Kirk’s Blog

In preparation for my next round of uberman sleeping, I’m beginning a reduced sleep schedule that includes a nightly slumber from midnight to 6am and a power nap at 3:30pm. Getting in the habit of napping before engaging in full-on uberman makes the transition so much easier. It’s the same schedule I maintained for the 5 months or so between my first attempt and the second attempt. Along with regular exercise, I felt relatively high vitality for the whole experience.

I’m a bit sleepy today because I still haven’t adjusted to the schedule (it’s the first day), so I’m eagerly waiting for my 3:30pm nap. The couple hours of afternoon slump just before that are always a pain, but if I take the nap earlier than the 3pm hour block, I know from experience that I wake up feeling groggy. So either I take a nap before noon or I wait till 3:30pm.

Depending on how things go with this schedule, I tentatively plan to start uberman in a couple weeks. My roommate is very interested in doing it with me, and I would like to syncronize with him so we can help keep each other awake at night, but he’s still having problems finding a place to nap at work, and he’s concerned that his somewhat unpredictable work environment may not be conducive for napping at set times every day.

Whatever happens, riding the eclipse is never dull.

What else can be so ugly yet so so beautiful but procrastination? Although I’ve failed to get much school work done of late and have successfully avoided any confrontation about it, I did manage to make some wonderful raw recipes for the first time and get some great pictures of them.

I couple of friends of mine, Merre and Nick, and I were trying to find some place, but we were lost and wandering through a hotel. We passed through a room full of poker tables with huge cards propped up facing us, as to beckon us to play. Before we exited the room, we all seemed really intrigued by one of the tables, so I suggested that we play.

Merre went first, and she quickly lost $5. Then it was my turn. I got up on the stool, which somehow seemed a lot higher now that I was sitting on it, and waited to give the lady my $5. She cleared the stuff off the table finally and accepted my $5 bill. Then she gave me a $50 bill in change. I looked at it for a moment, deciding whether or not I should take it really quickly so that wouldn’t notice or give it back and inform the woman of her mistake. As I stuck the bill in my wallet, Merre was sitting behind me trying not to laugh at the situation. I could barely get the bill in there because the wallet so fat, and I stuffed it back in my pocket.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity rehashing the event in my mind. I thought about how she clearly looked at the $5 bill before giving me change, and it seemed suspicious. I also felt bad about taking the money because I knew it was wrong. Finally, I pulled my wallet out again, looked in (pretending to double-check the amount that she had given me), and gave her the five back. As I tried to get her attention by saying “Miss,” the bill fell out of my hand and trickled to the floor. Before it disappeared, I noticed that it was fake. The entire thing was white except for a piece of $50 bill glued to the top corner of the paper. My speech froze as I stared at the last visible location of the fake bill. I was unable to move or change the position of my mouth as I realized that she intentionally gave me the fake bill as a test of moral character, and I failed.

Dream Interpretation

This dream is related to the time when I took more than my share of lunch money. Yesterday the company received an email stating that people were still allocating funds that were not rightfully theirs, but I had nothing to do with it this time. The dream reflects my failure of the moral test the first time, but I passed the second time.

It’s been a while since I made a post, but I figured I’d deliver a long overdue update. I’ve felt fully adjusted to the raw diet for some time now. The first week was really rough. I might have strangled someone for a bowl of rice. After that, it became considerably easier. During the entire first month, I still craved non-raw foods, but I was able to stuff my belly full of raw foods so I didn’t have to think about it too much. After the first month, I only craved raw foods. After the first two months, I felt fully integrated in the diet. Since then, the only thing I have to do now to maintain the diet is just plan to make sure I have food around when I’ll be hungry. In the beginning it took a lot of focus and planning on what to eat. Now it’s mostly robotic - I pick up stuff at the grocery and make bulk dishes as usual. I also keep plenty of fruits around to munch on throughout the day.

I imagine it’s very similar to what would be required of a transition to polyphasic sleep, and I wonder if the time scale would be the same. After a while, all that would be required to maintain the schedule would be planning, which would become second-nature.

I walk into a special cafe that people go into when they want to commit suicide, and in this culture, suicide is a normal and an accepted part of everyday life. People are sitting around at tables sipping their death drink, and I go up to the counter to order one. I looked at the menu above the cashier’s head and ordered the “Power Green” drink. I did not want to die, I just wanted to examine the drink.

I left the cafe with my drink in hand on my way home so that I could analyze the substance, and I took a couple sips without thinking. I thought to myself, “Well, maybe just a couple sips won’t do anything.” Then my throat started to close up and my vision went blurry, and I started freaking out. I started running home so that I could reverse the process before it was too late. Before I got there, I croaked and collapsed to the floor.

As far as I can tell, the dream is about my raw diet because of the “Power Green” drink. Dreams are often a rehashing of the day’s events with a stronger emphasis on the emotional content. Yesterday I was talking to my sister about the raw diet among other things. Death in a dream in often symbolic of change. The raw diet has brought a change in my life that I unwittingly brought upon myself, just as I unwittingly drank from the cup of death.

I started the live foods diet over a month ago, and I’m still learning how to to deal with food cravings on a daily basis. I assume that eventually the hunger will subside since I read that it’s normal for this to happen. One theory was that the body craves lots of food because it has been deprived of good nutrient-rich food for so long that it has to over-compensate in the beginning. Whatever the case, food cravings on a raw diet have a unique character that is different from food cravings on a cooked/processed food diet.

The best way I can describe it is like when you eat something light, like maybe a piece of fruit, whether you’re hungry or not. It whets your appetite so that you’re actually more hungry than before you ate it. This is how I feel all the time. It’s great that I don’t feel weighed down after I eat, but for some reason I’m still searching for that satisfying feeling you get when you eat a decent-sized portion of processed/cooked carbohydrates like rice. Eating these types of carbohydrates causes an insulin spike, which in turn stimulates the production of serotonin. The result: you feel peaceful and sleepy. One of my goals is to maintain a consistent energy flow, so while I still crave this relaxed state, it’s ultimately undesirable.

Even with this in mind, I’m still forced to deal with the practical reality of craving cooked/processed foods. So far, this is how I’ve been dealing with it:

• Exercise. I find that when I don’t exercise in the morning (usually jogging for 30 minutes), I tend to be moody and less energetic throughout the day. Mood swings then lead to a desire for comfort foods, and it becomes hard to keep the raw diet.
• Bananas have become my comfort food now. For some reason, they just have that effect without weighing me down. Lately, I’ve been eating up to 5 bananas a day including 2 in the morning with my raw hemp protein shake. My ultimate goal is still to transcend these cravings.
• Raw nuts and dried fruits are the other satisfying comfort foods that I seek when necessary. I stopped eating nuts for a while though because I noticed I would feel slowed down after eating them, which is why I would like to avoid comfort foods altogether. I think eventually I will not feel like I need them anymore. Some say that you should soak the nuts to activate their enzymes before you eat them. Perhaps that would reduce the weighed down feeling.
• Daily rhythms also help me to anticipate when I will be more likely to have cravings. In the morning, I’m feeling stronger and more energetic, and I usually don’t don’t get any cravings. In the evenings, I more frequently get cravings.
• I often just keep my belly full. There are plenty of fruits at work for me to munch on all day, and I make large portions of veggie slaw or something along those lines in the beginning of the week that I can just scoop into a bowl when I’m feeling hungry.

Ultimately, I’m just going to have to get used not feeling the full, satisfying feeling anymore. It’s really great when I think about it. I can eat without feeling like I’ve eaten and always feel optimal. Until that day, I’m going to allow myself to endulge in whatever comfort foods I feel are necessary and gradually ween myself off of the ones that slow me down the most. I’m not sure how long this phase is supposed to last, but I will surely find out.

Immediately after writing my last post, I lay down to take my nap, and when I got up, I had a pounding headache. I didn’t know what caused it or what my body was trying to tell me, but it became unbearable to stay awake, so I slept that night for another 12 hours. And the following night I slept for 12 hours. Leave it to my body to do what it must when my conscious mind has other plans. The headache persisted for 3 days at high intensity, and I finally figured out what was causing it. I have to laugh at myself for not seeing this coming.

When I first started the raw diet, I noticed some minor detox symptoms, and I immediately recognized them because of my previous detox experiences. I didn’t consciously embark on the raw diet for the purposes of detoxification, but I later found out that others with the same circumstances (beginning vegan, going raw) experienced the same intense detox symptoms (headache, nausea) anywhere from a week to a month after starting the diet. To the best that I am able to determine, my body’s ability to self-detoxify was limited while I was sleep-deprived, but as soon as I got some rest, it began a massive flush of toxins from my system, resulting in the severe, pounding headache, light-headedness, and nausea. The headaches seem to have gone away (I’ll see how I feel tonight since they tend to get stronger at night), except I’m still a bit light-headed, and my appetite seems to be coming back (for a while, I only wanted to eat a little fruit).

After a couple days of resting, I then came under more pressure to get my overdue assignments in. Seeing as I lost an entire week of transition and seeing that my body was already over-taxed, I decided to end this round of polyphasic. Hopefully, I will be able to finish all of my work by the time of the break (7 weeks from now) so that I can give it another whirl. So, for now, I’m back to my normal quasi-monophasic. In the meantime, I will allow my body to get used to being raw, and perhaps I’ll get a rug or something to soften the squeaky noises in the middle of the night.  And I have a bit of a Warcraft addiction now, so I’m giving my Warcraft CDs to my coworker, Kevin, while I finish my school work.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
- Thomas Edison