Kirk’s Blog

Ever since my last attempt at polyphasic sleep about 6 months ago, I’ve been planning for this moment when I would attempt it again. This time I’m going to hit the ground running and take advantage of the lessons that I learned from my previous unsuccessful attempt. Two very important things to master are waking up and falling asleep, and although it may look obvious, it is actually more difficult than one would expect. Unless one can master these two very basic skills, then he/she is doomed to fall into the vicious cycle of restless naps and oversleeps. In cases of severe sleep deprivation, it’s amazing what the body will sleep through. I learned from my last attempt that nothing can beat the wake-up power of water, and this time I’ll be using a slightly different water-based technique for waking up. And I’ve already written on how to fall asleep immediately for naps. I learned all of these important lessons too late into the transition last time.

One thing that I did learn during the period between attempts is my ideal napping time. I have a feeling that understanding the best time to nap is important, even critical, to adjusting. Setting arbitrary times that go against the body’s natural ups and downs will just make things harder. For this reason, my nap times are going to be 3:30, 7:30, and 11:30. I’ve also adopted a raw food diet. Ever since I did this, I don’t get sleepy after meals, and my sleep seems to be lighter in general.

My goal this time is to never oversleep, and given my current setup, I don’t see that as an impossible goal. The other issue is falling asleep after already getting up, and that is a simple lapse in judgement - another evil trick of the sleep-deprived body. I don’t think I have to worry about that.

I reorganized my life to make room for a transition to polyphasic sleep. This time I’ll anticipate a full 5 weeks for transition (even though I don’t think it will take that long, or I’m hoping at least) rather than my previously over-optimistic expectation of 1 week. I’m taking a lighter load at school this term, and I don’t have to fly out to Seattle for a symposium (that would really screw up my transition). Things are also cleared at work so that I can take all of my naps at home and work a large chunk of time at home.

With all of the conscious preparation I’ve been doing, it seems that my body doing it’s own thing to get ready on a less conscious level. This might have something to do with wakenotizing myself, but I’m not sure (I also reduced my nap time to 23 minutes). My naps seem to have gotten more restful and dreamy all on their own. And I’ve already begun to receive validation from my body that the nap times I’ve chosen are good nap times.

It is very common, if not universal, for people to report that their naps feel like hours when it’s only been 20 minutes after fully adapting to polyphasic sleep. Well, I just had that experience, and I haven’t even begun the transition yet. I have been napping consistently though. My nap was full of half-lucid dreams. It was so weird!

I was in strange apartment complex, but for some reason I thought it was my old home in Washington Heights.

In normal dream conditions, I probably would have just kept going thinking it was my old apartment even though it looked completely different, and I wouldn’t have discovered the truth until after I woke up. But this time I was aware of the contradiction, and I thought it was strange within the dream.

I was talking to a guy outside on the street, and he was communicating to me that he wanted to come upstairs to my apartment with me, but he didn’t say it in words. I’m not sure if his lips were moving or not, but there was definitely no sound coming out. The message was more telepathic.

In normal dream conditions, I would have continued along with the dream regardless of whether or not someone was communicating with me verbally or telepathically. People always communicate telepathically in dreams, and I never think it’s abnormal. But this time, I thought it was strange that I wasn’t registering his messages through verbal communications.

I thought to myself, “Oh crap. I must be in one of my spaced out moods.” So I went into the strange building and got into the elevator. As the elevator went up, the gravity disappeared, and I started floating. I tried to move my arms, but I couldn’t. It was as if I was suspended in some sort of liquid that made me immobile.

At that moment, I realized that my arms were in my napping position, and I was still napping, and that’s why I couldn’t move them! Then I realized that a lot of time had passed since I went to sleep for my nap - far far more than 20 minutes; it felt more like a couple of hours or so. I started to think about what I would write in my blog as the results of the second round of wakenotizing. I would say that I didn’t wake up from my alarm in the morning or during my nap in the day, and that there’s something in the process that’s not working. I also thought, “Oh no. I missed lunch. My coworkers must be wondering where I am. I’ve been in the closet for hours.”

Then… to my utter surprise… my alarm that I set for 23 minutes went off! I decided to nap at 11:30 am since I was tired today (I actually started at 11:20 am) because I know from experience that that’s approximately the best time for a nap earlier than 3:30 pm and since it’s when I would be doing my nap on a polyphasic schedule anyway.

I just had my first vividly lucid dream. And I woke up feeling well rested.

Since my first polyphasic attempt approximately 6 months ago, I’ve been having an afternoon nap pretty consistently, so I’ve had time to figure out the ideal conditions necessary to fall asleep as quickly as possible. Currently, under quasi-monophasic conditions, I’m able to fall asleep in about 2 minutes, and this is how I do it.

Feel safe. I’ve found that if I think there’s a strong chance that someone is going to wake me up, I’m less invested in getting to sleep quickly. At work, I sleep in a closet that is never used, and I wear ear plugs so the noises outside the closet don’t wake me up. It’s perfectly dark and private. I may not be able to use ear plugs when I transition to full uberman, but I’ll be at home then anyway.

Find the right position. It has taken some tweaking over the months, but I believe I’ve found the perfect position that helps me to fall sleep instantly. I lie down on my back with my hands behind my head, and each hand is touching the elbo of the opposite arm. I snuggle my head between my arms and tilt it to the right slightly. My feet are flat on the floor so that my knees are in the air (I lean my legs against the wall or some boxes). When I settle in for a night’s rest, I love to sleep on my side in the fetus position, but when it comes to falling asleep quickly for naps, nothing beats my above approach.

Don’t get too comfortable. This might be more for waking up than it is for falling asleep, but it’s part of the process I use for falling asleep too. I sleep on a relatively hard floor with minimal padding beneath me. I think this is part of the system of mental queues letting my brain know that it’s nap time, not bed time.

Nap at the right time. This one will take some time to get it right. Through experimenting with my nap times and observing my daily down times, I’ve found consistently that the best time for me to take an afternoon nap is at around 3:30 PM. If I do it before 3:00 PM, then it’s harder for me to wake up, and if I do it after 4:00 PM, it’s harder for me to fall asleep. If I feel that I need to take a nap earlier in the day, I try to do it at around 11:30 AM, before the afternoon.

Tame your thoughts. This is probably the most important and most difficult obstacle to overcome, since a nagging thought can grow and consume the mind, never giving it a chance to fall asleep. By the time I’m ready for my afternoon nap, I’ve already had a day packed full of work, interactions with other people, and all sorts of experiences that are collecting in my mind and chillin in my semi-consciousness. When I finally lie down for the nap, everything that I’ve done throughout the day comes washing over me - all the stressful things, all the exciting things, and all the things that can potentially keep me awake. This is natural. Don’t fight it! This will only make the thoughts stronger!

The mind cycles though thoughts in order to relieve tension. All the thoughts of the day remain in the conscious mind all day, but they are hidden somewhere between full consciousness and the subconscious - an area I’ll call semi-consciousness. They fester here, and contribute to a build up of stress and tension throughout the day. The way to get rid of them is by allowing them to enter the mind. If fact, you should encourage them to come out into the open because by hiding in the semi-conscious, they elude your control. The trick is to not latch on to the thoughts. Acknowledge them for what they are: tension relievers. As each one bubbles up to surface, allow it to float away without engaging it. Eventually there will no more remaining, and you’ll be left with a mind like a placid pond. In the meantime, other less conscious thoughts will begin to swim around. These more dream-like thoughts are a good sign. It means you’re falling asleep!

Use music strategically. I totally forgot to add this one in my first rendition of this post because I don’t need to use this while I’m quasi-monophasic, but many people (including myself) have found this single technique to be the make-or-break solution to successful naps during a pure polyphasic schedule. I used my own music on my iPod. The track was about 7 minutes or so, and I was always asleep by the time it finished, and then the alarm would sound after a period of silence. This guy has been experimenting with polyphasic sleep for a long time, and he made a sound track, downloadable from his website, for getting to sleep, and it is very popular. I think I’ll try it when I go polyphasic for my second round.

When I lay down to take my nap, I set my alarm, put in my ear plugs, lie back and get into my nap position. At that point, my heart rate will raise because of changing positions. I take two deep breaths and sink deeper into nap land. The thoughts pour down over me like an avalanche and pass through me. I’m asleep in ~2 minutes.

Saturday I attempted to wakenotize myself into getting up immediately when the alarm goes off. So far the results have been mixed (as I expected from just one session) but definitely more positive than negative.

I started in the aftenoon, and did it for about 45 minutes, setting my alarm for about 3 minutes after lying down each time. The first few times, I was nearly asleep when the alarm went off, and then I was dazed and confused as usual when I woke up. I would lie there for a while just sort of staring off into space until I realized that I was supposed to get up (as if the beeping alarm wasn’t already trying to tell me that, LOL!). Then I would stretch my arms behind my head, sit up and stretch my arms towards my feet, roar like a lion, get up, fold my up my foam nap mat, and then do something for a few minutes (there has to be some kind of ritual for maximum effectiveness). I kept doing this, and as I went, it became progressively harder to fall asleep and easier to wake up. Eventually I was popping out of nap position with relative immediacy.
That night, my sleep was not smooth sailing. I didn’t go raw in order to detoxify, but it appears that’s what started to happen because I was experiencing some symptoms (light headaches, body-aches), and I think it had an impact on that first night of sleep after the wakenotism session. My pee started to burn that night, which is when I realized that I was dehydrated, so I gulped down about 7-8 glasses of water with ease. I woke up in the middle of the night having to pee really bad, and I didn’t wake up until my loud alarm went off. I still popped out of bed though (it’s hard not to with that thing). PureDoxyk must have tapped into the collective uberman consciousness because she wrote this blog entry the next day about how to stay hydrated and stop snacking.

The next day I woke up with the light alarm and popped up out of bed. The next day, it didn’t happen until the loud alarm. The next day was the light alarm again. So, it’s been back and forth. As for my naps, I’ve been popping up just like I did with my ritual during the wakenotism session. Today was the first day that turned the alarm off after my nap, forgot about it, and almost fell asleep again. I certainly don’t expect to be trained after only one session, and I’m actually surprised how trained I did become after a single session. It’s so funny when I think about it. I’m supposed to get up when the alarm goes off (that’s the purpose of the alarm, isn’t it?), yet I’ve been lying there wondering what to do everytime I wake up for so long. It should be automatic. I think during the next session, I will put on my jogging clothes when I get up too. I’m going to do it again this weekend or maybe before that if I can tear myself away from my work for 30-45 minutes.

UPDATE (September 21): I hit the snooze on my alarm this morning, and again didn’t get up immediately after my nap this afternoon. I appears that this process needs to repeated every 4 or 5 days until it becomes permanently engrained.

An interesting turn of events since going raw.  I expected to not feel weighed down after meals, which has happened, but I didn’t expect the quality of my sleep to change.

I have been mostly vegan, and caffeine/alcohol-free for about 2 years now.  Since my last polyphasic attempt in March, I’ve been an early riser with the addition of an afternoon nap pretty consistently.  I use 3 alarms in the morning:

1. The first one is very light, not too loud, and it sounds for 1 minute at 5:40 am.
2. The second one is your everyday nasty beeping digital alarm.  It can sound for over an hour if I don’t turn it off, and it starts at 5:45 am.
3. The third one is *really* loud.  It’s an analog alarm with a couple of metal bells that make A LOT of noise.  It sounds at 6:00 am.

Ideally I’ll get up with the gentle first one, but for months now, I haven’t been able to wake up until that third deafening alarm sounds.  However, since going raw, that first alarm has been popping me into consciousness quite easily.  I wasn’t sure if that’s what did it the first time (I thought maybe it had something to do with that bag of nuts I ate right before bed), so I waited to see if it would happen again.  Monday I made the decision to go raw; Tuesday was my first mostly raw day, and the rest of the week has been mostly raw (I’m still making my way through the last of my non-raw food such as hummus, crackers, etc).  Wednesday night was my first light night, and then it happened again Thursday night.  I’ve been getting to bed anywhere from 11:30 pm to 2:00 am and still waking up easily with that first alarm.  I still hit it and go back to sleep (that’s something I’m going to work on), but I’m wide awake when I hit it, not half-asleep.  Before, I didn’t ever remember hearing that thing (I totally forgot that it was still alarming every day).

I will update later to say whether or not this pattern continues.  Next step, techniques for getting up immediately when your alarm goes off, also known as boomstick tactics.  I will do that this weekend, and during the solar eclipse, which is a perfect time for it.

My obsession for polyphasic sleep has renewed itself.  I can’t remember when I spent so much time fantasizing about something.  I don’t know if the obsession bodes well for a successful transition or not.  On the one hand, it could encourage success by raising my level of vigilence.  On the other hand, the extremity of the fantasy may indicate its actual distance from reality.
In any case, I’ve taken the next steps in my preparation.  Claudio Stampi’s book Why We Nap: Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep is no longer being printed by the publisher and there are no vendors that hold the book anymore (I found out the hard way).  So on Monday, I decided on impulse to go down to the Library of Congress and photocopy some pieces from the book.  At first I thought the $155 retail price was obsurd, but then I later decided that I have to get the book - no ands, ifs, or buts.  Mission accomplished.  I may post some of my findings as I read them.

As an aside, here’s one: Stampi talks about “sleep gates” at which time it’s much easier to fall asleep that at other times.  The strongest ones are at night and during the afternoon slump, but the ultradian rhythms may indicate other times.  This might be an important component in getting polyphasic sleep right.  Interestingly, his semantics classify pure polyphasic as occuring “when episodes of sleep and activity are evenly distributed throughout the 24 hr,” while what we polyphasers tend to call “core” sleep, he terms
quasi-polyphasic (when sleep-wake cycles are not evenly distributed throughout the 24 hr) or semipolyphasic (when exactly 50% of sleep is taken as a single episode and the remaining portion as one or more episodes).  And what I’m doing now (reduced sleep with one afternoon nap) he terms quasi-monophasic.

In any case, on the bus leaving from Washington DC, I made the decision to go raw.  I will finish whatever food I have that is not raw and not accumulate or ingest any new food that is not raw.  I tested it out Tuesday by eating nothing but raw foods all day after only 4 hours or so of sleep.  I was alert and energized all day, and I didn’t even take my usual nap.  Then around 6pm, I had some food that was not raw (containing sprouted bread and hummus), and immediately after that I felt sleepy and weighed down.  I recuperated soon after, but any feelings like that during the transition will be much more formidable foes.  Of course staying awake and alert during down times throughout the day is different than under severe sleep deprivation, but it should still help.  And it’s something that I’ve been considering doing for a while anyway.

I had this dream with scenes reminiscent from Simcity 4.  The dream is appropriate since I spent the entire Labor Day weekend playing it.

I was waiting at the subway station for someone when I struck up a conversation with a person standing next to me.  We began talking about directions, and I explained something to him using a body of water as reference.  He corrected me and indicated that my sense of direction was exactly reversed.  Then I saw the body of water behind me and turned around and realized that he was correct.

Now, I’m clicking some area of the landscape to bring up a window with a “Mystery” slider.  There just wasn’t enough mystery, so I dragged the slider to the right to increase it.

The meaning of the first part of the dream is a little fuzzy, but it likely has something to do with my sense of direction in life, more specifically with school.  I have turned my back on my feelings (the water), and I’m finally recognizing them.  There is not enough “mystery” in what I’m studying right now to easily keep me focused.

My weekend of full immersion in Simcity 4 is actually a lot more meaningful than I originally thought.  I thought it was just me procrastinating again, which is true, but that doesn’t paint a complete picture.  It was a major setback in my progress towards completing my school work, so I decided that I just have to stop working on it for now.  With two significant eclipses and Rosh Hashanah on the horizon, I don’t want to start my new year off so behind in my school work.  As to why the weekend was significant, it was the station of Pluto.  A bit of context is in order here.

This entire transit I am going through, Pluto square natal sun, is largely responsible for my interest in polyphasic sleep to begin with.  It has to do with going to extremes (Pluto) in order to get more done (sun).  During the first exact hit of the transit in January, I accepted additional projects and obligations, loading my plate fuller than I should have.  Then in March, during the first station of Pluto, I decided to attempt polyphasic sleep - an extreme measure targeted at increasing my waking time.  After my initial failure at achieving full uberman, I went on a reduced sleep schedule and worked on increasing my self-discipline, which helped to a point.  I relaxed a good bit and stopped pressuring myself to get more done than I was capable of.  Now Pluto has stationed for the second time, and I made the decision to postpone my overdue school work so that I can engage in another round of polyphasic sleep, which I’m still very excited about.

Betty Lundsten cautions against attempting super-human feats while having the Pluto square sun transit.  Her experience with it is nearly identical to mine in terms of what lessons she learned throughout the process.  I respect Betty’s words of wisdom, but I’m going to have to go with my feeling on this one.  Polyphasic here I come!