Putting Things in Perspective April 6, 2009
Posted by isleephack in Uncategorized.Tags: adaptation, ployphasic sleep, polyphasic, sleep, sleep hacking
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Last night I stayed up until 5:45am working on papers for various classes. (No matter how well I plan, they all seem to stack up at the end of the semester.) Suzie, who is adapting, was of course up too. We talked back and forth over the hours while we sat in front of our laptops and it was a lot of fun. I went to bed at the same time that she went to take a nap, and I remember thinking, “This really isn’t fair.”
By staying up with her for most of the night, I realized exactly how much time Suzie was getting. It’s like having all your time after school until bed twice, and it’s creepy and exhilarating. You have no idea how much time you’re truly missing while you’re asleep.
I’m going to force myself to sleep the typical 8 hours on a steady schedule during finals week to I can start the experiment as soon as possible after the semester is over without impacting the integrity of the control data.
You know, I don’t the think the psychological adjustment of getting used to being up all night will be a big deal for me. Night is not strange to me, since I’m used to be being the last roommate awake. During the day, I actually prefer cloudy days anyway, because a) I’m slightly photosensitive and b) I’m from the East coast, where it rains a lot. I’m also used to taking short naps during the day and don’t anticipate having trouble falling asleep at noon.
Again, I’ll be sleeping perfectly normally for at least two weeks, and will keep my sleeping patterns until then as steady as my schedule allows, to make sure that the control data will be solid. I just think it will be interesting to see how those psychological and habitual factors will impact my adaptation.
I have a convert! April 6, 2009
Posted by isleephack in Uncategorized.Tags: converts, polyphasic, polyphasic sleep, sleep, sleep hacking
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Tonight I found out that my roommate Suzie has succumbed to curiosity after listening to Nate (my brother who sleeps polyphasically) and I talking about sleep hacking constantly. My brother tipped me off that she had started polyphasic sleep (she didn’t tell me… turkey face…) and we’ve been discussing it all night… Talking theories and all the fun things we’re going to do together. I’m so jealous right now, of both Nate and Suzie, but it’s motivating me to complete the beastly honors thesis proposal that is the prerequisite to IRB approval for my project.
I’m taking the proposal to my mentor, Professor Lockhart, tomorrow. I’m also hoping to get in touch with the neuroscience lab on campus and see what it would take to get a couple of brain scans (before and after adaptation). We also need to get in touch with the local sleep clinic we scouted out and see if they would be willing to volunteer their facilities to study one of the most fascinating opportunities they will ever have, or if we’ll have to pay. Apparently a cost estimate and request for financial aid is part of the thesis proposal.
I will not be able to start the experiment until April 23rd at the earliest… more information pending…
I’m way excited about Suzie though. Just had to share. She’s going home for the summer, but we’ll be rooming again together in the fall and it will be extremely nice to have someone in the apartment (and in my room) who understands and shares funky sleep patterns. It helps that she’s pretty dang cool too…
Not Day One March 13, 2009
Posted by isleephack in Uncategorized.Tags: polyphasic sleep, sleep, sleep hackers
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Today I did not start the sleep experiment, but not out of procrastination or fear. My patience-o-meter is building pressure, and I am extremely anxious to start this thing.
A professor here at BYU is working with me to put this study together in a way that will make the results clean. The idea is that my adaptation period will be a pilot study, in preparation for a study with more volunteers at the beginning of the summer. The catch is that I have to jump through some hoops. BYU has a board that reviews proposals for research involving human subjects. I will have to get my proposal approved by them before they will allow a professor to mentor me (probably liability issues) or give us access to BYU’s spectaclar resoucres, like the on-campus nueroscience lab. So I’m going to be really busy this weekend writing up that proposal.
In the meantime, Dr. Lockhart (my mentor) is leading me to some excellent connections. We want to get a physician involved to monitor my health and assure the BYU review board that I’m not going to die or lapse into a seizure-prone vegetable. There is also a prominent sleep doctor that we are going to pitch to and see if we can’t get a couple official polysomnograph tests done. This is only a tiny portion of our plans. It is all very exciting.
I suspect it will be two weeks before I can actually start sleep hacking (kill me now… The longer we wait the less complacent I am with monophasic sleep). I’ll keep you posted. Until the experiment actually starts, I will post lots of related studies and cool findings that I run across. I will also post my research plan draft sometime this weekend and would be happy to get feedback on how you think we could improve the study.
To what end March 8, 2009
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Years ago, Dad invited me to memorize this poem. I had forgotten about it until recently… now it has a whole new meaning to me.
The heights by great men, reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight
But they, while their companions slept
Were toiling upward through the night.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Preparation March 6, 2009
Posted by isleephack in Uncategorized.Tags: polyphasic, polyphasic sleep, sleep, sleep hackers, Uberman
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If I live to be 75, I will have spent 25 years of my life asleep, unconscious, a blob of organic matter using space and energy but accomplishing nothing. 25 YEARS. I don’t like that statistic.
I heard about polyphasic sleeping from my brother and separately we did research for two weeks. The sad thing is, we found that not much research has been done on it. The good thing is, a lot of crazy people have been playing mad-scientist on themselves and many of them report success. My brother started sleep hacking (aka sleeping polyphasically) almost two weeks ago, and he is doing fine. This morning I woke up after a thorough night’s sleep and was still exhausted out of my mind. I realized, “You know, I’m sick of this wasting my life and still being tired thing. I’m going polyphasic. Now.”
My science-loving side kicked in this afternoon and so I am postponing adaptation a week so that I can (hopefully) get some tests run to test my cognitive and physical abilities before I start. Whatever the outcome is, I want hard, concrete evidence of it, and I want to make it available for other people to find and use.
So here is my plan:
-Polyphasic Uberman schedule (20-minute naps every 4 hours)
-Start Thursday, March 12th, 2009 after a full 8-hour night
-Have a 5-6 hour monophasic crash at three weeks. This appears to be important to restore full cognitive function.
-Give polyphasic sleep a 45-day trial. If it my brain and body are still at the top of my game, I will maintain it for a minimum of a year, probably longer than that.
“What would you do with more wakeful hours? These bloggers stay awake by exercising or socializing; no one reads more books, solves complicated puzzles or learns a language, likely because they can’t. These tasks are too taxing for the sleep-deprived mind.” ~Christopher Wanjek
I want to prove this wrong. I am currently enrolled in Chinese 101. I have an entire shelf-full of books that I’ve been wanting to read for forever… classical, lovely books like The Treasury of Kahlil Gibron and Les Miserables. My roommate has the world’s greatest collection of impossible puzzles. And to top it off, I love to memorize poetry.
Like Steve Pavlina, I love a challenge in self-discipline. Other related goals I have for the next year:
-master speed reading
-memorize 20 more pages of significant literature
-bring my weight down to 140 (this is healthy and reasonable for my build)
-maintain my social life (including social awareness … This is important to me because in my research I did not find anyone beside Steve Pavlina who successfully adapted to polyphasic sleep who appeared to be socially adept.)
-increase my GPA to 3.65 by the end of the summer
-Complete manuscript of a publishable, full length novel by Dec 31st, 2009
These will also be good milestones for measuring/demonstrating productivity. In addition to these accomplishments, I will be keeping daily productivity, alertness, morale, caloric intake and other miscellaneous scores so you can follow exactly what happens to me.
Other information:
I am a college student, two weeks shy of 19 years old. I am enrolled in college with 15 credits this semester, and my current GPA is 3.27. I do not eat sugar, sugar substitutes, caffeine, coffee, tea, tobacco products, or alcohol. I am a light meat-eater. I walk 18-25 miles a week, and run 6 more. I’m 5’7”, 149 lbs. I live with 5 other single girls in an apartment. A year ago I experienced the climax of a severe case of mononucleosis but am now fully recovered.
My sleeping schedule will be 1:30, 5:30, 9:30 (am/pm), give or take 15 minutes. My brother is on the same schedule and we will be keeping each other on track. You can read his blog here: http://mysleepexperiment.wordpress.com/
If you have any other questions, just leave comments here and I’ll respond right away.
“Until there is evidence to the contrary, I’m going to assume that whatever gets me rested is okay for my health. Until then I’m going to live my life with my eyes wide open.” ~said brother, in a letter to friends who are morbidly concerned about his new sleeping habits.
