Kirk’s Blog

I finally made my first video, woohoo! Embedding doesn’t seem to work, so here’s the link.  It’s basically a summary of the transition so far with some added concepts from the second transition learning experience. One thing I forgot to mention in the video about the chart is that all the periods are generally more muddled this time around. The highs are not quite so high, and there’s an all pervasive spaceyness that I did not experience during the second transition.

On Saturday April 21st, instead of going to bed at my usual time, I started my first day of the Uberman Sleep Schedule. Now that it’s been 2 full days (each day being midnight to midnight), I’m pleased to report that all naps have been restful and on schedule, and there have been no oversleeps. There were a couple times when I thought I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep for the nap, but each time I found myself being awoken by the alarm at the end of it, or I woke up automatically without an alarm. All naps (with one exception which I’ll talk about) were both restorative in some way and followed by a bit of initial grogginess.

The first day, I used Placebo’s Sleep Track only. I either woke up after the white noise ended or at the sound of a rooster or one of those other effects. For a couple of the day time naps, my mind was very active, and it took a while to fall asleep, but I managed to get ‘er done.

The 4:00 am nap on the morning of day 2 was interesting. For day 2, I started using a back-up alarm in case the iPod was not enough (I woke up each time before it went off anyway). For this particular nap, I woke up automatically from a dream (before even the white noise finished) with a massive lunge upward. I dreamt that I had overslept by a few hours for the nap, and my panicked body hurled itself out of the dream and nearly onto my feet! The quality of the dream was not the intense, vivid variety I’d expect from a fully-transitioned uberman, but it was very typical of monophasic dreaming. I brimmed with adrenaline and alertness only to discover how sleepy I actually was 20 minutes or so later. So I played some computer games to keep my mind engaged. In general, I was able to fall asleep faster and more easily on the second day, and I was slightly more groggy after waking up than on the first day.

The 8:00 AM nap this morning (day 3) was the first one in which the iPod did not wake me up all by itself. The loud, analog alarm with metal bells that went off shortly after fixed that. Soon I will set up the water as insurance in case the analog alarm doesn’t wake me up. Even though I was very groggy after the 8:00 AM nap (the most recent nap as of this writing), I feel the best that I’ve felt since starting this schedule. I played a couple games of Warcraft 3 to lift my brain out of the fog, and then I stretched and did some jump-and-jacks to lift my body from the sludge. The combination really helped. I feel much more grounded and productive. Before, I was playing Warcraft to stay awake, but I got sucked into it. Rather than harnessing the benefits of gaming, I became enslaved to it, so even though I was awake, I was pretty useless. I see now that it’s important to engage both the mind and the body.

I’ve been doing other things mostly on inertia from the lessons of past transition attempts such as allocating cool-down time before naps to get in touch with and feel my sleepiness before the nap time. The first day I used 30 minutes cool-down time, but I think 15 minutes is sufficient now. More during the day, less at night. I stop gaming usually at least an hour before napping because that can really keep my mind abuzz. There’s really not much that I have to think about or figure out in terms of how to transition. Everything that I’ve already planned and figured out in the past should work out fine.

I plan on starting the complete Uberman Sleep Schedule this weekend. This week is very busy as I get a lot of obligations and other things out of the way - 3 shifts at the Park Slope Food Coop, 2 parties, 3 new pieces of furniture, and a doctor’s appointment. I decided to get a full check-up since I’ve been raw vegan for 7 months and since I’m about to go polyphasic to make sure that I’m in complete health (and I’ll finally find out my blood type!).

Sleep onset times and morning alertness continue to improve. Yesterday I woke up automatically from a dream just a few minutes before my alarm went off, and later in the day, I fell asleep for my afternoon nap very quickly. I’m not eating anytime after 8:00pm, and I continue to feel great when I wake up. It’s not a challenge at all not to eat for 4 hours before bed. I’ve noticed that “emotional” hunger cravings tend to peak at the down times of the day such at 3:00pm and 10:00pm. What I mean by that is the hunger is not the result of a genuine need for food. It’s a reaching out for something less tangible: boredom, tiredness, or a feeling of lack. It’s no coincidence that such cravings would occur during the weaker moments of the day - the low points in the circadian cycle (I became intimately familiar with that cycle while fasting; it’s always easier during the stronger times of the day). Now that the benefits of not eating are very clear and obvious, I can focus my mind on something other than the infantile need to fill an illusive lack.

I will set things up exactly as I did for round 2, since that one was so successful. Now that the main obstacle during the last round - my transition to raw vegan at the same time - is gone, things should go much more smoothly. I think I will also have a talk with the people who live below me so that we don’t have another incident (I’m not living above a crazy guy this time, but still).

Lately I’ve been waking up on time and feeling sprightly in the mornings. Any grogginess disappears moments after I wake up, and then the mornings are a time high energy and clear concentration. I see a couple possible reasons for this.

1. The simple and obvious reason is that I’m adjusting to this schedule and becoming more of a morning person. Keeping a consistent wake up time tends to make a person feel better and have more predictable energy levels. While this is true, I do not think it is the most important reason.
2. Around the time I decided to stop snoozing in the morning, my roommate (the one who was interested in doing polyphasic sleep with me but won’t be able to) suggested that the source of my grogginess in the mornings is my munching right before bed. I had been chowing down a lot within the couple hours before bed, especially heavy nutty foods. When I eliminated the nightly feast, I transformed instantly and miraculously. I now feel vibrant, alert, and clear-headed in the mornings.

I’m convinced that a key factor in transitioning relatively easily is in becoming a morning person before the actual jump to uberman. I’ve observed again and again that larks (morning people) roll right into uberman like they were born to do it while owls (night people) torture themselves for extended periods of time before completing the transition (assuming they don’t give up first, which most of them do). There is a crude Lark/Owl Test available for free on the net. I’m going to query some of the existing owls that I know that have transitioned and find out how they felt after fully adapting. I wonder if they ever feel quite as adjusted as larks do.

April 1st, the day after my last post, I had my first quality nap since starting this schedule on March 27. For the naps before that, I would wake up feeling not very different than I did before the nap (except for a touch of grogginess) even though I slipped into unconsciousness. After waking from the April 1st nap, I felt relaxed, and my mind was completely emptied. Nothing that was occupying my mind before the nap was there anymore: it was a stress-free fresh start to the rest of the day. The rest of the days were more or less similar, except for a couple inconsequential slip-ups.

On April 3rd, I was hanging out with friends and ended up staying up till 3am. I didn’t set my alarm because I knew I’d wake up around 6am from force of habit. I did, started getting dressed, and then decided to go back to sleep. I woke up around 9am feeling revitalized, so I ended up getting my full 6 hours and took my nap a couple hours late that day. All that day I felt higher levels of energy and concentration than usual, but the next day I felt drained, especially when trying to wake up at my normal time. On April 7th, I had to take a nap in a public place in the middle of an engaging capoeira batizado, and I couldn’t fall asleep. Even so, the down time was relatively refreshing. The other variation on the schedule was that I decided to take a nap at noon today instead of 3:30pm. I know from experience that the latest opportunity to nap before 3:30pm is before noon because otherwise I’ll wake up in the middle of the afternoon slump and feel considerably groggy/disoriented (if the sleepiness doesn’t start until after noon, then I just have to wait it out). Aside from those events, naps have been on time and rejuvating, with slight grogginess after waking.

There are a couple reasons that I’m still not satisfied with the naps yet. The first reason is that I’m still not reliably falling asleep quickly. When I can quickly pass into and through the hypnagogic state into unconsciousness every time, then I know both mind and body are habituated to the naps. I am doing that now, but I don’t think it’s happening quickly enough. It’s actually really hard to measure time in the period just before unconsciousness because I’m actively releasing my grip on reality, especially linear thought. Once when I was doing some wake up exercises, I set my alarm for 2/3 minutes after laying down. I was amazed to discover that I was already far from linear thought and deep in la la land by the time the alarm went off, and it felt like at least 10 minutes of thinking had gone by.

Even if I am getting to sleep quicker than I think I am, the other reason is that I’m not waking up automatically more often than not. Sometimes I wake up before the alarm, but more frequently it doesn’t happen until the alarm goes off. Sometimes I just can’t tell, probably because the sleep itself was not very deep. I’ve observed that automatic wake-ups tend to go hand-in-hand with deeply restful naps.

My patterns of alertness are not completely regular yet either, though they are getting there. The couple hours after waking up and before going to bed are usually sleepy times and so is around 2pm. Sometimes the sleepiness persists until 9-10am, but it’s almost always gone by 10am, and it’s not hard to stay awake anyway at that time. I’m really looking forward to the warm weather so that I can get outside and jog in the morning. I’ve had enough of this winter! (I mean really, snow flurries in April?) Exercising in the morning really helps. Occasionally there’s another bout of tiredness around 6pm.