from the day
Wednesday
10:47 pm – Had an amazing nap. I set my alarm for only 40 minutes this time (working back down from 45 to 30 as I am learning to fall asleep faster). I had several dreams and the total rest period seemed to be two hours long or so. Awesome. I finished up a dream a few seconds before the alarm went off (Liverpool FC was touring the US and played a match at Purdue). I woke up feeling fairly alert – although still in a bit of a fog, but much better than other sleep sessions.
11:50 pm – Feeling really good right now. Very sharp. I just wrote a new blog post “Why Polyphasic sleep? | A simple and compelling answer” and am very happy with the quality of my writing and how quickly I was able to write it after concept. Feeling very positive and happy and focused right now. Gonna tackle some web dev projects!
Thursday
1:49 am – Fatigue has swept in pretty noticeably in just the last half hour. This is good. I want my body to get used to this short cycle, and I’d rather start to feel sleepy right before a nap then either not feel tired at all or feel tired during the entire wake cycle. This is a good sign of adaption. I’m on a roll with the last two sleep sessions involving a ton of REM sleep, dreams, and the sensation of sleeping for much longer than 20-30 minutes. We’ll see if that continues.
2:45 am – I don’t think I dreamt grr, and he rest seemed to go by in a flash. I guess I slept, but it doesn’t quite feel like it. Feeling fairly alert though.
4:15 am – I spent some time just mindlessly stumbling (stumbleupon), then made myself some chicken noodle soup. Feeling more awake after that. I think my mistake last night involved not drinking enough water and not eating enough. I should really be eating as much during the night cycles as I do during the day cycles. Now I’m thinking business strategy and building some actionable item lists in a mindmap.
8:03 am – I didn’t feel very alert after my 6am sleep – but that was expected. I think that’s the toughest one for me to wake up from at this point. However, it was a definite improvement over yesterday at the same time. I’m feeling pretty good right now – although still thirsty and hungry (all I’ve had is two pieces of chocolate and half a banana). I feel MUCH better than I did yesterday at 8am – when I was close to giving up. Glad I got over that hump. I just emailed a prospective client so it was good to get that moving. I took a few days too long to get back with him.
10:49 am – nice, long, dream filled nap! It still takes me 10-15 minutes to shake it off though and feel more alert upon awakening.
3:12 pm – My mom came to visit and we had lunch together! She even brought me a piece of homemade apple pie! Amazing. She let me ramble on in excitement about my experiment over our lunch together haha. I didn’t feel tired enough to sleep when it came time for my 2pm nap, but of course I slept anyways. It was a pretty good rest… I believe there were a couple dreams but they escape my memory. Now I’m in a bit of a fog trying to recovery. Overall, it’s pretty encouraging how much better today was than yesterday!
Today’s song obsession
Sometimes I get stuck on a certain song, and wow, today is a perfect example. The song is “Into the Fire” by Thirteen Senses. You can listen to it on Grooveshark right here. It’s very chill and hypnotic – great for clicking the ol’ repeat button The play count is now at 83 95 – all from today.
Reflection
What a great day. I keep thinking how glad I am that I didn’t quit yesterday morning. This progress is exciting and I absolutely love all this extra time. Like I said yesterday in my post Why Polyphasic sleep? | A simple and compelling answer, “It’s as if I’ve slowed time, added hours to the day, or extended my life – pretty awesome however you want to look at it.”
Thanks for taking the time to read this update on the experiment. More to come tomorrow. [If you haven't already, you may want to subscribe by rss or by email to receive future updates automatically. Convenience FTW!]
I’m 54 hours into my exciting polyphasic sleep experiment. For the past two and half days I’ve been sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours around the clock. As you can imagine, I’m getting a lot of “but… why?” type questions in various forms. On my first blog post that kicked off the experiment I jokingly cited the reason “because it’s weird.” I’m having a lot of fun subjecting myself to this sleep experiment, but the truth is there really is a compelling argument for the “why” question.
Here’s my understanding explained in a fairly basic way that I think captures the why.
As I understand it, people general have two energy reserves: our primary energy reserve and what people know as our “second wind.” The primary energy reserve doesn’t last very long, 4-5 hours perhaps, while the second wind kicks in later to provide enough energy to stay up for 16+ hours. From what I understand (and it makes sense to me based upon my experience, not because I understand the biology), the primary energy reserve doesn’t last long but is quickly recharged with a relatively small amount of rest. The “second wind” energy, in contrast, lasts longer but takes much longer to replenish with sleep.
This makes sense based on my experience, and I think you’ll agree. Imagine that you normally get 8 hours of sleep and for whatever reason you only get 6 or 7 hours in a particular night. You may notice that you feel fine during the morning but crash in the afternoon. This is because you are starting with a full (or nearly full) primary energy reserve but once that runs out you find that your “second wind” doesn’t kick in as strong as it should. Coffee anyone?
The idea behind polyphasic sleep is to abandon the second wind altogether. It takes too much sleep to recharge that puppy and it’s not worth it. In polyphasic sleep, you don’t spend hours of sleep trying to charge the second wind because you never stay awake long enough to need it (napping every 4 hours, in my case). By using only the primary energy reserve, you actually require less sleep, because the primary energy reserve can recharge with dramatically less sleep than it takes to charge the second wind. The result: I’m running on about 2 hours of sleep per 24 hour period.
It’s as if I’ve slowed time, added hours to the day, or extended my life – pretty awesome however you want to look at it.
Catering to the primary energy reserve isn’t a new concept. Many people take mid-afternoon naps, which serve to quickly replenish the primary energy reserve instead of worrying about the stubborn (and unreliable) second wind.
For the last 54 hours since I began this experiment I’ve been repeatedly depleting and recharging my primary energy reserve. So long second wind – you take too long to recharge! If you need to get caught up, see the index below for a list of the posts about this experiment and don’t forget to subscribe by rss or by email to easily receive future updates (about once per day during this experiment). I suggest subscribing by email because it’s easiest – and unsubscribing is a snap if you find the updates boring.
My goal is to continue the experiment until I am fully adjusted (two week minimum) at which point I will continue indefinitely.
What do you think? Does this sound like pseudo science mumbo jumbo, or am I on to something? (between you and me, my main reason for trying this is more along the lines of “because it’s weird” and “I’m curious – can it work?”) Let the experiment continue!
It has now been 48 hours since I began my polyphasic sleep experiment (day zero, day one) – sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours around the clock – and I’ve found the last 24 hours were much tougher than the first 24. In fact, this morning around 8am the thought of quitting the experiment crossed my mind for the first time (see chart below). The desire to go back to sleep was so strong… it really caught me off guard.
I found myself having an inner dialogue, literally trying to convince myself to give up. “This experiment is doomed – just save yourself the pain and crawl back in bed,” I told myself. You’re probably familiar with this inner dialogue if you’ve ever talked yourself into hitting the snooze button or procrastinating on an important phone call (read as, “I’m not losing my mind, I promise”).
It was no small victory for me to silence that demon and press onward. But let me back up give a better snapshot of the past 24 hours from la-la land.
Last night’s blog post was published at 6:04pm, so I literally hit “publish” and headed to bed for my 6pm rest. I’ll pick up there…
Tuesday 11/17/09
6:04 pm – Publish yesterday’s blog post and then crash for my 6pm sleep.
7:07 pm – My nap left me feeling dazed and disoriented, feeling worse than before. My body isn’t used to jumping in and out of sleep so frequently. I’m grumpy. I catch myself getting annoyed with people on facebook and twitter – most likely because I’m jealous of their deliciously-normal sleep schedule.
11:02 pm – I think I was dreaming when my alarm went off, indicating REM sleep. Waking in this stage of sleep helped me pop right out of bed feeling alert. Progress!
Wednesday 11/18/09
12:04 am – Feeling really good right now. In fact, it almost feels like a normal night. Am I adapting that quickly? It seems too easy at this point. I’m spending the time reading blogs and watching educational/cool/inspirational videos online. I’m addicted to learning and the internet is my facilitator. Love it.
4:21 am – I spent the last couple hours watching videos online (hey, don’t judge me – at least I wasn’t sleeping like some people). If you’re interesting (of course you are), here are my favorites:
5:21 am – I’m looking forward to the 6am rest, but I’m already dreading having to get up after only 30 minutes. I’m craving sleep and lots of it. After my 2am rest I took a shower and had a breakfast type meal, but I’m still too out of it to be productive at all. Cue yawnstare.
6:48 am – I’m feeling, by far, the strongest desire to quit the experiment yet. I find myself trying to rationalize why I should give it up and go back to sleep. I’m tired. I hate my bed… sitting there, an arms reach away, taunting me. I want it to fold up and disappear, only coming out when I need it and staying out of sight / out of mind otherwise. My mind is consumed with the desire for sleep.
10:00 am – Feeling better now after some more food and sunlight. I took care of a couple hours worth of web dev work. Feels good. Now it’s 10 so time to lay down in that delicious bed again – I just hope that I feel alright when I get up.
10:52 am – This is good. A huge breakthrough. That last rest seemed longer, complete with 3 of 4 dreams of normal detail level punctuated by moments of semi-wakefullness – which actually had me wondering if my alarm wasn’t set properly and fearing that I was oversleeping. This is exactly what I want to happen more often – sleep that seems to last longer, contain dreams, and leaves me waking up alert and rested. Despite the progress I still feel quite tired (maybe because I just woke up a few minutes ago). I struggle with typing and spelling… feeling like I’m still 85% asleep. I’ll go for a walk around the block (the sun is out!).
12:12 pm – I’m back from my walk. I took my Dad’s camera that I’m borrowing and snapped a couple photos which I posted to heyitsdrew.com (direct link). The sun was bright and the sky was clear and crisp – just what I needed. I also dropped into a pawn shop and pretended to be interested in everything I saw – even picking up and examining a few random pieces of 90s technology.
2:57 pm – Just woke up. Really struggling to stay awake. I find myself nodding off while sitting at my computer and, this is a good sign, discovering that my eyes are closed without ever consciously deciding to close them in the first place. Stop that! Cue more yawnstare.
Reflection
First of all, how has it only been 48 hours since I started the experiment? It seems as if 7 or 8 days have passed. Strange.
Today was a victory. I was dangerously close to giving up early this morning around 8am, but managed to press onward. I don’t want sympathy, but I do want to make sure I’m documenting the experiment well – including the psychological battles. Having said that, it is encouraging to me to know that my friends know about this experiment. I imagine that if I was doing this experiment in secret it would have been easier to give up this morning. Instead I knew I had to keep going and give myself a legit chance at adapting. Giving up now would make all of the work in the previous 48 hours for nothing.
It’s been a full 24 hours since I started my polyphasic sleep experiment (sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours around the clock) and I’m feeling great! It’s hard to believe that its only been 24 hours… it seems more like 72 hours. I think I’ve invented time travel.
The Chart
As promised, I’ve been recording my mental clarity, optimism towards the experiment, and how badly I want to sleep on an ordinal 0-10 scale. I recorded these values 12 times during the past 24 hours and the resulting chart is below. Pretty cool, huh?
The Facts
During the first two rest periods of the experiment, last night at 10pm and 2am, I couldn’t get to sleep at all. I was too excited thinking about the experiment – and like I mentioned in the last post, it normally takes me about 30 minutes to fall asleep anyways. That’s something that will have to change if I’m to successfully adapt to the polyphasic sleep schedule.
During the third rest period (this morning at 6am), I cheated and gave myself 45 minutes. Sleep at last! Something that helped me fall asleep was getting away from my computer, diming the lights in the room, and reading for 15 minutes beforehand. I would guess I got about 25 minutes of sleep. When the alarm went off I was momentarily disoriented but quickly jumped out of bed, turned on the lights, and got a glass of water. I’m determined to not oversleep.
I spent most of the night working on website projects, listening to music, and roaming my apartment. The night seemed to last forever. I finished a couple small projects, read, walked outside, took some photos, order a new laptop, and talked to the night owls on twitter.
When the sun came up it provided a huge boost to mental clarify, optimism, and reduced how badly I wanted to sleep. I wonder if the night/day cycle will continue to have this influence on me or if it will fade over the next week or so. Hmm…
During the day today I felt very good overall, but I found my energy level fluctuated quite a bit. I expected this, and it honestly wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. Maybe tonight/tomorrow will be worse. So far the biggest way to improve my mental clarity and energy level seems to be:
Going for a walk outside
Eating
Talking on the phone (funny sidenote: I made an important call to a prospective client this afternoon and although it went very well, there were two times where I just stopped mid thought and was completely lost with what I was saying and I had to gracefully recover and switch directions – oops!)
Drinking lots of water
Diary of the Day
4:11 am – I just bought a new Toshiba laptop on eBay. (I need it for my visit to Hawaii after Christmas woop woop!) I’m worried that I may have actually bought a toaster oven or something due to my sketchy state of mind.
6:37 am – I’m definitely feeling tired. It makes me miss sleep. I can’t focus on that though. It’s cold and rainy outside… perfect sleeping weather. I find that I type letters out of ourder and wow I just misspelled “order”. Feeling tired and having to wake up early reminds me of final exams at Purude.
7:26 am – My eyes are dry and I find myself not doing much of anything except staring off into space. My computer screensaver coming on pulls me back to reality.
7:39 am – What a relief – the sun is coming up! I’m having trouble doing basic tasks like preparing a check and envelope to pay my utilities.
8:10 am – Waves of positivity! I’m following up with prospective clients, the sun is coming up, and I just got a nice email from Mom. Ps – I find myself really thirsty?
9:30 am – Looking forward to the 10 o’clock nap. I hope I can sleep again. I may opt for another 45 minute session to make sure I can fall asleep. Yawn, stare. (I wonder if yawnstare.com is available…)
12:04 pm – Feeling really good right now after a brisk walk to the post office. Feeling almost normal I’d say.
3:10 pm – Despite not feeling tired before my 2pm rest I fell asleep pretty quickly (this is encouraging!). I’d guess I slept for maybe 30 minutes – bringing my grand total for the last 24 hours to just under 1:30. Once again I was in a deep sleep when my alarm went off – it took me a few seconds to realize where I was and what was going on, but then I popped right out of bed. Time feels weird right now. I’m used to sleep representing the break between two days… so in my mind it’s almost as if 4 or 5 short days have passed. Very strange.
5:00 pm – I feel really great considering the lack of sleep. I can already sense the huge benefit of these frequent micro-naps. They really are quite restorative it seems. The next 24 hours will be interesting and tell a lot. I’m excited.
Reflection
I feel liberated. Liberated from wasting a huge chunk of my time in unconscious sleep. It sounds strange but it’s amazing how peaceful I feel knowing how much time I have available.
Let me explain how a normal day goes (that is, a normal sleep schedule). For the first couple hours after I wake up I tend to procrastinate because I feel as if I have plenty of time ahead of me to be productive. Then, when it’s getting towards the end of the night, I tend to get a lot accomplished because I feel as if I’ve been procrastinating all day and I need to accomplish something before I surrender the day and go sleep for 8 hours (and repeat the cycle). I hustle at the end of the day to make up for my earlier procrastination and I procrastinate because I know I can hustle later. Ack!
Now my whole world’s been turned upside down – and I love it.
I no longer procrastinate because I know I only have about three hours until my next rest. As a result, I never hustle because I’m not trying to make up for any procrastination AND I know that whatever I don’t get finished I can pick up on after my next rest – 30 minutes later.
Under monophasic sleep there is more pressure to complete a project before resting – because the rest period is so long and makes such a dramatic division between work days. I don’t feel this dramatic division. If a project isn’t completed in one session, I can just pause, rest, and pick up where I left off 45 minutes later. It’s a very efficient way to produce steady, relaxed results – without my usual fluctuations of procrastination/hustle.
Every since I first read about polyphasic sleep in 2007 it has lingered in the back of my mind. Taking a 20 minute nap every 4 hours around the clock… is it possible? Could my body adjust? Could I function? Would I have the energy to exercise, or would I sit around in a daze? (twenty minute naps around the clock adds up to about 2 hours of sleep per 24 hour period). Well, I’m going to try it.
But… why?
The first thing that appeals to me about this concept is that it’s just plain weird. Secondly, the challenge seems nearly impossible. That is, the challenge to not give in to sleep deprivation and oversleep during the adjustment phase (which can last up to two weeks).
A normal sleep cycle lasts about an hour and a half and has four separate phases of brain activity. The final phase of the cycle is the REM (rapid eye movement) phase, which is the most restorative of the four. The goal of polyphasic sleep is to train the body to skip the three phases that aren’t as restorative and get straight to the REM phase. Dreams occur in the REM phase of sleep, so I’ll know I’m making progress towards adjustment when I start remembering dreams after my 20 minute naps – indicating my body is getting straight to the REM and skipping the other phases.
Is it possible?
Working for myself as a web developer, I have the flexibility of making my own schedule. This will allow me to strictly adhere to my new schedule while I (hopefully) adjust. However, there are two huge forces that will be colliding head on during this experiment. First, my love of sleep (usually over 9 hours a night) and dreaming (I keep a fascinating dream log), and secondly, my determination to not give up.
My sleep patterns are pretty chaotic right now, so hopefully this is an advantage as I adjust to a new schedule since I won’t have to “unlearn” a schedule first.
I’ve read about Steve Pavlina’s switch to polyphasic sleep (he kept it up for over 5 months) so I think I understand what to expect (Steve used the word “hellish” to describe the first week of adjustment *nervous laugh*).
Some Ground Rules
Here are the basic rules I’ll follow to get started:
Sleep Rules
No oversleeping
No oversleeping! This is the most crucial rule I must follow, as oversleeping once will set my adaption schedule back days at a time
I will set my alarm clock on the other side of the room so I have to get out of bed and walk over to it when it goes off
I will nap at 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, 2am, and 6am around the clock.
I will start naps within +/- 10 minutes of scheduled time during the adaption phase. After I’m adjusted I should be able to delay naps by as much as 1-2 hours if needed.
Seriously, no oversleeping
Diet
Eat light snacks between naps; avoiding heavy foods, excessive carbs, and red meat.
No caffeine or candy (ouch!). Caffeine is known to disrupt the REM phase of sleep and I’m afraid sugar would prevent me from falling asleep on time.
Awake time
During the adjustment phase, get outside once per period for a walk or light exercise
Keep the lights on during awake time
Create short, achievable “to-do” lists for each 4 hour awake session.
Use pushups, going for a walk, or stretching to help wake from naps
Safety
No driving during night time awake sessions
Why Blog about it?
I’d like to post daily updates on my progress, challenges, and overall sanity for three reasons:
Accountability
It’s fun to share the experience
It will motivate me to succeed
Tonight will be my first night of the experiment, so I expect to be pretty exhausted tomorrow. My body will also have to adjust to falling asleep more quickly – as it normally takes me at least 30 minutes to fall asleep at night.
Visualizing the Adjustment
I will periodically record my mental clarity, optimism, and fatigue levels on an ordinal 0-10 scale. I will then graph these values over time as the week goes on. Hopefully this will be an interesting visual to track my progress.
At the official start of the experiment:
Mental clarity – 10
Optimism – 10
Fatigue – 0
We’ll see how long the optimism stays at “10″… I feel like I’m sprinting up the foothills of Mt. Everest. It won’t be long before the air gets thin. Let’s do this!
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[UPDATE 11/17 4:00 am: My goal is to keep the experiment going for two weeks in order to give my body a legitimate chance at adaptation. If all is going well I anticipate extending the experiment indefinitely.]
[Warning: this video is a bit "out there." At the least, it will make you think. At best, it will reconstruct how you think about your past.]
