The Official Uberman Sleep Blog

Update / More info for Uberseekers

2006-11-10T11:32:00.000-05:00

Hey peeps! I am still updating my new blog at www.puredoxyk.com daily, so fly over there if you want the latest, the greatest, and the grittiest.

However, if you're just landing here, you should know that I'm not doing the Uberman schedule this time - it turns out that, in fact, mommin' and workin' and livin' in a crowded house DOES actually pretty much nix your chances with Uberman. (The answer to that question was the subject of my latest sleep experiment, which is described in detail on the rest of this blog.)

Uberman is just a very, very strict schedule and if your life is going to mess with your naps at all, then no amount of badass (at least no amount that I was able to muster) is going to make it work. I kept getting "almost there" and then having something knock me off schedule, and after re-adjusting a couple times, man, that'll do anybody in.

I decided to experiement with the core-nap schedules rather than give up, since I hadn't seen any really good research on what those were like and if they could work in the long term. Now I'm approaching four months on "Everyman" with good results. All the details on that are on my current blog.

Here are some more places to look if you're seeking info about Uberman or polyphasic sleep in general:

The biggest one is the Yahoo! "Uberman" group. There's always several people actively going through adaptation on the group, usually quite a few different sleep schedules represented (though mostly Uberman / Dymaxion), and a great list of resources plus phenomenal archives. Highly recommended.

Also, if you're interested in a great blow-by-blow of a successful Uberman adaptation, I highly recommend Steve Pavlina's. He did Uberman for as long as I did, but he actually kept good records. Yay!

I've also been notified of a new forum for Ubersleepers at www.ubermanschedule.com. It's *very* new, so I can't comment about the content, but the site looks to be good quality at least.

You can email me with any other resources you want listed here: puredoxyk at puredoxyk dot com.

Happy napping!

Goodbye Cruel World!

2006-07-26T16:30:00.000-04:00

Okay, this be it -- No more Blogger posts. Why? Well, I tried out Blogger on a whim, and it was worth about that -- a whim. I have a domain at www.puredoxyk.com, and decided after futzing with this teenager-worthy interface for a while that it was worth it to upgrade to something more flexible. Anyway, I have lots of other ambitions, projects and blatherings, and it'll be nice to keep them all in one place. (They're categorized, so you can always just click "polyphasic" if all you want to read about is the sleep stuff.)

Lately I've been powering through setbacks, something Everyman seems well-suited to, finishing up my adjustment and squeezing out some research in the cracks (much more research is forthcoming, once finals are over for this semester!). I think I've got an interesting lead on the "structure" of polyphasic schedules, which might give us a good hint about how to successfully modify them. More on that soon.

Thanks to everyone who read this blog; please do hop over to puredoxyk.com and leave your thoughts! The comment interface is much friendlier, I think, plus the new site does a really nice RSS feed if that makes things easier for ya.

Ta, and happy 20-minute dreams!

-PD

Everyman Morning 9 - Undersleeping? Okay...

2006-07-25T05:58:00.000-04:00

Post mirrored from http://www.puredoxyk.com...please update your brain and/or bookmarks...this is or is approaching the last entry to be duplicated here!

Well, that was interesting. Went to bed on time, but darn tired as missing that 10:00 tends to do; was very careful to set up the alarm so I thought I couldn't miss it. Actually, I laid down at 1:30 with a book, figuring that after missing a nap, getting a few extra Z's wouldn't kill me. I don't know when I passed out exactly, but I woke up once at 2:15 when the book fell on my face or something.

Sleep, gorgeous sleep--like pizza, it's SO much more appreciable when you're not overdoing it. Then, next thing I remember, I'm standing in the middle of the room, blinking my eyes and looking around, vaguely pissed off because there's no alarm going off so I figure I must have overslept. Gah dangit!

I go pee. This rouses me enough so that when I come back to my area, I actually can read the clock and comprehend it. It says...3:00. I woke up, for whatever reason, after not quite an hour. And by the time I realized this, I was feeling pretty awake, and kind of shocked that I could--nay, must--go back to bed.

I didn't oversleep that time either; the alarm bounced me right up at five. I have to admit, having a downright silly amount of time to get ready for work is kind of pleasant...I just took a leisurely shower and sat on the back porch a while, and I still have plenty of time to eat breakfast. Neato.

Thus begins day 9. I'm a little groggy now, no differently than I usually am when getting up for work after a full night's snoz. Not worried about driving or anything, though.

-PD

You're ALL ON NOTICE!

2006-07-24T06:13:00.000-04:00

This blog is being moved, to http://www.puredoxyk.com. That site is still incomplete now, but it's functional and all the old posts from this blog are over there, so please update your bookmarks as soon as it's convenient. Very soon now, new posts will begin appearing there instead of here. There's more on that site than just Uberman, but all the polyphasic sleep posts are categorized for easy finding. (I need to consolidate the number of websites I keep, argh!)

Last night I couldn't sleep during my 10:00 nap -- no doubt a side-effect of the six-hour snooze the night before -- BUT I did get up at 5:00 without incident, and while I'm tired now, it's not terrible. If this is recovery on Everyman, it's no worse than recovery on monophase! But we shall see how the rest of the day goes.

-PD

Dumber than a Brick, or just the Will of Fate?

2006-07-23T10:00:00.000-04:00

In retrospect, I feel like *such* an idiot.

After having a good day yesterday, I wasn't prepared to crash out during my core last night, and I slept right through my alarm (didn't set a backup). Slept for six hours -- yikes. Ruined any chance of getting my 9 a.m. nap, either; I didn't even bother trying.

I know what's in store for me now -- almost a full readjustment, probably at least 3-4 days of being tired again, and just as I was really starting to get the hang of it, too. I just so expected the result of my oversleeping a bit to manifest itself during the next couple naps (as it does with Uberman, generally), that when they went by without incident, I thought I was in the clear. D'OH.

Aggravating to lose that time, when this is Hell Week with school and I don't have it to lose; and aggravating to have to go backwards when I was right on the brink of seeing what really adapting to Everyman was like. However, no silverliningless cloud and whatnot, it is true that I would have had to oversleep at some point, in order to be able to report the results in the book. And at least I know that readjusting, while not fun, won't ruin me this week; I expect it to be less uncomfortable, but maybe take longer, than an Uberman readjust (which takes 24-48 hours for a fully-adapted person, IIRC).

Some notes on the book - Obviously I haven't made any real progress on it, but I hadn't planned to until this godsawful semester was over. However, I had thought I'd be limiting my study to Uberman alone, and obviously that has changed. I had thought I would title it Uberman:ZZZ (it was gonna look really neat in the layout, a big silver "Uberman" with three chunky black Z's behind it) -- but that doesn't seem appropriate now. I'm leaning towards "Polyphasic Revolution", since, yes, the more I learn about this, the more I lean towards the evangelical (much as the word makes me shudder--talk about negative connotations). But ideas are welcome, if anybody likes that sort of thing. (If nobody does, no biggie, since *I* like it. ;)

Well, I'm sure I won't be tired today, so I'd better use it to the best of my ability and bash out good chunks of these papers, since I bet I'm *wasted* tomorrow. Le sigh. Live and learn, I guess.

Ta,
PD

Aftermath / End of Day 6

2006-07-23T01:15:00.000-04:00

Well, oversleeping this morning didn't throw me off the schedule, or kick me into crash-mode. I slept fine all day, even at 9:00 and in spite of some scheduling weirdness during the afternoon.

I've been tired, but mostly just tired like I would be on a monophasic schedule if I missed some sleep, say only got 5 or 6 hours. I'm more tired than that now, but it's 1:13, and I usually get sleepy between 1-2. It's not actually too difficult to deal with though; I wind down for my core by reading or watching tv for half an hour, which is pleasant and I fall asleep lightning fast.

Everyman does give you one thing I really wanted out of Uberman this time, too: The ability to "stay up late" and "get up early", both. I like nights *and* mornings, and I always hate missing one to hang out in the other!

Good luck tonight to all the people I've talked to today who are starting new, or bullying through one of the dreaded Rough Patches. Hang in there, ya'll. Who's in charge, you or your meat? You can do it!

-PD

...And so will Day 6

2006-07-22T08:21:00.000-04:00

So, time to find out how easy/hard it is to recover from an oversleep on Everyman. This will be my first one.

I didn't *have* to oversleep. But I was upset over family crap and couldn't sleep for my 10:00, and it's Saturday, so I talked myself into going to bed at 1 and sleeping until 7 (though I could have gotten up at 5, actually; I just felt like being lazy).

So now we get to learn what the payment on such practices is. I'm a bit groggy now, but nothing terrible; I'm stying away from coffee or showers so that I can get my 9:00 in, hopefully. Will report on the rest.

It is pretty funny to sleep until 7 on a Saturday and subsequently beat yourself up for being so lazy. ;)

-PD

Day 5 Produceth a Lesson

2006-07-21T21:34:00.000-04:00

...And that lesson is: Thou Shalt Not eat too soon before a nap.

I'd been waking up on my own for a few naps, a couple minutes ahead of the timer, and feeling good, even at 5 a.m. today. Then my lunch appointment got started late, and I ended up eating at about 1:15, finishing about 1:45, and getting my nap at 2:15. I slept, but I woke up crazy groggy. I had to drink a cup of "real coffee" to wake up, and this from someone who's down to 1-2 cups of half-caff in the morning and that's it. (It's rather funny, since I quit I can "feel" real coffee again. I haven't gotten a buzz from coffee since I was like, 13!)

There was another time I though I could trace the grogginess to having eaten, but this is much more conclusive.

All of this is hilarious on a very strange level...Now I'm on the "Eat, Activity, Sleep" cycle that's how I was advised to raise babies, and which advice probably saved my butt because my daughter was an *awful* sleeper. As soon as the baby wakes, you see if it's hungry and feed it if it is. Then you set up something for it to play with or do (at least once a day, by itself--but supervised, of course). When it starts to fuss, you know it isn't hungry again yet, so if the butt's good and it's been a few hours, you put the little bundle back to bed, and--even if it's a lovely bundle like mine that wakes every 2-3 hours around the clock for seven months--it will sleep. It was called the "EASY" schedule, the "Y" being "your time", a much-needed reminder to new mothers to chill while the baby naps.

And now I'm the one on it. Freaky.

By the way, if you ever wonder why some parents seem to develop a psychological problem where they relate almost everything to the experiences their children have provided for them, I'll tell you: It's a trauma, from the extreme sleep-deprivation some of us go through. I was nearly hospitalized for hallucinations. So I have an excuse. ;)

Alrighty, naptime.

-PD

Update & Uberman/Everyman Comparison Notes

2006-07-20T08:13:00.000-04:00

Technically this is still "Day 4", since I've been counting them from 6 p.m., which is when I started Uberman on July 7. To keep things clear, however, I fell off Uberman with a 5 hour nap on last Saturday the 15th, muddled through Sunday with a core sleep, and decided to officially implement a 3-hour core and give Everyman a shot beginning on Monday. Starting tomorrow morning I'll refer to it as "day 5".

One possible advantage to Everyman for some people (or disadvantage for others) is that it doesn't mess with your senses of time nearly as badly. You have long days, but they're still days, broken up by a period of sleep, however short. On Uberman, after a few weeks, you start to feel very strongly that everything is one long speeding freight train of a day. I kind of miss that feeling, but I can also completely understand now that it wouldn't be at all compatible with my lifestyle. But hey, lifestyles change, so I'll just keep my ears open. You never know. ;)

I woke up this morning feeling *far* more human, and didn't have any trouble driving in to work. Was this related to the fact that I hit the snooze button again, this time for half an hour? I don't *think* so--one doesn't actually get that much more sleep by snoozing--but we'll see; I'm moving the alarm clock tonight so I can't do that anymore. (I've found that I have to move them periodically; otherwise I'll eventually get used to the sensation of getting up and turning it off.) I don't feel like I messed up the schedule, though.

To counter the dismality (yay, new word!) of last night, let me say that though I'm guarded about the feasibility of Everyman, I am really geeked about it and extremely hopeful that it proves workable in the long run (i.e. that I stop being tired). It's got a lot going for it, enabling one to sleep only about 4 hours daily (something I *never* could have pulled off before) and breaking up the day nicely (I like having to take breaks periodically; it keeps me fresh and focused -- it's something I've missed about smoking since I quit 2 years ago)...BUT it doesn't seem to zombify you nearly as badly or for as long as Uberman, and you get to keep the nice "snuggle in and sleep" part of nightly snoozing that many of us really dig on and/or rely on for reboot & relaxation. If it turns out that energy levels are as high, or close to as high, on Everyman as I and others have experienced on Uberman, it'll actually turn out to be a nice tradeoff. I can't tell yet, though...it being Day 4 of *this* schedule, I might simply be tired from adjusting; but since I've been polyphasic for 13 days now, I might also simply be experiencing the best that one get on this schedule, which I would find disappointing. So for now it's a coin-toss.

If I sound frustrated, by the way, most of that has nothing to do with sleeping per se; it's mostly that, because of this month being the Hell Month From Hades, I haven't been able to use *any* of my extra time for fun things, really, which is peeving me off. I'm either working, napping, or too tired to do anything but the stay-awake basics, like showering and walking and watching movies. It'll be so incredibly nice when that's over...but before it's *officially* over I have another challenge: I'm going to go on a week's vacation, and I'm determined not to let it ruin all this hard work I've done. Oo boy.

FYI, though I've been gathering tons of good info from all the lovely people I've run into lately who are also interested in this, I still don't have hardly anything on the longer-term use of Everyman. So feel free to throw it at me, if you find it laying around. ;)

-PD

P.S. Just noticed I was tired, and thought, "Maaaaaan..." BUT, I see it's actually half an hour till naptime. Well, isn't that nice!

An excuse to insult me

2006-07-20T01:40:00.000-04:00

Here, I'll post during my most tired time -- the hour before my core -- and let you all tell me if I'm acting dangerously wonky or somesuch. Um...no lying, please.

So this is Day 4. I was tired waking from every nap; I slept for all of them, though not always soundly, and work made me 1/2 hour late for my afternoon (2:00) nap. Had a minor but significant bout of blurry/unfocused vision on the drive to work.

I'll be honest; I'm plagued with worries about how to tell if this isn't going to work before I screw up some major obgliation due to sleep-dep...keep in mind, this is Everyman Day 4, but I've been sleep-deprived for, um, twelve days now. Thirteen? No, twelve I think. It gets old. Savvy?

And if it doesn't work, what then? Give up? Try Uberman again? I have no idea. But I also try not to think about it (I fail more when I'm tired), yet. I'm pulling for Everyman; I have loads of blind faith, of pure unsubstantiated knowledge, that it'll work.

And with that, it's time to wind down and get ready for Day 5.

-PD

Everyman Day 3, Gay Moslems & Naked Fozzy. Word up!

2006-07-19T08:50:00.000-04:00

During my 3-hour core last night (and I do love the cores; they feel wonderful, though it remains to be seen how they actually work out), I had a dream. I only remember that I was organizing a controversial event called "Brokeback Moselm" and it was very stressful. When my alarm went off at five, I sat up, said something about this being Palestinian time, and reset it. Which could have been a disaster, but then I opened my eyes fifteen minutes later, feeling more awake than I have in the morning yet.

w0rd. And weird. Actually, for me that's not a particularly weird dream -- I have Boss Weird dreams. Seriously.

Anyway, it's almost time for my 9:00, which I'm glad I moved up -- I'm going to second Steve Pavlina (again) and say that moving naps so that they're a bit closer together when you're tired, and wider apart when you're awake (instead of 2-5, 10, 2, I do 2-5, 9, 2 and feel much better). Of course, consistency counts, especially in the first month. The percentage of people I talk to who fail for lack of consistency is HUGE, and getting bigger all the time.

If this Everyman thing works out, I'll revamp my sagely advice (mm, smells like pasta) to read, "If you can't stay consistent on the schedule you picked, change it to one you CAN be consistent with". Because if you're not being consistent about your sleeping times and durations, you're not going to adapt and form the habits you need to stop feeling sleepy. Everyman may mean 3-4 hours of sleep daily versus Uberman's 2, but if you can't stick to Uberman, you're only going to end up back at the drawing board anyway...and suchness and so forth.

I just got this CRAZY urge to see the Muppets rendition of The Emperor's New Clothes. Wow. It must be naptime.

-PD

Day 11 / Everyman Day 2

2006-07-18T09:40:00.000-04:00

Well, staying up at night is easier now -- I didn't get sleepy until 1 a.m. yesterday -- but I'm still very tired in the morning and on and off throughout the day.

Must remember not to be too impatient, as I've only been on *this* schedule 2 days, but I can't help but be dubious still about Everyman's effectiveness. I've been chatting with some folks in the new Polyphaser's IRC channel (irc.oftc.net #ubersleep) and have garnered lots of info, BUT I still haven't found anyone who successfully (i.e. without tiredness) did Everyman. Uberman may sound less likely to work, being harder to implement, but there is evidence that it does work, historical as well as anecdotal. I haven't heard of any famous people who did a "core sleep" polyphasic schedule yet, but Uberman has quite a roster. Hmm.

One weakness to Everyman that I learned today is that you now have a long nap in there that it's just as critical that you get as Uberman's short naps are. Being undisturbed for 20 minutes is one thing; sleeping undisturbed for 3 hours is harder, as I learned last night. The disruption caused me to be holy-crap-tired this morning, and I took an extra 20 minute nap before work to try and alleviate it (I could tell I was past the "shouldn't drive" level). The extra nap let me drive, but I didn't really feel much better until I'd been awake a full hour. Then I couldn't really sleep for my 9 a.m., but whether that's because of the extra nap or the fact that my car is in the shop and I had to camp out on my office floor, I can't say. I got a nice rest, though, and sometimes that's almost as good. That is, I feel much better now, half an hour after "waking".

An upside is that one is definitely less afraid of missing a 20-minute nap on Everyman, because you know you have that core to help you catch up some; whereas in Uberman, you just have to crawl your way back by keeping your naps up, and after 2-4 of them, you feel better. (Which, actually, when you think about it, is about the same recovery-rate, time-wise. But I would bet the "crash" is faster and harder on Uberman.)

So, so far so good I suppose; I'm still functional and not miserable. But also still very tired. I imagine I probably feel exactly what I'd feel like if I was sleeping 4 hours monophasically for a few days. And if that's all I've been doing, then we'll know soon, because in a few more days that sleep debt should rear up and kick my attractive butt. If it doesn't, then hey, we might be on to something.

And I'm just not going to count the 9-day attempt at Uberman towards or against Everyman's adjustment period. I don't have any evidence that having been sleep-deprived when you started (and sadly I was sleep-deprived, having not adjusted well to Uberman by that point) is a help *or* a hinderance, so I'm ignoring it for now, even though I didn't go back to monophasic in-between, so it's probably significant somehow. So I'm calling this Day 2, and the verdict is: Functional but Tired.

-PD

P.S. I notice a lot of people out there are transitioning from Everyman to Uberman. The first one to make it work, please let me know how long it took and if you think it was "just as hard" as the newbie-to-Ubermen people's transitions!

Day 10 / new day 1: Uberman / Everyman

2006-07-17T08:02:00.000-04:00

Hey, I thought of a name for modified / core-sleeping schedules! We can call them "Everyman" Sleep Schedules. ;)

Seriously, I put a lot of thought into this last night (in between bashing out a truly Ubermanly amount of homework!). It completely makes sense (at least in retrospect) that the Uberman schedule would be quite dependent on factors in one's life that may not be in one's control. Uberman is not something you can in any way "fit your existing life into"; it's something you have to tear your life down and rebuild around. (I know this last week has completely fux0red everything about my usual schedule / routines / habits etc., and I didn't even get through The Razing that Uberman actually requires.) Sure, Da Vinci could do it; he had a 24/7 workshop and a huge quantity of art and tinkering to work on. Ditto Edison, Einstein, Bucky Fuller, etc. Something tells me that if I didn't have a 9-5 job and was possessed with a full-on workshop and no family to raise, I could snap my fingers and do it!

The upshot is, after much thought, the critical difference between Me Then & Steve Pavlina versus Me Now and quite a few other failed attempters seems as simple as lifestyle. Nothing else seems to bear out: For example, Me Then ate far worse than Me Now and was in many ways *less* disciplined. I know I gave this a thoroughly good shot; I planned it as well as humanly possible, was brutally strict with myself, enlisted help -- everything I did last time and then some. What I couldn't do was change my living situation to be more compatible with being up at night -- once I got too sleep-deprived to drive, I was literally stuck in one corner of a basement, and unable to do anything noisy -- nor could I change my work/school schedule to accomodate two or howevermany weeks of sleep-dep it was going to take to adjust in my circumstances. (Maybe that's it: The worse your circumstances, the longer your adjustment period?) So yes. Lifestyle seems to be a MUCH bigger factor than previously credited.

But polyphasic sleeping did something really positive for me last time, when I was lucky enough to have an Uberman-compatible lifestyle. And ever since then, I've wanted to see everyone have the shot at being less tired and having more time. If there really is an Everyman schedule (or several) that can really work, that's FANTASTIC news in my book! I guess I just had to get smacked down by Uberman in order to even entertain the idea, heh. But I never claimed to be smart. ;)

Today has gone well so far, info behind the cut. -PD

It's rather funny, because if I didn't have a reason to stay up until 2:00, I would have anyway -- I had that much homework. I started after my 10:00 nap (keep in mind I also wrote a paper yesterday morning), and finished at precisely quarter to two. Now I'm only a *little* behind, heh. But I didn't actually find the staying up that hard; I was yawning and drowsy--about Stanford 3--but it was doable and I could concentrate on what I was doing. Getting up at 5:00 wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't terrible either. (I got up right on time with one alarm, took a shower, ate, read, exercised, and took my time getting ready for work -- having the extra hour before work is *nice*, since I was getting up at 6 and now it's 5.) I was groggy, but I'd slept well and felt generally rested, i.e. not sick. Similarly, I had some drowsy episodes in the car on the way to work, but nothing so dangerous as Thurs. and Fri. last week; I didn't have to pull over or anything.

So, things are looking good for day ten/one. The clincher for this is going to be, Do I actually adjust to it? Do I eventually stop being groggy? If it's only this bad on the Everyman version, I can probably handle a longer adjustment period; it's a little unfun but it's not tearing up my life or endangering myself and others. And being that I'm still only getting just over 4 hours of sleep daily, the time gain will be totally worthwhile. (And perhaps this schedule could also address Ubermen who don't like having *quite* so much time; I've heard that a couple times.)

Compromise is where the optimists win

2006-07-16T13:35:00.000-04:00

So.

Apparently there is something about me, or about this time, that isn't letting me adjust as easily as I'd anticipated; which, I sense, might adjust if I had the time to sacrifice to "waiting it out", like one of my role models, Heidi, who out-patiented her body for five weeks and won. Everything in me screams to be allowed to be this badass, but circumstances simply won't allow. I had a HUGE paper due today that I've been unable to concentrate on for several days now, and which I'd counted on the nights to help me finish. DAMN being a grownup; damn it to HECK.

The lesson here is "don't assume you can adjust in 4-7 days, even if you did before".

So I slept a few hours last night, feeling like a loser about it, but I woke up fresh enough to finish my paper.

Now, I've said that core-sleeping doesn't seem the same as Uberman, and it doesn't. I'm not sure how, or if, the body could adjust to it; reports on it are confusing and many people who go that route seem to fail (however, I've recently heard from a few who didn't). So, since I've put a week of gut-wrenching work into this and cannot continue it in its present form, I figure I'm in a good position to do some research. My goal is to lessen my sleep amount AND not be tired; since I don't have the time to beat myself into adjusting to Uberman for some reason, I'll take this core-sleep thing for a test-drive.

(Details behind the cut.)

I've noticed from the last few nights that, if I just pass out and sleep, I sleep a maximum of 4 hours, and I feel pretty much fine (as in, no sleep-dep symptoms). Four hours seems too much to justify all those naps, though, so I'm going to try 3. Naps at 10a, 2p, 6p, 10p, then from 2-5a. That's 4.3 hours sleep a day, a definite gain over my usual 8-minimum -- IF I can actually adjust to it and do it without being tired. If I can't, I'm just going to have to go back to the drawing board for now, and wait for another opportunity. To be honest, I'm still skeptical that this semi-uberman thing can work, so it feels like giving up to me to be trying it, like I'm just taking a middle step between failing and quitting...but this whole episode has had me in a pretty negative mood lately, so I suppose I should just attribute it to that and shut up so that I can give it an honset try.

Hmm, I think I may move the 10a nap to 9, too. That way I'm not up 5 hours in the morning, but rather in the midday, when it's easier; and it cuts into my workday less, too.

Thanks to all who encouraged me not to give up outright; it really made a difference. And I want to hear from everyone who's core-sleeping, especially who've made it work stably and/or are transitioning to Uberman...I'm still collecting data for the book, because, well, you never know. ;)

-PD

3:40 a.m. Day 9 - 685 - s.n.a.f.u.

2006-07-16T03:21:00.000-04:00

Succeeded in sticking to perfectly-timed naps all day. Didn't help in the slightest, apparently. Was groggy on and off all day; now I'm back to fighting Really Nasty Sleep Dep again. Joy, oh joy.

Now I can see (blurrily, but still) why doing this on a college campus had such an immediate huge advantage: Numerous ways to be distracted and kill time, within walking distance. None here. And since I can't drive, pretty much every minute is a long slow countdown to when I can sleep again. Fell out like a brick at 2:00, and needed my husband to wake me up again, btw.

Am seriously upset that I still feel so ungodly horrid. My homework is suffering, since I'm not able to concentrate well day *or* night, and things don't look good for my being able to drive on Monday, unless I experience a rapid turnaround between now and then. And practical considerations aside, this is *no fun*, and yes, I knew it wouldn't be any fun for a couple days, but we're talking ten days now. I can handle anything for a few days--anybody can--but this is FAR too nasty to have to face the prospect of dealing with it indefinitely. How long is this going to go on? And what on Earth did I do wrong, or differently, that made the difference between the schedule "taking" last time and leaving me stuck in limbo this time?

The honest truth is, as a responsible adult I should have quit already; I didn't have a whole week to blow and I sure don't have two. I did this largely because I'm ridiculously short on time, and now I'm seeing how I've actually made that problem *worse* -- which made sense when I thought it would get better any day now, but the longer this goes on the more doubtful I get. And of course, being stressed out on top of sleep-deprived isn't helpful either.

I wanted this to work so badly, though, and I've already put so much effort into it, that I've decided to keep it up through the rest of the weekend. If Monday is still this bad, though, I'm afraid I'm going to have to hand in the towel for the time being. My workload is just too heavy to accomodate a week and a half of being a zombie...If I feel just a little better, though, I may give a shot at a core-sleep schedule; it isn't what I wanted and I think it won't have many of the benefits, but hopefully it would let me recoup some of the lost time, at least.

Darnit, I was really looking forward to writing a book on this, too. I suppose I could keep my notes and research in case I get another chance, but from here, that looks pretty slim. Or maybe I'm just letting my disappointment get the best of me. I really wasn't prepared to fail at this, figuring that I'd done it so well before and all, and the sleep-dep doesn't help when it comes to being morose, I'll tell ya. One thing I would do differently if I started all over again is put up a "DONATE" box for my husband -- he deserves to be compensated!

Well, off to wander in circles, maybe take another cold shower, and who knows, I could get some homework done in there, too. Ta!

-PD

Close call / New Resolution

2006-07-15T10:56:00.000-04:00

Wow, I feel like a ship that's still dripping from a nasty, freaky storm.

Last night was just icky. I was worried at the time that I might be sick or something because of how bad I felt, but looking back, yeah, that's just "really nasty sleep-dep". However, to have RNSD on day 8 is quite counter to what I think I know about this schedule, and definitely counter to how it went last time. I'd think that it was just me having a bad memory, except that Steve Pavlina, whom so many uberwannabes look to now for an example, seems to bear it out: His Day 7 post shows it clearly, that by then he was having no tiredness except for a bit at night. He says that perhaps being a vegan helped him (no offense, but I've found that people on a special diet always seem to think it gives them advantages everywhere..."See, I tied my shoes faster because I'm a vegetarian...") -- but his report is pretty much exactly what I remember from last time, and I've never been a vegan and never will be, since (if you care) I have abnormally iron-rich blood and would have to take tons of supplements to keep from feeling anemic if I didn't eat at least a little meat every day. (I also eat lots of broccoli, which helps too...and I loooove broccoli!)

Anyway, enough digression. Perhaps it was my daily few-minutes-here, few-minutes-there oversleeps that were keeping me from adjusting; I certainly intend to find out, and have cut them out completely--none for over 24 hours now--so we'll see. It's possible that during the adjustment period, every minute counts, and keeping that in mind without someone to bug me about it was certainly harder this time.

I had been thinking maybe about allowing an "indulgence" of a couple hours on Saturday mornings, per my last post; thankfully yesterday was Friday, so I had a palatable solution to that awful sleep dep and I took it. I slept from exactly 6 a.m. to 10 (I had the alarm set for 10:20, but woke up just before 10 and decided to run with that). Now I feel functional again, though not terribly alert. I do wish I hadn't had to mess with things until at least the first month was over, but I figure, obviously I wasn't adjusting well anyway, so if this little "reset" throws me back a day or so, oh well. My biggest concern now is, will I be able to drive on Monday morning? I absolutely can't avoid it, so if I can't get some clear-headedness in the mornings pretty soon, I may be in trouble.

I'm going to have to cross my fingers and do *perfectly* this weekend. So I will -- I really want this to work, darnit.

-PD

Don't fall down now; You will never get up

2006-07-14T23:16:00.000-04:00

Ah: The Low Point. I knew this was coming, eventually.

Day Eight (counting 6 p.m. Fri 7/7/06 - 5 p.m. Sat 7/8 as "Day 1") went just swimmingly. No mistakes, no "snoozes", no nothing; like clockwork. Except that I woke up from my 10:00 feeling like hammered hell again. I wandered around the room, too tired to be interested in anything, way too muddled to concentrate on anything, desperately fighting a bone-deep urge to sit down and knowing that if I did, I'd be asleep in seconds. Then I lost my grip for a while.

It seemed, at that moment, so totally, cosmically unfair that it couldn't be stomached. Work has been Hell, school has been twice that, my living situation has been a constant annoyance (which it was before too, but only for half as much of the time), all my attempts to find things to "go do" or be social at have failed (which wouldn't surprise you in the slightest if you knew me; Lord knows why it surprises *me*), and I'm so damned tired of being disoriented and dissatisfied and stressed out and uncomfortable that, for a while, I would have given absolutely anything to never have had the cursed idea of trying this again. Oh yeah, and I have a nice solid history of depression, and I haven't even gotten around to buying more multivitamins since this started. That has nothing to do with any of it. Nothing at all.

My achingly brilliant husband brought me Kleenex, made a pot of decaf, and badgered me until I went for a walk. Yes, I feel a bit better. No, eight days is not an uberlong adjustment period and I should quit overreacting. Yes, it's understandable that doing this in my circumstances would be a black diamond affair. No, I won't give up.

He also told me flatly that a "core sleep" sounded right for someone in my situation, and suggested I should try it. Part of his reasoning is that I just have to spend a lot of my time sitting in front of the computer--hell, I should be doing homework right now--and the night I accidentally slept two hours, I did feel much better than I have since; less groggy and more alert. He's also worried about how tired I am while I'm driving to work (me, too, actually). But I turned him down, mostly because I think it's still too early to experiment--I want to give the pure "hexaphasic" schedule more time to take, simply because backing off from there is easy, but moving up *towards* "pure Uberman" is, well, just like this, and I'd much rather not do it any more than I have to.

Thoughts are, of course, welcome.

-PD

Week One Roundup: Notes on Emergency Napping, Snoozebarring, and R&R periods.

2006-07-14T08:09:00.000-04:00

Okay, a minor *yay* for making it through week one with no major scarring. Last night went well, no major oversleeping for the 3rd day straight, though I did succumb to the snooze button again; I also took a mid-cycle "emergency nap" at midnight, due to being so tired from my daytime naps getting messed with that I knew I couldn't last until 2. The emergency nap did help a bit and I was able to stay on schedule the rest of the night. (I say, if you have to take an emergency nap, do; it's better than oversleeping; BUT, be warned -- take it right in the middle of a cycle, and only there. You don't want it messing up another nap!)

Mentally I'm still a bit slow, and physically still uncoordinated, both of which are aggravated right before and right after sleep. This morning I walked out of the house and stuck my key in the lock of my neighbor's car. ;) I still feel like I can do everything I used to; it's just a tad harder and takes a little longer like this. I'm not constantly tired or anything, but when I am tired, it's like the Granddaddy Long-Legs of tiredness; I can't stop thinking about sleep and doing everything possible to get some. It's a surmountable feeling, but not a pleasant one.

I woke up *before my timer went off* this morning (6:00), which is a first (for nighttime), though because of an episode I had yesterday where I unexpectedly lost some time, at first I thought I'd overslept and ruined everything -- and then I noticed that my timer was still going! Well, I was cozy and so what do you think I did; when the timer went off I congratulated myself for being so punctual and then *reset it for ten more minutes*. I distinctly remember that I didn't feel drowsy when I woke on my own, but after that extra ten minutes, I was so wasted tired that I genuinely scared myself a couple times driving to work. Could it be that my stupid snooze-bar problem (which is much more of an issue at 6 a.m. than in other places) is the cause of my morning trashedness? I guess this week, I'll find out. I am less trashed, now that I've stopped driving, than I have been over the past couple days at this time.

Other than how shredded I was last night about 11:00, staying up during the night has become much easier the last couple days; I haven't even had to go out in order to stave off the drowsies for the most part. I seem to be getting trained again to wake up after 20 minutes, though it's sloppy, and again, I think I'm going to blame my habit of snooze-barring once or twice a day on that. Baaaaad, snoozebar. No more snoozebar. (Or resetting the timer or, my personal favorite, bugging my husband to please be a dear and wake me back up in ten -- I have no recollection of having the conversation, but he swears I did it.)

Thinking more on that, I think part of the reason I do it is that I miss being able to snuggle into bed and chill for a bit, which in recent years has been a common stress-reliever for me. And I'm a big believer in stress-relievers--shutup, I didn't mean for that to rhyme. Seriously, though; my father and I are both Type A crazy work-till-death types, and watching his example has taught me that one should make damn sure to keep at least one strictly-chilling activity in place at all times. In my present situation, sleeping in on Saturdays was pretty much what I had, and there's a good part of me that's pissed about having to give it up.

Would the schedule bear, I wonder, scheduling in a "chillin' sleep" once a week, say from 2-6 or 6-10 a.m. on Saturdays? I wouldn't dream of making it random, or of less than determinite length, or any of that; but I also think that I'd have a better time with my snoozebar problem and overall mental view of this if I knew that I'd still get to snuggle and chill once a week.

Hmm.
-PD

What happens when some dipshits interrupt your nap...

2006-07-13T21:04:00.000-04:00

Ah, I was waiting for it to start demanding funny sacrifices to The Schedule Gods. Accoutrements de Vehicle demand that I buy them before next week, to prevent those pesky fellow humans from waking me up no matter where I park, as they did 3 or 4 times today, ruining my afternoon.

It's like sacrificing yourself for your Art, except instead of making something beautiful, you're tormenting yourself. It's like...sacrificing yourself for sacrificing yourself.

Personal Rule # 8,654,282,071*: Do not contemplate what the hell you're doing to yourself while you're doing it. ;)

Other than having a borderline headache still and not quite having recovered from my broken nap this afternoon, I is fine. I do want to formally thank the living heck out of the Uberman group at Yahoo -- there's no substitute for the advice and musings of lots of successful polyphasers, pure-Uberman and just about every other possible combination. And some that aren't possible. And some that are made of cheese.

*sigh* Sleep dep blows.

Over soon...

-PD

*Note: I am capable of making one personal rule a second, which means I'm 274 years old. Respect your elders, dammit!!

3.8.7 spm

Day 6: Significantly Easier

2006-07-13T07:58:00.001-04:00

So, here I am with only 2 naps to go of "Day 6", and last night was a pleasant surprise indeed. That headache made me decide not to take my usual trip to the cafe--I just wasn't up for driving, even after I'd pretty much killed the actual headache--so I figured, well, I'm going to bite the bullet and stay home all night. And I did. I didn't even take a walk or rollerblade; my neck gets so sore after those sinus episodes that I wince like an old lady when I even have to walk across the room. Still, I was really worried about it being a hellish struggle of a night, a real naked trip through Mordor, and about messing up when I've done well for the last couple days and would rather stick with that, thanks.

Well, I'll be darned if it wasn't twice as easy as the night before had been. I was able to read most of the night, taking breaks when I got woozy to do menial things like shower or clean a little, and I even got a solid chunk of homework done between 2-6, when I would have least expected it. I wasn't more than "moderately" tired until I woke up from my 6:00 (still have to figure out why I'm so doggedly drowsy then). My headache started to come back at 3:00, so I made a snap decision to try taking an extra nap at four, and that was quite pleasant and actually did help get rid of the headache. (Funnily enough, I sat straight up and whipped my eye-cover off ten minutes into the 4:00 nap, convinced that because I'd slept so well, I must have overslept.) But even the extra nap didn't help the 6:00 problem, though I should point out that I was only about 60% as drowsy this morning as I was yesterday, which was about 60% as much as the day before; so likely I just have to be patient (and persistent).

Oh, and my "couple cups of half caff" turned out to be about 1 cup total, over the whole night; I was all set to indulge but then that's all I wanted! No negative sleep impact; I've been passing out quickly and sleeping like a brick for the last 2 days straight now (which, tellingly, is also how long I've been without oversleeping or mistiming a nap).

More later then,
PD

Making Do

2006-07-13T00:24:00.000-04:00

Wow, challenge upon challenge lately. The 2 1/2 hours of homework I did yesterday and the 2 I did today didn't even put a dent in what I still have to do.

The humidity here has got to be like 9007%, except in my office at work, where the air conditioner pumps straight in, making everything a bone-chilling forty or so degrees and dry as the Sahara. Result? Staggering sinus headaches. I've been staving them off pretty well, but today was too much, and by the time I got home from work I pretty much couldn't move.

Thankfully, it's a bit better now, because I think my chances of staying simultaneously motionless and awake were, oh, nil or so. For now I'm a bit groggy--Stanford 3, maybe 3.5--but as long as I'm not trying to study (darnit), I'm okay. I'm permitting myself a few cups of half-caff tonight, partly to stay awake, partly to keep the headache at bay (because if it weren't for coffee I'd be taking Sudafed, and there ain't no sleeping on that stuff).

On the psychological front, I realized today how often I've caught myself "craving sleep", exactly as one craves a smoke or a drink or a chocolate or ten. Not, I quickly realized, for any other reason than that it's a nice long escape. My grandfather-in-law is the kind of person who never slept longer than three or so hours a night his whole life, by choice; he always said that some sleep was good for you but that most people indulge in it too much, and it begins to act like a drug. I would have laughed, but Buckminster Fuller said something very similar too. And my cravings since I've been "off sleep" for 6 days have a physical component, yes, but also a very strong needy psychological one. Hmm.

-PD

Mwahuh?

2006-07-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

Waking up seems to be hardest, physically speaking, after the 6:00 a.m. nap. The way my day is planned out, I get up, get ready and go pretty much straight to work, so I do get up (I *can't* be late at my job, and that panic is a fantastic motivator). But I'm stumbly and fumbly and all kinds of not-focused, which has already resulted in a few annoying incidents of forgetfulness and/or clumsiness. And, I'll admit it, I do worry about driving this way, even though, blessedly, moving my day up an hour avoids the morning traffic rush. But then I get to work and I'm pretty much a dead rag until after 9:00 (after my 10:00 nap I perk right up).

But this is, what, day 6? No, day 6 starts at 6 tonight, I think. So this is still day 5. And though I didn't screw up 5, I haven't done a perfect job either. So more than likely, this is one of those hang-in-there things. *sigh* I hate those.

I suppose I'm right on schedule, though, when you think about it -- I started feeling lots better yesterday (day 4), and last night I had my first I-can't-believe-it's-not-torture night -- staying up was work, but not 3v1l. Oh, and if you ever want a movie you *can't* sleep to, try The Crucible. Yiiiikes. (The book is better, of course, but reading...)

In other news, I went to the chriopractor yesterday and got a bit of a physical, just to be sure. He said I appeared to be just fine, and my blood pressure was "excellent". To which I turned to him and shrieked, "I'M NOT DEAD!"

I like to keep people on their toes. 'Specially when I forgot mine in my other pants.

-PD

Since you asked...

2006-07-12T04:45:00.000-04:00

Why no, I haven't overslept today. ;)

Feel groggy -- another "5 on the Stanford Schedule" -- but considering I hardly felt tired at all today, and that yesterday at this time I was snozzing, I'm willing to call it a victory. Considering that it's raining out tonight and I couldn't plan any physical activity, I'm half cocked to consider it a miracle!

Time to clean, though. -PD

The unbearable lightness of falling asleep

2006-07-11T22:34:00.000-04:00

Doing this, you get to know what the sensation of falling asleep feels like, much better than most people have occasion to.

Actually, I knew what it was like before I first did Uberman. The last sleep disorder I developed, the one that drove me over the edge, so to speak, and into the arms of polyphasism, was this curious problem: Every time I laid down to sleep, I would lay perfectly still and quiet my body. Some short time later I would feel a gentle sinking sensation, followed by a tingle that passed over my whole body, as if I'd sunk through a layer of fizzies. Once that had happened, my breathing and heartbeat and every other bodily function would slow to a crawl, and I knew for a fact that I was, in fact, asleep. ...Except that the other part, where I lost consciousness, wouldn't come. I could lay there as long as I wanted, trapped in what felt like a coma, but I wouldn't actually go unconscious. I would listen to noises, think thoughts, feel my body locked down tight (I could move, but it was quite an effort at first, and by doing it I would almost certainly "wake myself up"). But I couldn't actually lose consciousness. After the novelty of it wore off (a couple times, in other words), it became hellish. "Sleeping" was too boring to do for very long, and anyway even if I did, it wasn't half as restful as it should be, because, well, I was awake for all of it. Pretty soon I would give up after about 20 minutes, and that's how I ended up sleeping only 20 or 40 minutes a day for two weeks, and looking and probably acting like the walking dead, which led my best friend out of concern to search for a solution, and find what became the Uberman schedule.

It's funny, I always thought the fact that I still felt the sensation of going to sleep when I *was* on Uberman was because I still had the sleep disorder, but my body was compensating somehow and letting me lose consciousness shortly thereafter. Today (all naps good so far), I realized that I can feel it again -- the same exact sensation, except, thank the gods, shortly after the "tingle and shutdown", I lose consciousness.

Interesting observatory powerz? Or yet another way in which I miserably fail the Normal Exams? Ah, well. I've got an icky little cafe and a buttload of Economics homework callin' my name, so I'm out, yo. Ta!

-PD

Another Smack / More Lessons

2006-07-11T07:54:00.000-04:00

*sigh* Well, I'm not going to get upset about it this time (at least not as upset as I got a few days ago), but I overslept *again*. And this time it was the dumbest possible mistake...I was doing great yesterday, feeling good and not getting tired until 30-45 minutes before naptime, and sleeping well, and getting up with the timer with no trouble at all. So I blithely laid down at 2:00 (I was tired by then; really groggy, which I hadn't been since the drive into work yesterday morning--more on that later) -- but I figured the timer would wake me and I didn't want to bother with the other alarm, since I'd have to reset it again at 6:00. I did lay out the things I wanted to do when I woke up, and overall felt quite on top of things.

So what happened? It was hot last night, and I rolled over in my sleep and rolled onto the timer, shutting it off. Sheesh.

I only slept three hours -- woke up at 5:00 sharp -- which is a good sign that in spite of my screwups I'm making progress adjusting. I got up and did a really heavy Pilates routine followed by a shower, which enabled me to get a few minutes' sleep at my 6:00 nap, which is good. (Oversleeping is bad; oversleeping and missing naps because of it is worse.) But from now on, dammit, BACKUP ALARMS AT 2 AND 6, even if it doesn't feel like I'll need it!! I don't want any more mistakes; I'm anxious to get past the tiredness and start enjoying this more. I did mention that I really loathe being tired, right?

Oh, one more thing I should mention...I'm noticing that the 40-minute commute to and from work is a big challenge; I get very groggy having to drive that long, even if I'm wide awake when I start. Long drives are not something I had to deal with before, and I don't recall having read about anybody else's experience with them; but it was easier today than yesterday, so perhaps it'll stop being a problem once I'm adjusted.

...I did find myself thinking, in the shower, that perhaps I can see what the attraction of "core sleep" is; I felt great after that 3 hour snooze, and I could totally see doing it on a weekend or something as a treat, if it could be managed so it didn't screw up the naps on either side of it. (For instance, if I'd pushed my 2:00 to 3:00 and slept until 6:00, maybe.) But I still think that any and all tinkering with the schedule should be avoided for at least a month (perhaps I should say "a good month", as in, until after one's had a whole month with no problems), so for now my job is just to stay on the freaking schedule for longer than a day and a half at a time! Grr!

-PD

A Musings

2006-07-10T21:54:00.000-04:00

Wow, I'm already having trouble with keeping track of days--? That was quick.

Standing here, nearly 10, approaching the second nap of Day 4, it doesn't really feel real, but it's too pervasive to feel unreal. The sun is just down; work is just good and over; the next Night is about to begin. Night One was easy; didn't really count. Night Two I goofed up a little. Night Three was hard, but I had it meticulously planned and lots of activities and also a surprise bonus phone call with a good friend right when I needed it.

Today I was definitely functional, managed to commute and work and commute again and do a good job with some tricky situations (there's lots in my job) and get some critical homework done. But I slept hard and half-in, half-out a lot and woke up groggy, and stayed groggy for about an hour after each nap. But then, I might be imagining it, yet it seems that it gets a little easier with each successive one. Just a tiny little.

One thing that is damn funny...my brain definitely remembers the 20-minute naps, or their length if nothing else. I've been setting my timer for 23 minutes, to give time to settle and scratch an itch or something before the countdown begins in earnest; and for both my daytime naps today, I opened my eyes, wide awake and panicked about whether I'd slept in, when there was still two and a half minutes on the timer. (Then I got groggy. Go figure.)

Funny stuff, the brain; grey Jello with such personality. And...it's naptime...the day/night face of the clock has turned. Welcome to Night Four.

-PD

Ah yes, now THIS is familiar...

2006-07-10T08:39:00.000-04:00

Stanford Sleepiness Scale: 5 (very foggy, unfocused).
Emotional State: 7 (guarded but high)
Physical State: 8 (feeling generally fine; no pains or problems)

I'm at work (I made it!) so this won't be long. But...I did it! A night of flawless nappage was done. It wasn't easy, but it acutally wasn't horrible either; I remembered enough tricks to keep me sane and from feeling downright sick with exhaustion. Something physical to do upon waking up is muy helpful, and the backup alarm at the 6 a.m. nap was probably a good idea too. I had enough planned that I could focus on doing one thing and plotting the details of the other. Ferinstance, I was quite wiped during my post-garage-cleaning shower, but I distracted myself by pondering what I would eat when I got done. Yes, my brain is that impaired at the moment. I expect to start feeling better tomorrow, though.

Speaking of impairment, driving here this morning was a bit scary! I've been quite thrashed since my 6:00 nap, and driving was less than easy. For others doing this, you might want to not plan to operate any heavy machinery on days 2 or 3. Thank goodness the extra time meant that I got to beat rush-hour on the way here. ;)

I took another typing test last night, just to see how much I'm impaired physically...yeah, I'm down by about 20 WPM. Not to shocking, there.

Other side effects besides serious grogginess: Sore feet, from doing all that physical stuff! And, oddly enough, bladder urgency...when I had to go last night, I had to *go*. I have been drinking a lot too, though. Besides that, I seem to be doing fine.

-PD

Day 3: So far, so good

2006-07-10T00:58:00.000-04:00

Rollerblading at midnight is awesome.

All the sidestreets are empty -- right down the middle of the road for almost an hour and only two cars to contend with. Beautiful weather; perfect breeze. Can't call that a waste of time!

Someone mentioned to me that sleep is their escape from being bored. That's definitely a challenge of the adjusting period -- staying busy so you can't focus on being sleepy. But I totally don't mind being "bored" usually, or rather I have such a huge arsenal of defenses against it that it rarely sinks in. Quiet time to read, type, think, draw, paint, scheme, plot, etc. is all good by me. Unfortunately, one has to acclimate *first*, enjoy quiet time second. Grr.

Oh well, so far so good today -- no more booboos, though of course I haven't slept well in naps yet; but that's normal. In fact, the tearingly aggravating sensation of laying perfectly still for 20 minutes and not sleeping was rather comforting, like a familiar difficult meditation. I sense that I'll sleep for this one, though. ;)

The formidable 2-6 block hovers horizionishly. I've got garage cleaning set up, laundry and cleaning to do, and more homework that I may or may not be able to hack doing. In any case, no reading, heh.

-PD

Post-Screwup Update

2006-07-09T11:41:00.000-04:00

Okay, got some homework done, laid down but (unsurprisingly) didn't really sleep at 10:00. That's okay; we shall overcome, right? Right.

So, tonight. The cafe I've been going and doing homework at is closed Sunday nights. Extra planning is going to be hella necessary, then. I think best in QWERTY, so here it goes (behind the cut).

Before 10:00 is easy: Homework, homework, and more homework. If for some reason I get tired of that (but come on, who tires of homework?), I can take care of the preparation necessities below.

After 10:00's nap, I will go rollerblading. This takes at least an hour and involves getting drenched with sweat (mmm, drenched). I'll come home and snag a shower, and if I'm not too wiped, play videogames. If I am too wiped or get that way, I'll switch to cleaning and laundry (the stuff I didn't do last night while I was oversleeping, heh). If *that* runs out, I'll go weed the garden (it needs it, but only a little). Before 2:00's nap, I'll lay out "gross clothes" and cleaning supplies, and load up some good stuff on the MP3 player, in preparation for tackling the garage.

After 2:00's nap, I'll get up and do whatever exercise I can handle -- Pilates is nice but involves laying on the floor (ugh, temptation), so if that doesn't work, a walk or push-ups or something. Maybe throw in my good Tai Chi video, which is slow and looks easy but will actually work the heck out of you, and is good for focus and staving off negativity (note: Lay that video out, just in case). I'll work in the garage until no later than five, come in and get another shower (note that I made room for two showers...that's cuz I'm S-M-R-T). I'm digging out a backup alarm as soon as I'm done with this post, because of course I have work tomorrow, so oversleeping is a triple-dog-whopper no-no.

Depending on what my boy thinks (he's still in bed, after staying up until about 4 with me -- he's been a total angel through this, by the way), I might also pull the card of going to a late movie. I know sitting in a dark theatre doesn't sound like the greatest idea, but I've never even come close to falling out in a theatre in my life -- and I do want to see the new Jack Sparrow movie -- we'll see. I might not be able to afford it anyway, heh.

Okay. Off to prep and do the dry cleaning so I have work clothes tomorrow. Wish me luck!!

What do you mean, I'm HUMAN?!

2006-07-09T09:19:00.000-04:00

Ooookay. So the Almighty Me, when miserably sleep-deprived, can in fact fall asleep on the couch reading and sleep right through the timer (set just-in-case because, I think, I knew reading on the couch was a bad idea).

I think I passed out about 5 a.m, and woke up exactly at 9:00. EXPLETIVE, expletive expletive. WOW did I not need that, what with work tomorrow and all the schoolwork that's due today...crap crap CRAP.

BUT. I had to slap myself around a little to remember this, but I guess I am, ahem, human. The last transition was not without a mistake or two here and there either, and I still pulled it off (cold comfort facing down tonight, but still).

What have we learned? Ahem:

Backup alarms are NECESSARY when one is really, really bushed
Must devise a better way of eating up time when too tired to function ...

I felt awful last night, as one does, typically, and found that I couldn't make myself do just about anything. I staved off the screwup for an hour by walking around outside, but just felt too bushed to keep doing that. Baby was sleeping, so couldn't turn a movie up loud. Couldn't focus or concentrate enough to do homework. Tried sitting in the middle of the floor, painting and watching TV, but as some of you will know, anything that involves being still means you can't stop thinking about falling over and falling asleep. Eventually I laid on the couch a minute to watch the movie (setting the timer for 20 minutes just in case, because an extra 20 minute nap doesn't screw you up nearly as much as actually oversleeping does, as Steve Pavlina discussed), but I didn't fall asleep at all, and thought (with the typically impaired processes of someone in the throes of sleep-dep), Hey, this is cool, I can stay on the couch! I'll get my book... Yeah. If I ever even opened the book, I don't remember doing it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

So, I have to run and get the baby up now, and send her off on her weekly Grandma Field Trip, hopefully before the 10 a.m. nap. I'm still tired, but a shower and some Pilates ought to get me going again, and then WOW do I have a ton of homework to do. It's probably a good thing that I have to do it today rather than tomorrow, though...the forecast for tomorrow just got upped to "Damn sleepy"!

(I keep trying to comfort myself with things like, "Hey, look at it this way; people wouldn't take the experiment nearly as seriously if I didn't screw up at all..." ...But it isn't really working. I'm quite disappointed in myself. Tonight, BEFORE I get butt-tired, I think I'll set up the garage for cleaning...I talked myself out of doing that last night because it wasn't "set up" (basically a lamp out there) yet.)

-PD

Day 2

2006-07-08T21:34:00.000-04:00

Well, I started at six yesterday and it's coming up on my 10:00 today, so that would make this, in the parlance, "Day 2".

I have been a little tired and "swimmy" at some points today, but overall felt fine, though hungrier than usual. Got in all my naps (though 6 p.m. was a close one) and no oversleeping (though ten a.m. was close in that respect). So far haven't needed anything other than my timer to wake me, or anything fancier than a bit of exercise or a cleaning-project to keep me awake. I slept a little at 2:00 and quite a bit at 6:00, woke up groggy and disoriented but it faded quickly.

Taking advantage of something I know about myself now that I didn't have access to last time, I also went and took some movies out of the library. I can't sleep if there's a movie on; my brain just won't let go of a good story (or, come to think of it, quit bitching about a bad one). Makes a good back-up measure.

Tonight I have to take some of the tests again, do laundry (been saving it up, heh), some art and music and a hella lot of homework. Believe it or not, if it weren't for being simply too tired sometimes to stay sitting at the computer, I probably wouldn't be doing anything besides work and homework with all this time...I guess I should be grateful that my body's demanding trips outside and different activities. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy... ;)

Good, um, er, night, sorta!

-PD

Check!

2006-07-08T07:15:00.000-04:00

Yup, okay, Night One was a success. And--crap--I just reminded myself that I'm going to need to name the nights here, soon. Losing track of the days doesn't set in for a couple more weeks if I recall correctly, but still, avoiding it would be best. Naming the nights helped last time.

Anyway. No goofs or problems last night. A couple spots of icky shuddery tiredness, usually when I got bored, and also upon waking from the 6:00 nap, which was the first one I really slept for. (Ickyfeelings solved by a long hot shower and a short cool walk.) Oh, and I think my henna-job came out pretty well. ;)

Today should be pretty busy, yay; but tonight is going to be a real challenge. I could be louder last night than normal, plus I had the complicated task of hennaing my hair to keep me engaged. Tonight, all bets are double!

Anyway, think I'll watch the rest of the movie I stuck in hours ago, and get some food. All I had last night was some broccoli, and it's catching up to me.

Ta!
-PD

1:00 a.m.

2006-07-08T01:07:00.000-04:00

*yaaawwwn*

You know, it's really pretty shocking how familiar this all is. Laying down for naps, making late-night trips to study (I studied for almost 2 hours just now). Don't know if I ever mentioned it, but it's been a running joke with several people how, in all these years, I never "forgot" how to take 20 minute naps. If I laid down for any nap, *pop* I was awake again in 20 minutes. Happened as recently as last week.

...She says, to bolster herself before the dreaded 2 a.m. nap...

Nah, I'll be fine. At least for today. Anybody can go a day without sleep; it's tomorrow when it starts getting fun. ;)

Thanks for all the comments and jazz, btw. It's more helpful than you know.

-PD

One nap down, one heck of a lot of naps to go

2006-07-07T20:44:00.000-04:00

Blargh, but was I ever tired after work. The 6:00 nap felt good; I only slept a few minutes of it and woke up groggy, but hey, so far so good!

Now--to chill a bit, before I get tired and have to stay busy.

PD

Bring it, Sandman!

2006-07-07T16:35:00.000-04:00

Garrrrgh, did I sleep for crap last night. It doesn't seem fair that I've been tired all day prior to deliberately exhausting myself, but hey, you take what you can get. Maybe the Sandman saw it coming?

Here's my plan for tonight:
Nap at 6:00 p.m. Strand-test hair this evening.
Nap at 10:00. Go to cafe & do homework (lord knows there's plenty of that). Come home, maybe play video games or do something fun (I shouldn't be too tired yet; just in case I am, I left off some of the exercising I usually do in the morning for nighttime).
Nap at 2:00, preceeded by prayers to whatever gods there be, heh. Get up; take a walk. Come home, prepare henna, dye hair (assuming, of course, the strand test wasn't hideous. Henna-ing takes a while to do and several hours to set, and will be uncomfortable to sleep in, yay!) If extra time, practice bass or clean.
Nap at 6:00 a.m. Get up, exercise, shower. Maybe take another walk. Trip to library in the morning sometime.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll have to plan out tomorrow night.

Singin', Oh Mister Sandman...Get off my lawn...You got the poison and I don't want none...Oh, Mister Sandman...Outta my head...I don't like sleepin', no, I'll sleep when I'm dead...

Countdown: Last day

2006-07-06T16:28:00.000-04:00

...And tonight is my last night of full-on hibernation.

I think I'm ready. The Monster To-Do List is printed; the timer is primed. I slept just lovely last night and woke up stingingly groggy anyway, and have been sleepy all day, so no real reason to hang on there. All I have to do now is finalize some pre-experiment testing, check with my last-ditch might-have-an-EEG-or-EKG contact, and off we go.

*holds breath*

-PD

Written in the time it takes tea-water to heat up

2006-07-05T12:04:00.000-04:00

Two more days. The lopsided skepticism of my family and co-workers (who never saw the original experiment, so still, I think, suspect that I made it up, heh) is nicely counterbalanced by the flat, solid, nigh-giant-robot-like belief of my wonderful dreadlocked husband that I will just stomp this flat and pull it off with no more hitches than a Gundam squashing a modest three-bedroom ranch.

Well, we'll find out soon, won't we? In the good news, I found (thanks to the same lovely dreadhead) another, even better-looking all-night cafe to hang out in. In the bad, I'm doing an Ubermanly amount of work here without the benefit of the extra time--it's a miracle I'm posting, but what's five minutes, right?--school is BRUTAL and I just got invited to prepare a 15-minute presentation for a conference in NY, too much work to do and too much of an honor to pass it up ("speak at this conference" is not your usual undergrad fodder, I'm to understand...and the conference sounds marvelous itself; I'd have been happy just to *go*)...and in more good news, my henna came, so that's several hours of mucking-about to do this weekend at night, and in more bad news, the Headache From Hell is coming back on and off, from mild to mindcracking, and I reeeeeeally need it to leave me alone before this weekend!

And that's that, in a nutshell. More, and hopefully more coherent, later...

-PD

Happy Recreational Explosives Day!

2006-07-04T05:57:00.000-04:00

I got up...at 5 a.m.

See, I finally kicked my three-day headache last night (the neti pot helped a lot, as I'd suspected it would) -- but I know that even when I kick it at night, I often wake up with it again. So this morning when I woke up for my customary "worrying and tossing and turning time", I realized that my neck wasn't sore yet, and probably would be by the time the alarm went off, so I figured I'd just give up and get up now. Gives me homework time, which I desperately need. And since it's a holiday, I can nap later, when the baby naps. So all's good. But it's yet another reason I can't wait for this Friday -- it's getting so that I'm afraid to sleep, and wake up splayed out with my face in the pillow and a(nother) thundering headache. Eeeew.

Anyway, on a MUCH more VITAL note, here's the picture of my Ultra Ugly Chrome Timer:

...Less-than-artfully surrounded by my typical "desk items" -- weird Oriental tea mug (/me is a horrid Far East junkie), my Sandman postcards that I flip through at the times when most people take Valium (ditto a horrid Gaiman junkie), and my wasabi peas (yup, you guessed it--junkie). And, um, I think you can also see the cover of my pocket copy of "The Art of Worldly Wisdom" by Balthasar Gracian. Hey, gimme a break -- philosophy major, right? Right.

Off to homework. Nice holiday, ya'll. -PD

4-More-Days Countdown

2006-07-03T09:16:00.001-04:00

Two things today:

1. I woke up HORRIFICALLY groggy and sore this morning, even though I slept a perfectly modest 7.5 hours. I've been having sinus headaches, too, the last couple days -- not sure what that's about, but obviously I need to get off my butt and go get a neti pot. That aside, though, I went to bed last night thoroughly intimidated about pulling off this schedule in my circumstances, and woke up angry that I have to wait a few more days! I mean, crap, I feel just as badly now as I'm going to feel at 4 a.m. on night two anyway, so why not be getting something out of it>

2. What have I done about my robust coffee addiction, I hear people ask? Well, I switched to half-caff last month, and bought decaf to drink whenever it wasn't morning (usually I just drink coffee whenever I want; it rarely impacts my sleeping that I notice). Starting Friday I'll switch to just decaf, with the exception of one cup of half-caff every morning to take with me on the commute to work. (That's just, like, *tradition*.) I won't use coffee to stay awake, but I won't absolutely ban caffeine from my diet either -- I want to see what effect it has, so I'll record any caffeine I have and look for effects in my sleep. I bet I find that I can't have much, and that it has to be close to the end of one nap and not the beginning of another...but we'll see.

Ta,
PD

The Run-Up Begins / A Few More Tips

2006-07-01T14:10:00.000-04:00

...So. Six days to go. I've slept in for my last Saturday for the forseeable future. Dunt, dunt, dunnnnnnn.

Still have some pre-testing to finish up this week; I want to take the rest of the mental acuity tests on the Cognitive Web and I'd still like to devise something mathematical...most of my tests are verbal/visual, and there should be something calculative (is that a word?) in there. Suggestions welcome, naturally.

The typing tests were fun...everybody's got to have a superpower I suppose; mine is typing. (With a minor in spelling and knowing where semicolons go, heh.) I hadn't been tested since last year; I'm up to 99 words per minute at 98% accuracy, according to Thursday's numbers. Unh.

So, I wanted to update -- now that it's getting close, I should get in the habit of doing so regularly, and thank the gods I've gotten something of a handle on my schoolwork for the moment (I had to catch up right from the start; my books were all a week late getting here! -- NOT good with all 400-level courses and a full boat at work). But I don't want to get too into rambling about how intimidated I am, or how having an idea how this works only makes it easier to an extent, and is actually making it very difficult in other significant ways (I know how much this is going to change my daily life, and everybody's that I live with, and I'm almost as good a worrier as I am a typist...). So here's something mildly useful instead:

Somebody posted to the Uberman Yahoo group (very useful crew; if you aren't in and are planning on trying the polyphasic life, I highly recommend getting in) about tips to help you get to sleep and wake up. I never needed help getting to sleep on Uberman (after the first few days), but I certainly have since; and tips to stay awake are legion--and in this context, you can't have too many. So here, below the cut, are mine. Enjoy!*

-PD

*The word "Enjoy" is a registered trademark of Coke, Inc., as is the color red. And they say I'm nuts.

Tips for sleep:

Lay on your back. Grasp the thumb of one hand in the other hand. Concentrate on this feeling for a few seconds (10-25), then switch to holding your forefinger. Proceed through your five fingers this way, then (if you're still awake), switch hands.

Also, get a bead on all of your thoughts. Gather them all together in your chest. Bundle them up on the inhale and then exhale, long and forcefully (but slowly, like you were trying to keep a cottonball in the air above your lips), blowing the thoughts out with the air. There will probably be a few left, so "gather and blow" for a few more times, then relax and enjoy the new space. (It's the same nice feeling you get standing in the middle of a room you've just cleaned, funnily enough.)

For alertness:

March in place, knees high, swinging your arms.

Even if you can't listen to it, mentally replay a song that makes you want to dance.

Shake your head vigorously, smile like you have fangs, and remind yourself how crazy you are...then remind yourself how much crazier everyone else is. (No kidding, for some reason this always wakes me up.)

Take ten deep breaths, exhaling as slowly and deliberately as you can.

If you're alone and it's quiet (hardest time to stay awake), play pretend a little. Come on, you know you haven't done it in years and you want to. (Stand for it, though, don't sit.) Let your mind entertain you. You're a dictator taking power; compose your speech (act out the hand and face gestures if you can't actually say it). Make up an interpretative dance. Invent a martial arts form that resembles your favorite muppet. Pretend you *are* your favorite muppet. Or--one of my personal favorites--your favorite band inexplicably needs to you to take the place of one of their members during a sold-out show. What do you do? Pick things that interest you and that you never actually get a chance to do, and have at it in your head. ...Okay, everybody's laughing by now but seriously, the mind is *way* better than television in terms of entertainment power, and it doesn't make you zone out and potentially fall asleep.

And that's it for now.

Light, Sweet, Crude

2006-06-28T14:59:00.000-04:00

...That's me. ;)

Nothing really new to report, other than that a minor-ish medical procedure I had really wanted to get done before Uberman started has inexorably been postponed until 3 weeks in. The procedure carries a "you might want/need to take it easy for a couple days afterwards" warning, so I'm not sure if it'll throw me off or necessitate extra sleep...I certainly hope not; getting three weeks in and having to readjust would just be cruel. But we'll see; I usually recover like gangbusters from just about everything.

In other news, I'm almost finished with the pre-Uberman testing. My reaction times, visual acuity and anything else I could think of have been ridiculously thoroughly noted. And I'll rely on you all to let me know if my sense of humor gets worse, or something esoteric like that. ;)

-PD

Scheduling: Like A Puzzle Made Of Jello

2006-06-24T10:03:00.000-04:00

Hmm, so here's a piece of planning that I knew, in the sub-cockle regions, that I needed to do, but I've been putting it off, I think, subconsciously. This is one of those things that needs to happen because I'm a grown-up (physically anyway) and because of the stickiness of my current situation. College kids and lucky others might not have to think this far ahead, but for me...yeah, I'd better. As to why I'm posting it...I was originally just going to write it out for myself (it does involve more personal info that I usually flash to the 'Net), but for people doing this, especially with tight schedules and sticky lives, I can't imagine it wouldn't be useful. I'm not sure if it'll go in the book yet, though.

Here's the question: How am I going to spend my time? There's less flexibility in there than I'd like, and far less than there was last time. Even though last time I was working part-time and taking 22-credit-hours a semester and tech-directing the theater group, I was also living in a dorm, with all the company, and freedom of noise and movement that that entails.

Click "Read More" for the boring details...

Now, I live in an, um, "lower flat" (glorified basement) with my wondeful dreadlocked husband (S.) and my beautiful, frighteningly spunky three-year-old daughter (M.). The daughter has a real bedroom; S. and I share a bed walled-off by bookcases and a square of living-area packed, as you can imagine, quite full of stuff. (We share our living-space with a music fetish -- guitar, bass, amp, piano, pieces of drum-kit stacked in a corner, home studio taking up a bookshelf...and a computer fetish...three of 'em, networked, plus auxiliaries...and way too many books...and a huge anime collection...and, yeah, a three-year-old. It's pretty tight.) Two people sleep upstairs, one of them lightly, and I wouldn't hang out upstairs anyway (too messy for my taste). I do have a backyard with a garden in it (don't ask how I managed to plant a garden this year, but I did, and damn am I proud of it -- it's a pretty decent-sized veggie garden, all organic, just like the Great One likes 'em. Mmm.). And a garage, which is currently trizashed, but which I have permission to work on (and which I think I can scrounge a corner out of, once worked on, for a chair and a reading-lamp and maybe a radio). I live in the Metro Detroit area, where there is nothing to do for 20 minutes in any direction and nothing WORTH doing for 45, that I know of, anyway. Our population of intellectuals and crazy people is sparse to say the least, and they generally don't advertise. So I can't count on just going somewhere, especially at night, and being entertained.

Those are the physical circumstances. Now: Time taken up. I work full-time; I agreed to come in early to make up for the hour off in naps I'll be taking, so I figure I'll get ready and go to work right after I wake up at 6:20. (Should mean lighter traffic, too, thank the lords of miserable Motor City.) I'll get home around 6 as usual, take a nap if I haven't on the way home, and play with my daughter until her bedtime at 8:30 or so. That's all pretty written in stone, except on weekends; but now we get to the hard part...

Usually, I chill out between 8:30 and 10 or 10:30 and hit the sack. I practice one of the instruments for a few minutes in there somewhere (usually), play some video games or muck with my website, maybe do some reading-for-fun before I pass out. (Homework I've worked on in the cracks all day, and then I do marathon study-sessions twice a week to get my assignments in. Papers and tests eat into my sleep-time, usually, and/or I have to take half a day off work to finish them.) -- FYI, I just realized that's confusing, because if I have homework, don't I at least have a campus to hang out at? But sadly no; I attend college online, because, well, you've seen my schedule! ;)

Now. After I wake up from my 10:00, S. would like me to be gone for a little while, because he likes to have quiet time to code or work on his projects, and he usually takes it when I go to bed. There is an all-night restaurant I know of (actually two; one close by and one more interesting) where I could go and either study, read or, once I get a laptop (I plan to buy a used one with some student loan money I've got coming), write. I think I can handle those; even on a regular schedule I don't usually get too darn tired before 2 a.m. If I run into something interesting to do (you never know; when I was younger we used to hang out and roleplay in places like that...running into a cool group is unlikely, but you never know), I can nap in my car and keep it up. But if not....

Then there's the dreaded 2-6 block where I KNOW, at least for the first week, that I'll have to keep busy or fall asleep on my feet. Probably no way I can write or study then, and at home I'm limited to being don't-wake-the-kiddo-quiet, which is pretty darn quiet, and I can't turn on more than one lamp or I'll wake S. Nor can I really go upstairs, except to pee or get something from the kitchen. Yikes, huh?

Well...The weather's lovely; I can take walks. Or rollerblade (NOTE TO SELF: Get reflective clothing). I can work by moonlight in the garden (which actually sounds fun); I can very quietly work on the garage. (ANOTHER NOTE TO SELF: Set up lamp in garage; there is no way I'm wrangling all those spiders and mice and gods-know-what-else in pitch blackness!) I have some minor art projects and crap I can do which may or may not work out if I'm terribly tired. I can practice bass or guitar on the back porch or, I suppose, park my car somewhere isolated and practice singing, or reciting (not that I'll ever have the balls to do either of those in public, but I do very much enjoy them). I bought a floor-cushion yesterday (score, it was 75% off!) so that, if I just can't do anything besides play video games or watch TV, at least I won't be sitting on the couch to do it. (The couch is blessedly uncomfortable--it'll be great for napping; you get kinks within 10 minutes on it--but not so uncomfortable that I wouldn't fall out on it at 4 or 5 a.m.!)

So. Now you see what I'm up against. I would pay darn good money for a house or even a room of my own, or to live in a city where there are actually things to do and see at night...not having either of those is going to make this seriously challenging. But that's the point, I guess -- If I can do it, darn near anybody should be able to. Uberman's Uberman, I could call it. ;)

Interesting...

2006-06-22T20:07:00.000-04:00

So, how long can you go without sleep before it, you know, kills you or something?

Apparently more than 33 years...

(I was always told it was about 2 weeks and then you'd go insane and die. Guess not!)

-PD

Things you can do to Avoid Oversleeping

2006-06-22T11:02:00.000-04:00

Some advice I got asked today reminded me that it'd be a good idea to list some of the tricks I know for avoiding oversleeping, so avast! Here they be.

Just a quick reminder first though: It's NORMAL to want to oversleep during the first week; this schedule is a bear to adjust to and you WILL be exhausted at first. Don't freak out, but also don't assume that you're such a superman that you won't need any of these measures. It's always better safe than sorry when it comes to oversleeping -- you don't want to go through all that trouble and then have to start over!

These tips run from the Simple to the Nigh Ridiculous -- the trick is, what works for you? So be smart: Think about what wakes you up the fastest and take advantage of it. As an example, last time I did this, I programmed my computer to reboot when I had to wake up -- it wasn't loud, but it launched me out of bed like my ass was on fire! That might not work today, but if I have a lot of trouble, I plan to record my daughter crying "Mommy!" and queue that up to play...when I hear that, I'm usually halfway dressed before I even realize what the hell is going on. ;) So, be creative!

Click "Read More" for the list.

Two alarms are better than one. Four are even better than two. For a real punch, set some to loud radio, some to annoying static, and stagger them one minute apart.
If you're like me and you can shut off an alarm and be back in bed before you ever wake up, do the above, but make each one that goes off farther away than the last one.
Don't sleep on your bed; beds are too cozy. You'll be tired enough to fall asleep darn near anywhere, but you don't want to get too comfortable. Good alternate places are the floor, an easy chair, your car, or outside on the lawn if you can get away with that.
Don't sleep in total darkness. For the first week, leave the lights on all night, or at least one light. It's lots easier to wake up when the room isn't dark.
Leave something to do right where you can see it when you crack your eyes. Start something interesting right before you go to bed, or make yourself some food, or whatever, and leave it right where you'll see it as soon as your alarm goes off -- this'll help get you back into doing-stuff mode.
Set up a music player of some sort right next to you when you lay down, queued up with a good "wake-up song". As soon as you crack your eyes, hit "play". (This worked great for me -- I used Placebo's "Pure Morning", which is prosaic as hell, I know, but hey, it worked.)
Does the phone wake you up? See if you can get someone to call you at precisely your wake-up time. (The Internet is a great networking place for this, since you probably know someone for whom your 2:20 a.m. is right in the middle of their day.)
If you're really lucky and can get a Live Human to help you out, almost nothing works better than a knock on the door, shake on the shoulder, and a few minutes of conversation (or something to do with said human). There might be an opportunity here, too, for nearby Ubermen who may be willing to drive to your house at 2 a.m. for five bucks! ;)
Plan something PHYSICAL for the first half-hour after you wake. Walk, exercise, clean, organize, fix your bike, whatever. Don't get up at 2 a.m. and go sit on the couch with a book -- you're doomed if you do! (In fact, Steve Pavlina and I both discovered that this is true even after the first week...it's always a bit tougher to get your body going in the middle of the night. I found that I had no tiredness and no trouble at all, as long as I planned to get up and get my blood moving, first thing. After that, I could sit around all night with no problems.)
This is a weird one, but I've seen it work: If you really can't wake up, try this. Before you go to bed, prepare a bowl or wide-bottomed glass half-full of cold water (add an ice cube to keep it cold). Balance it on or next to your body, where you won't knock it over just by breathing or twitching, but where it's nonetheless guaranteed to soak you if it does tip. Now tie a string to it, and tie that string to your wrist -- preferably the wrist of the hand that you're going to move to turn off the alarm. You get the idea, right? ;)

Crazy or what?

2006-06-19T15:55:00.000-04:00

So, a milestone has been reached -- I've been called crazy. This is an important part of being a pioneer. In fact, I used to rate the success of my experiments on how crazy people told me I was (though by this rating, Uberman was not the most successful experiment...well, it was overall; but not while I was doing it. The most crazy-succesfull experiment I ever did was going a whole winter barefoot. Which, like Uberman, worked a lot better than you'd probably think it would...but that's a different story I guess. ;)

Well, okay, to be totally fair, when exposed to the public I generally get called crazy at least once a month (even in goth bars); but to be even totally fairer, I haven't been really exposed to the public for many moons now. Last time I did Uberman, I was called crazy at least three times before the experiment was really underway. I was beginning to worry that the "good luck totem" of yore might be absent this time. But no, there's obviously just a longer run-up this time. Two weeks to go, and I've been called crazy once. We're moving in the right direction.

Of course, I would like to point out, real briefly, that as crazy pioneers go, at least I'm not as crazy as this guy. Um, yet. I admit, I'm a little jealous of his abundant craziness and willingness to bite the bullet for social research. Go, crazy people!

-PD

P.S. It bears pointing out that the flipside of this is, "If you hate being thought of as crazy, you might want to rethink the Uberman schedule, or anything even remotely pioneering, for that matter. Go be boring, and be happy. Moooo."

"It's too hard"...

2006-06-18T09:56:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm going to try not to get tedious about saying this *all the time*. I have said it in all of my articles, most of my emails, and pretty much everything I've written or talked about with regards to the Uberman schedule. But now that I'm starting to communicate with more people who are also making attempts, I'm sensing that this really isn't sinking in.

"Uberman" is not the kind of name you give something because it's a little bit hard.

Adjusting to this schedule is, for a short time, really, really, REALLY hard.

Do not attempt it if you cannot handle hour upon hour of very intense struggle for at least a few days. It will suck. You will be thrashed. You might think you are dying. THIS IS NOT FOR PEOPLE WHO PLACE A HIGH VALUE ON BEING COMFORTABLE ALL THE TIME.

It is normal, during the first couple days, to have to fight for every second you stay awake. It's normal to be miserably tired, to lay down for naps only to toss around for 15 minutes, sleep for 5 and then want to kill kill KILL EVERYBODY when the alarm goes off. You are GOING to be sleep deprived for a couple days! Probably more sleep deprived than you've ever been, unless, like me, you have a lot of experience with it. And having experience doesn't make it any more fun.

I will cut the rest of this, but anybody who's actually doing or considering doing the Uberman schedule should click "read more" and read the whole post. Seriously.

It's like getting a tattoo: YES it hurts, duh; it's a needle. But the idea is that you endure the pain --very real, very ouch, very not-fun pain-- in order to gain something bigger in the long run. With a tattoo, you can dull the pain by getting drunk, but that thins your blood and the ink doesn't take, often ruining the tattoo. It's the same with the Uberman schedule: You can dull the pain of the first couple days by sneaking extra sleep, but you're sabotaging yourself, and you'll probably fail to adapt to the schedule if you do that.

If that doesn't make sense to you, there's probably very little I can say about this that will -- and if you try it, you'll probably give up in a couple days, because you'll extend naps, take extra naps, etc. to "dull the pain" of it, and it won't take--you won't stop being tired!--and eventually you'll give up (and who could blame you? You can't live tired all the time). IT'S NOT EASY. IT'S REALLY NOT ANY FUN AT ALL, AT FIRST. That's okay. BUT IT WILL NOT STOP BEING DIFFICULT UNLESS YOU STICK WITH IT, 100%. It hurts me when I see people complain about how they can't take those first couple days, so they added a bit here and there so that they wouldn't be so miserable...I feel bad, because they tried, and they endured a lot, but then they hamstrung themselves, ruined their own effort.

Let me elucidate a bit more about not being able to nap, because that's actually a specific one I don't think I addressed already. It's not a bad thing if you can't fall asleep quickly in the first week, or even a little longer. When you're sleeping all night, especially if you aren't sleeping well, it can take a half hour or more to get to sleep; your brain doesn't know, in the beginning, that it only has 20 minutes. It has to be trained; that's what this is for! You train yourself to fall asleep quickly by getting right up the second the alarm goes off, no matter how much sleep you did or didn't get. You don't "reset the timer" because you only slept for 10 minutes and you want 10 more. You get up. Trust me, your brain is smart. You will go a few days with no naps or barely napping; that's the idea. But after a few days, IF YOU'RE REGULAR ABOUT IT, your brain will catch on, and you'll begin to zonk right out the second you hit the pillow (and wake right back up after 20 minutes).

But if you mess with the schedule AT ALL, your brain/body will not adapt to it. Think of it as a matter of flexibility, a power-struggle if you will. If the schedule adapts to you, you don't have to adapt to it. If it doesn't flex an inch for you, however, you WILL adapt, and more quickly than you think. That's why I keep telling people to MAKE NO MODIFICATIONS AT ALL for at least the first week or two, and preferably for the first month!

Of course, for those pioneers who think they can modify the schedule in some way from the get-go and make it work, kudos; that's all I was doing when I first tried this anyway -- pioneering. But deciding to do X and doing it is way different from deciding to do X and backing down once you see how hard it is.

I said I had experience with sleep-dep, but I don't want that to sound like a reason why initially adjusting to Uberman was easier for me -- it wasn't. A few months prior to trying Uberman, I decided to deliberately see how long I could go without sleeping. It was partially a gung-ho experiment and partially out of desperation to sleep well, which I hadn't been for months (I thought, maybe if I'm as tired as someone can get...). In the end I went just over 80 hours (82 if I remember correctly). It was interesting; I'm glad I did it. If you never have, then you won't know that after about 35-40 hours, sleep dep stops being unpleasant, and becomes more like an altered state; like being on a strange but not half bad psychedelic drug. You get all floaty, a bit painfully clear-headed, and quite giggly. In fact, when I finally went to sleep, it was because a concerned friend made me--I would have quite happily gone another day or so. It's comparable, actually, to what I hear fasting is like, though I've never done a fast longer than 24 hours.

Uberman, at least for me, was nothing like that. With the small amounts of sleep every couple hours staving off the psychedelic effect, I was simply gods-awful tired for three days. It was horrible; I probably moaned and bitched to everyone about it. I couldn't think. I heard a constant, high-pitched humming noise, and my eyes itched something horrible. I would get cold-flashes and shiver until I thought I would fall apart; then they would abruptly pass. Not fun!

But the important thing was, in spite of all that, I laid down every four hours and stood up 20 minutes later, every stinking time, and after a week I felt pretty much fine. After two weeks, I couldn't believe that I'd ever consented to live any other way. And after a month, and from there on out, I told everyone who asked me about that week I looked like such shit for, that I would GLADLY do it again, two or three times over, to gain what I'd gained. So there you go.

I hope that's helpful to some of you,
-PD

All the prep you'd have to do is done

2006-06-16T14:16:00.000-04:00

Holy crap, what a week. School is on and my books were supposed to be here Monday, but neither of them are...work is insane...my stupid ex just got me nailed with a $400 bill...stuff like that. You know, a "week". Grrruurgh.

But enough of that -- I have a few minutes between meetings & I will update this blog, darnit. I found my oo-ugly timer (it had, in fact, bailed in the car). Pics this weekend, in case you don't believe me that someone could actually make a hideously ugly kitchen timer. They can. I didn't pay extra for the ugly, either. *shrug*

I got the hookup with the Cognitive Web project -- they have seven really good mental acuity tests online for the taking, but only once a month. So I will take (the rest of) them over the next week--the Pre-Uberman run--and then take them all again post-Uberman and see how much smarter I've gotten. ;) Seriously, though, I need to get to work on putting more tests together. It's so darn hard to find the time for it on my current schedule...but it's got to get done, and once I actually *start*, things will get much easier (after, of course, they get much harder).

Suggestions for types of test are welcome. I have quite the handful already, but I need more. Having too many to actually do is better than not having enough.

I've made a couple other little preparations -- tracking down all-night restaurants, putting a blanket & pillow in my car just in case -- but really, for the experiment itself, I'm pretty much as ready as one needs to be. There are a couple more things I could add to my to-do list, but why not wait until I have the time, heh? In short, preparing for the information-gathering and stuff that needs to happen to make this a real, useful research project is far harder than actually preparing for Uberman is. So don't let me scare you off.

-PD

Waurgh

2006-06-14T20:58:00.000-04:00

K, I haven't slept well in about 4 days, work is killing me, yadda yadda etc. But I did want to post today to say that I managed to go buy a timer. I'd post a photo, as it is quite spectacularly ugly, but I think it fell out of my bag in the car. Either that, or I bought it and lost it mere hours later. We'll hope it's in the car.

More when my brain is less identical to the stuff they patch asphalt with.

-PD

Ten Reasons I Can't Wait

2006-06-13T12:01:00.000-04:00

Okay, the world gets lit on fire on July 7. Here are ten reasons I can't effing wait:

1. I'm sick of never knowing if I'll get a good night's sleep or not -- it's hard to be left alone for 8 straight hours, and if it gets screwed up, it's 12 or more hours until you get to sleep again! Augh!
2. My to-do list is piling up again; on a regular schedule I now have to sacrifice work or school (time with the baby is not an option for sacrifice) in order to have any time to relax.
3. Since I can't afford regular chiropractor visits anymore, I'm starting to get reeealy sore again. Sleeping for long periods is agony.
4. I haven't had time to write fiction in WEEKS. Which means that in approximately 3 more weeks, my head will explode, taking out several city blocks.
5. I miss the night. And the early, early morning. And three a.m., which has always felt special to me (ever since I was a kid, and scared myself with a book on "demonology", and woke up spontaneously at exactly 3 a.m. for six months, it's always seemed like a magickal time). Dammit, life's too short to sleep half of it!
6. I have an office job I actually want to do well at, which means I can't satisfy my neophile cravings for abnormality by not fitting in at work -- I love this company and it requires absolute Superhuman Perfect Officeness from me. So now I miss being weird. Hey, after a couple decades, you get used to it. ;)
7. The nights have been BEAUTIFUL lately, cool and clean and cutting. And I don't even have windows in my bedroom! 3v1l!
8. Having not slept well for most of the last week, I'm HATING on yawning constantly and feeling like I either have no energy or am boasting a near-fatal blood-caffiene level. No, I'm not looking forward to feeling worse for a few days, but I NEED that nice superhuman energy that comes afterwards!
9. I keep getting cool ideas for the book, which I have no time to do more than scribble on stickys. I'd really rather be working on it for real!
10. Time alone. I'm an introvert; we NEED time alone. Right now I get it in little slivers, in my office, in the bathroom, in the car in rush hour. Not good!

Also, if anybody has suggestions for science experiments to run on myself, I'm assuming I won't get help from the sleep clinic & am compiling my own...

-PD

Night Birds

2006-06-12T05:01:00.000-04:00

I love night birds!

Granted, this is just insomnia, nothing noble, but it DID let me hear the night birds screaming again. They sing during the day, but at night, they do something else. Maybe it's...

experimentation with emo-style birdsong
political rallying (anti-human, maybe?)
holding murder trials (they say ravens do that)
tribal bird rites of some sort
teenager birds trying to wake people up

...Whatever it is, at night they scream. But in such a way that listening to it usually doesn't give me the heebies...it does make me tingly, though, and want to go put on my ninja outfit. (No, I don't really have a ninja outfit. If you want to send me one, though, that'd rock!)

I don't know about you, but I can only sleep for so long (couple hours at most) without waking up. And when I wake up, it can be awful to try to get back to sleep! The brain gets in high gear sometime while I'm sleeping, and then you might as well try to relax in the middle of a demolition derby. I don't "lie awake worrying"; I worry in my sleep and then by the time I wake up I'm a wreck!

I usually don't get out of bed if I don't have to--that makes going back to sleep even harder--but sometimes it's unavoidable. From what I gather, having one's nightly sleep broken by an hour of two of aggravating wakefulness (aggravating minus the night birds, of course) is pretty normal, or at least I know it's not just me. Perhaps it's a genetic or psychological protection against being "out of it" for too long, or a symptom of modern living. (Maybe if I got up at 4 a.m. and worked a farm all day, I'd sleep like a rock...instead I spent most of yesterday in the hospital with my mom--she hurt her knee--and driving places.)

Anyway, yay night birds! Maybe I can catch this last hour of sleep now...

-PD

I'm not dead!

2006-06-11T11:04:00.000-04:00

...Just unbearably busy. I look at my "Holy Shit Keep Busy List" and it's kind of funny...seems from this vantange that I'll need all that extra time just to keep up with what I'm doing now. Yikes.

This is all going to start end of June / beginning of July, pretty much as I'd hoped -- honestly, I can't wait -- but I'm having to work around a medical thing now that they say will seriously sap my energy for a couple days, and just so happens to HAVE to happen right in the middle of when I wanted to start. *sigh* I usually recover from things with sub-superhuman but nonetheless impressive speed, however, so I'm assuming I won't have to move my start time.

I need to get back in touch with the sleep clinic and, if they're going to blow me off, start looking elsewhere and/or determining some test for myself, asap.

And I need to set up my main site again, at puredoxyk.com -- it was down w/ hosting troubles for a while -- and reorganize it so that some of the Uberman stuff has a place there. And I'm going to stop thinking about things I need to do now, before I give myself a panic attack. ;)

Oo, and I still don't have a timer, dammit. *grr*

-PD

Legal issues, To-Do Lists & a Modified Start Date

2006-06-06T10:20:00.000-04:00

Something I'd almost forgotten about, which may be a challenge: Staying on the right side of the law. Or rather, staying the heck off its radar, which we all know is more important anyway.

I'm not a malicious person, mind you; I don't destroy shit or disturb people when I can avoid it. But I am annoyingly creative, and easily bored, and fond of harmless mischief and amusing social commentary.

I was polishing my Keep Busy List today. It's going very well; I'd thought life had gotten rather boring lately, but it turns out that time restrictions were a large part of that; once I wrestled myself into forgetting about "not having time", all sorts of interesting things to do popped up.

Many of which I'll be doing at night. Now, I live in a middling neighborhood; a good area for this area, but considering the proximity of Detroit, that's probably not saying much in terms of good-area-overall. I'm not worried about running into gangs or anything; this is a safe neighborhood, and I've been in not-safe neighborhoods so I can say that with confidence. That doesn't stop the cops from being royal dicks whenever possible, of course; and I can really only count on the fact that I'm an adult white girl with a clean record to protect me so far -- Being out at night is halfway to crime itself, as far as people with Egoitis and a badge go. (And I meant that "thank god I'm white" bit 100% as an insult to idiot racist cops, in case it wasn't clear. I'm not prejudiced...well, except against cops. ;)

(click "read more" for the rest)

Then I looked at that list, and started thinking...Bike rides, okay; but I live right next to a huuuuuge wooded park; can I really stay out of it? If I bike through the roads, the cops'll nab me for sure (since the park "closes"), but if I muck about in the woods I'm just asking to get rolled by one of the homeless residents, so can't do that. (Nothing against the homeless per se, and I don't blame them for sleeping in the park--I probably would too--but I wouldn't want to stumble across one at night, thankyou.) And what about the tantalizing call of some of the less-than-kosher items on my long-term "to do if ever possible" list, like hanging up Robert-Anton-Wilson-type signs in public places? And with all the stupidity in the news lately, can I resist stealing my toddler's sidewalk chalk and making some noise?

Oh well. I'll just have to be middling smart about it, and--since I'd planned on checking out Ann Arbor anyway--try to keep any political noisemaking to there, where the cops are more used to that sort of thing. And as for being out at night, well, my record's clean and my daddy's a lawyer, so I guess errant cops can be cordially invited to kiss my ass. (I also carry a voice-activated tape recorder, which I shall pack extra batteries for, just in case.)

School started yesterday. In light of the incredibly cramped summer semester, I'm thinking about making the start-date of this experiment the beginning of July. Some of that depends on work (I have a business trip coming up, don't know exactly when yet), but I think it'll work out best that way. If I wait until later in July, I'll be running into finals and papers, eeeg.

-PD

Which is worse, sleeping badly or not at all?

2006-06-05T16:14:00.000-04:00

Okay, this is weird -- I woke up exhausted after a night of screwy dreams and tossing around, and I was grateful. Thank you, oh screwed-up world of sleeping "normally", for reminding me why you are often no fun, and helping me look forward to--no pun intended--breaking the cycle.

I doubt I'll have time for much research or anything this week, but I do hope to finalize my "keep busy list" and get a timer.

-PD

This will come in handy:

2006-06-04T13:55:00.000-04:00

A list of 100 things to do.

A lot of them are drawing-related, and I can't draw (but I have a good book on it and "keep meaning to" learn), and some are impossible due to my living situation...but still, Ideas Are Ideas.

Sc0r3.

-PD

The Uberman Sleep Schedule Is NOT For You If:

2006-06-03T14:56:00.000-04:00

You don't have a huge list (physical or mental) of things-you'd-love-to-do-if-only-you-had-the-time
You love sleeping for long periods of time
You love sleeping in on weekends
You have no problems with sleeping (no sleep disorders, no soreness, no schedule issues, no moral complaints)
You have trouble filling your time
You are not willing to torture yourself a little for greater gains
You value being "one of the herd", blending in, doing what everybody else is doing
You are uncomfortable being alone at night
You are uncomfortable going out at night (this one doesn't matter if you won't have to go out, but most people will, to avoid waking up the rest of the house!)
You do not have the capacity for iron self-control in the face of devastating physical urges
You're no good at scheduling or being on time / you hate clock-watching (meaning, you can't tolerate it for a few weeks or months)

...There, that's a list I've been meaning to make for a while. It's all things I've said before somewhere, but as we all know, God will reward the Consolidators. (C'mon, it makes more sense than rewarding Fred Phelps!)

And yes, all of the above applies in the negative quite perfectly to me. I keep lists like some people keep cats; I sat through nine hours of tattoo-gun just to have a pretty picture on me; I prided myself on making minimal noise while giving birth; I'm rabidly punctual; I hate wasting half my life sleeping and don't do it very well anyway; and I couldn't be "one of the herd" if there was a whole storeful of anime hanging in the balance. Sad, but true.

So now you know.

-PD

Dual-Use Acronyms (and Food): The GI Index

2006-06-02T08:52:00.000-04:00

Well, thanks to some very useful comments delivered to my LJ (all the comments are still going there and to E2, which for the moment is fine, though I hope they'll eventually find their way here), I now understand much more about some of the nutritional issues that may affect, or be affected by, the Uberman schedule.

Right alongside the Scienceblog article about glucose comes this useful blog about the glycemic index (thanks for the link, dsymetry!), which turns out to explain a lot more thoroughly what the issue is with glucose, different types of meals, and sleep.

(More info behind the cut -- click "Read More" at the bottom to see the whole post.)

"Glycemic Index" or GI, by the way, is one of my favorite terms now. It actually has a dual meaning -- but let's not go too quickly; this can get complicated. The GI is a way to differentiate carbohydrates, because, as everyone not obsessed with fad diets knows, carbs are good for you, if they're the right kind in the right proportion (just like fat and cholesterol, and, um, the rest of "food"). The GI index is probably most useful to diabetics, and for their sake at least, foods ought to be labelled with it; but it can be darn useful for the rest of us, too, who are fighting our way through the epoxy lake of industrialized food-manufacture and trying to eat right anyway.

High-GI carbs generally have more glucose, and are the kind most Americans get too much of. The key to them for our purposes is not that they contain "sugar" (because that is actually not the core measure of the Glycemic Index anyway--there is a Glucose Level (GL) measure that does that), but that they digest higher in the gastrointestinal tract than low-GI foods do. (GI is also a common medical abbreviation for "Gastro-Intestinal", so isn't it cool that high-GI foods--those with a high Glycemic Index--also happen to digest in the upper-GI area, and the low-GI foods in the low-GI area? c00l! Yay for easy-to-remember science!)

Low-GI foods, then, as I understand it, are whole grains, pastas, and "resistant carbs" which resist digestion until they make it almost all the way, um, "through". ;) A good quantity of them helps reduce the risk of some cancers, and gives you more constant energy, and is better for dieting folks than the other kind. High-GI foods are going to give you quicker, more quickly depleted energy, and are (generally) more readily stored as fat.

Another possible effect, which the Newsletter I linked to above has a small story on, is that eating a high-GI meal about 4 hours before sleeping can help you fall asleep faster than eating a low-GI meal. Is this because your body is done digesting sooner? Or because you've (run out of energy) in a shorter period of time? Or because of the effects of glucose levels ("sugar-crash") on tryptophan/seratonin levels?

I have no idea--and neither do the scientists; it's just one small study, from what I gather. But it's good to know that a) GI levels have an impact on digestion and sleep, and b) that there's a reliable measure of "good carbs" out there. I will need the carbs for energy, probably, when I'm on Uberman -- I mentioned earlier than even with my less-than-careful diet last time, I found that I needed more and higher-energy food while doing Uberman. But I can't be eating only high-GI foods to fall asleep faster, either! I never did notice a real difference, last time on Uberman, in my sleep quality depending on what I ate...but I will definitely take the GI rating of the food I eat, insofar as I can know it, into consideration in making and recording food-choices this time.

Well, it's always interesting to learn something new!

-PD

Oh, P.S. Thanks also to dsymetry, I also learned about "over-training syndrome", which is definitely something to watch for on Uberman. I do do a moderate amount of regular physical exercise now, more than I used to for certain, and it's interesting and relevant that lack of adequate recovery time, or too much non-workout stress, can have such a nasty physical impact. Will definitely watch for those symptoms, just in case.

Science rules!

2006-06-01T20:55:00.000-04:00

Bit of information floated my way (though I wish more did...I need another 3-day weekend, darnit): Apparently there's now scientific proof that glucose (sugar in the form absorbed by the body from food) causes you to get sleepy.

Oh yay, oh yay, the siesta is vindicated.

But perhaps more pertinently, it seems that avoiding excess sugar (including natural sugars, such as in fruit), especially during "Shit I'm Tired Week" and right after waking up, would be wise.

Thanks to my heroes at scienceblog.com for the article.

-PD

Pre-Uberman Health Report

2006-05-31T16:11:00.000-04:00

I've been asked if I'm going to get regular Doctor checkups before, during, and after this experiment. The answer is "no". Fifty percent "no" because I think most doctors are quacks that make people sicker than not, and the other 50% because I'm one of proud America's bazillions of uninsured, so I can't even remotely afford the visits.

However, the question of physical health is a valid one, and I already addressed mental health pretty well, so let's hit it. I'm not shy. ;)

Actually, no, I'm just in pretty darn good health, so I don't have much to report. Here it is, though.

...

I'm lucky enough to have the Iron Curtain for an immune system (my mom's been an Emergency Room nurse for most of my life), and no notable allergies or chronic conditions. I got migraines for a few years (like my dad), and like my dad I basically outgrew them; I have occasional sinus headaches the last couple years (because, I don't care what anybody says, the weather has been *screwed up* the last couple years), but that's about it. I have the neck and upper-back pains you'd expect in a computer junkie; when I can afford it, I see an Activator-method chiropractor and they make it aaaaaallll better.

My sleeping lately has been normal, for me. I sleep a solid 8 hours and am sleepy most of the day, and exhausted by bedtime. I wake up groggy, grouchy and sore. During the day, I usually feel at least a little bit foggy or cranky, and I wish many times a day that I could just go to bed. I should mention that I was a hypersomniac due to depression in my teenage years -- I got into the habit of coming home from school and going straight to bed, and it took a while to train myself off of needing 12-14 hours a night minimum. I was also happiest being a "night owl" -- like many people, given my choice, I'll stay up until 2-4 a.m. and sleep until 11-12. To this day, I still automatically do that if my schedule lets me (but it rarely does).

And to reiterate, I'm an omnivore, I drink coffee sometimes, I have the typical Middle American Sugar Addiction to fight with, but I'm not overweight and I do exercise in the morning 6 days a week (because I live in Michigan and you get sick of looking at fat around here. ;)

Might any of that have any impact on this experiment? I suppose it might. But it's here mostly for record-keeping purposes. Sorry I'm not more interesting today; work has been crazy and it's kind of a crappy day. I did get more of my "HOLY SHIT KEEP BUSY" list bashed out, though.

-PD

Update: Sleep Clinic Progress

2006-05-29T10:28:00.000-04:00

Yay! Dr. Avidan at the Sleep Disorders Clinic has agreed to forward my email to all of his colleagues and see if someone's interesting in helping me do research. What a nice guy, and working on Memorial Day to boot. ;)

Getting help from the sleep clinic will be *hugely* useful. Besides the data, it'll be somewhere I have to go and something I have to do at night! Plus, well, I've never seen a sleep clinic. That in itself should be cool. And I like scientists.

See? Two hours of pyjamas and coffee and the Internet, and already, progress.

Hmm, now which do we give the credit to?

-PD

Social & Psychological Effects

2006-05-29T09:24:00.000-04:00

So, today, though my Almanac has told me there's a BBQ in my future (gahd, aren't horoscopes amazing?), I plan to try and work up some methods of charting Uberman's Social & Psychological effects. I don't remember them well enough from last time, but I know there were plenty, as Steve Pavlina comisserates. I want to make sure I have a good grasp on them, even when I'm dealing with the subjectivity of actually going through them. There has been good, if brief, scientific research on polyphasic sleep, but the social/psych angle has only been glanced at. I want a better look.

I suppose at least I'm in a pretty typical place to start. I'm a working parent/student so I have pretty much no social life; I know a few people I haven't seen in ages, but that's it. I pretty much hang out with my family or by myself, when I'm not with my coworkers. Given more time, I may become more social...or maybe not. I'm hardly a social butterfly by nature, but then again the Uberman does necessitate getting "out" pretty regularly at first, if only to stay awake; perhaps that will modify my habits. Part of my "keep busy" list for the first couple weeks includes driving over to Ann Arbor and checking out what's there -- it's a cool town and only about 20-30 minutes away, but I've hardly ever been there.

And here's my own psychological background (cut for space; click "read more" at the bottom to see it).

Psychologically, I'm generally stable; I have a history of depression, but I've learned over the years to handle it reliably without medication (med free 10 years, w00t). I'm a tad claustrophobic--again, it's manageable--and I don't like crowds *at all*, which I've been assured by drug dealers is "social anxiety disorder" and for a hundred fifty bucks a month, they can fix it--heh, do pushers ever come up with a new line? Also, I have come pretty well unhinged for one period in my life (a year, maybe a bit less), but again, as far as I can tell, this is pretty normal too. Psychosis does not run in my family except as expected in cases of severe trauma. Sometimes I have panic-attacks (in crowds, generally), but not badly enough to make me lose consciousness or require hospitalization. I'm very interested in whether a radical flip-flop of my sleep pattern will provoke any psychological hiccups, and especially how I'll handle the pronounced time-dilation that kicks in after a month or so.

But people are adaptable; mothers doubly so. ;)

I wrote to the Director of the U of M Sleep Clinic yesterday -- he was the most likely name I could find to hand me to some interested students or faculty; hopefully he has time to read a short letter. (I did, contrary to all expectations, make it short.) His own listed research interests include sleep deprivation and other problems in medical students; perhaps Uberman is a good solution for them? I'd also like to see more people looking into it as a solution for sleep disorders, because lord knows I had those--they were why I first tried Uberman to begin with--and wowee, did it work like a charm. Sadly, I don't really have any sleep disorders at the moment, other than sometimes having my brain keep me awake, and feeling sleepy (Stanford level 3) during most of the day. But perhaps that's a boon too; I do want the book to address what it might do & be like for your "average" person.

Hmm, maybe I should write a database of "charts" tracking things like sleepiness, depression, social activity, &etc., and just fill it out every day? Then I could have an ongoing graph for the book.

Lordy and his minions, I can't believe I'm getting started on this in a month. It feels like I don't have nearly enough time left to plan. Of course, once I get started, I'll have more time...ah, the irony. ;)

-PD

2006-05-27T22:47:00.000-04:00

Found a good tool: The Stanford Sleepiness Scale. How quaint and useyful!

An Introspective Measure of Sleepiness
The Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS)

Degree of Sleepiness	Scale Rating
Feeling active, vital, alert, or wide awake	1
Functioning at high levels, but not at peak; able to concentrate	2
Awake, but relaxed; responsive but not fully alert	3
Somewhat foggy, let down	4
Foggy; losing interest in remaining awake; slowed down	5
Sleepy, woozy, fighting sleep; prefer to lie down	6
No longer fighting sleep, sleep onset soon; having dream-like thoughts	7
Asleep	X

Why thank you, Stanford! I'd really only appreciated your Copyright & Fair Use Center before. You kick ass!

-PD

Thoughts on "Core Sleep"

2006-05-27T09:13:00.000-04:00

"Meh."

I don't buy the "core sleep" thing. I'm not sure where that idea came from--it wasn't part of Uberman, or the sleep experiments Stampi did in his book on napping--but a lot of people seem to have adopted it as the "weiner road" to polyphasic sleeping. For those who don't know, "core sleep" is a way of saying "I'm not doing Uberman; rather I'm sleeping less at night"--three to six hours--"And taking naps during the day to compensate."

I say again, "Meh."

I called it "Uberman" for a reason, yo. It's not easy to get used to. It takes a month to really get into the swing of it, as others have proven; and that's an uncomfortable month. If the benefits to you aren't worth that discomfort, just don't do it!

I've yet to see a "core sleep" routine really work, either. The closest I guess would be Andrew over at the long-dead Polyphasic blog; he got to 100 days on it, but from what I gather many of those days were sloppy, and I don't get the impression he really achieved that unstoppable-freight-train life I loved so much about it.

Meh. Give me Uberman or just give me eight blissful painless hours of unconsciousness, thank you.

In fact, scratch that--just give me Uberman!

-PD

On Preparing to Sleep (or not)

2006-05-26T21:45:00.000-04:00

Gahd, what a week. Finally at the end of it, I settle back in relative luxury--Jones soda, Serial Experiments Lain and certain herbal comforts, ahh. And typing. Always loooove typing.

A bit on preparation, since that's what I'm doing now: I'm a planner-type; I advocate preparation. In my current situation it's damn necessary. But it might not always be to all people, or in all situations.
Of course, prepping for a book at the same time as preparing to adopt this rather daunting change is double the pleasure (and double the notes), but I do have to stress that even the first time I did this, planning probably saved my butt in terms of being successful where others weren't. The fact that I'm naturally inclined to do it was just, er, grace I guess.

The single most important piece of preparation I did was to buy a kitchen timer. The kitchen timer is everything. But after that, and a bit less obvious, was having a list of things to do with all the extra time.

After a while, "life" expands to fill the extra time. But until it does, WOW can one get bored. I've watched more than a few people try to fill the time with TV or books, and yow, does that look miserable. A big part of what got me through the first week was the huge list I made of things I wanted to do. I was thinking "everything" when I wrote it; I never thought I'd get a third of it done, just wrote down every damn thing I could think of (and I have a lot more interests than I've ever had time, even on Uberman). I ended up clearing 90% of it off in the first three days.

More on planning if you click "Read More"...

This time the list is harder to come up with, not least because there's simply a lot less to do in suburban Detroit than on campus in Santa Fe. And getting anywhere interesting takes half an hour. And, as if that weren't enough, I happen to live in a basement. With two other people. One of whom is three.

I did mention that I was fucking crazy, right?

Something that might be good or bad, depending on how it shakes out, is that I almost have enough "life" already to fill that gap, between a seriously hoo-rah job running a young business and almost full-time school this summer and the aforementioned "three" person. Maybe I won't need a big list of interesting projects....though it will suck that I can't clean without waking people up. Cleaning is the best too-tired-to-think-but-must-keep-moving activity. My dorm room was effing spotless.

So, the kitchen timer, and the list of things I want to do, and in addition a list of places open 24/7 where I can go a) study and b) have fun. a) shouldn't be hard, but b) is gonna be a biiiitch. Also interesting places to eat, because I get bored easily of food, but I always had to eat extra on the Uberman schedule (and even then I lost some weight, but I can actually afford that now, so no biggie).

What's really going to suck is lack of company. Having my best friend around at night to talk and watch movies and do whatever with was a big blessing last time. Hopefully at some point I run into a midnight [something] group, but I may just have to tough it out in the beginning.

I'm doing good with prep; been getting something done every day. Next week I need to start calling and bullying the sleep clinic, because they blew me off through email. I bet I can find somebody who'd be interested.

Or maybe not. Maybe nobody finds this at all entertaining but me. The important part is that I'd be willing to do it anyway.

I really have missed the Uberman schedule. It changed my life. Even just knowing that I'm really going to try it again has got me all unhinged and jittery.

-PD

2006-05-24T22:02:00.000-04:00

Stop focusing on the hard part, stupid.

I've said a lot lately (in places other than here, obviously) about how t3h suck tired one gets doing this. I shouldn't emphasize that. I'm actually doing this because I hate being tired.

When I was sleeping polyphasically, I felt tired less often than I can ever remember, before or since. Most of the time I was completely alert; after a short time I only felt tired right before I took a nap. And waking up from the naps was ridiculously easy; most of the time I woke up right before my alarm, feeling completely refreshed. I had vivid dreams--rarely had nightmares, which was a 180 for me--and didn't feel in the slightest bit deprived of sleep.

When I quit last time, it was largely or mostly because my situation drastically changed: I left college, moved back to Detroit from Santa Fe (yes, yes, sounds like a brilliant plan, I know) and got a 9-5 job. I can remember having felt a bit tired in the week or two (I think) preceding this change. That might have been stress, or it might have been the need for a longer sleep. In the rather minimal reading I did before I started doing the Uberman, I did often come across references to taking a "long day" every month or few months, and sleeping anywhere from 8-20 hours. When I went back to monophasic sleeping, though, I don't remember sleeping in at all. In fact, I think I only slept a few hours the first night, and then went back to eight.

Mind you, as soon as I was monophasic again, I was tired a lot again. Oddly enough, the sleep difficulties I'd been having that prompted me to give polyphasic a serious try did not return after I quit. I still don't sleep great and I'm still not at all a morning person and I'm often sleepy, but what overworked American can't say that?

I guess I'm just overfocused on how incredibly SUCK that first week-and-a-half or so is. Last time I got through it with a good friend to help every minute and a near-ideal living situation. (C'mon, dorm?) This time it's just me, and to be honest I'm kind of overwhelmed at how not-ideal the situation is. However, I work all day at a job where it's my duty to use insane amounts of organization and creativity to overcome absolutely ridiculous odds; weirdly enough, I seem to be good at it. And I have this strange, Scientologian conviction that I can do this.

Preparation continues.

-PD

2006-05-24T16:33:00.000-04:00

Who am I? I'm PureDoxyk. Wow, that was uninformative, huh? ;)

If you know me at all, it's because of the only thing I ever did that got any attention at all...and that was writing the "Uberman's Sleep Schedule" writeup on Everything2 back in 2002. (So if you were going to ask why I called this the "official" Uberman blog, it's because that's my one claim to fame: I coined the term "Uberman Sleep Schedule" to describe this type of polyphasic sleeping. Perhaps if I'd known that people would remember the term, I'd have thought of something more original!)

There are other facts about me, I guess, like, I'm nearly 30 now and I have a daughter and whatnot, but those will come in if and when they're relevant. One thing that might be interesting to know is that I'm *not* a health nut; I drink coffee and eat meat and other such vileness. I am in pretty good health; I try to eat right, I exercise daily, and I try to stay in good shape overall, but I'm no raw-foodin', yoga-at-5-a.m. superstar. I think that's important, because it's part of my goal to show that this schedule can work for people who aren't health-nuts or in absolutely perfect shape. (Why do I know this? Because I first did it in college, when my diet mostly consisted of rage and cigarettes. You'll be happy to know that I gave up the cigs...).

But, speaking of my goals:

What the hell am I doing? Weeellll....I suppose I'm conducting an experiment. Or proving a point. (Said point may very well be that I'm crazier than a basketful of doped-up loons.)

The second sentence of the E2 writeup is about how I'd love to get my precious sleep schedule back. I've said it lots more besides. I adored that schedule. And I guess I thought that I'd gotten too 'grown up' for it, and maybe I'd have forgotten about it, but interest in the darn thing seems to have gotten and stayed pretty intense. I still get emails now and again asking if I was lying about how well it worked, and if I really think it's safe, and if I really ever expect to do it again.

Gallingly, I also heard numerous challenges to the authenticity of my experiment. I've frequently heard, "You're lying because I tried it and it didn't work, I was just tired all the time," or "This could never work if you weren't in college."

Person One is just wrong: They didn't do it right, and that's why it didn't work. I'm here to prove that point, by doing it properly.

Person Two may be right, which worries me: I'm here to experiment on that. I'm a mom now, with a full-time job and part-time school. If I can do it, anybody can. ;)

I'm also here to write a book on the Uberman schedule. Now, one doesn't write a book on Blogger; I'm perfectly aware of that. This would make a crappy book anyway -- I'm also perfectly aware that nobody who buys a book wants to read whatever drivel I write at 4 a.m. on Day Three, but others might. So I started this blog specifically to chronicle details of the transition that may or may not be suitable for the book, but about which people might be curious. The book will be much more, um, clear-headed, and hopefully more informative than a simple first-person blogging account could be. I'd like to do some at least minimally scientific experimentation (so that people have somewhere to go beside's Stampi's $155 research tome for info) and also get into the social and psychological changes (which even Steve Pavlina--the only other successful Uberman sleeper I know of--agrees are fundamental, but nobody's gone into in great detail).

This blog will not do that, but it will do other things: It will provide a space for people who want to comment, ask questions, etc. to do so, while the experiment plays out. And it'll keep me entertained, heh.

Why is this such a big deal? Er, it's not, in the sense of being "utterly unique". In the years since the E2 writeup, numerous people have tried some version of the schedule and written about it, though the vast majority of them were not successful. (I maintain that this is because they did it wrong.) There's a lot of good information out there, albeit subjective information. (I will at some point try to gather a good list of other blogs that chronicled attempts at Uberman; if you are one and wish to be included, please let me know.)

I'm doing exactly the same thing with this blog, but alongside it I will also be researching and writing the best objective account I can of the Uberman schedule's effects, in the form of the book.

So, um, the book is kinda special, but the blog isn't. The blog is mostly there to give people a forum with which to harass me (because being angry makes it easier to stay awake, heh).

-PD