GOAL : 56 hours sleep for February 2010
ACTUAL: 57 hours sleep for February 2010
You remember all that stuff I said about January being the hardest month (the last week especially)? Well, throw that out the window; February is by far the worst Dymaxion Sleep month I’ve ever had. And again, all the thanks goes to one thing, my social life.
February was filled with showcases, performances, and classes to teach. At first my whole flexible schedule thing worked out, and I finally thought I was able to have a social life and sleep two hours day (ain’t I stupid). I guess my social life has a thing against my sleep habits; I had back to back shows, back to back classes, back to back meetings, and anything else back to back.
I found myself sometimes not skipping one nap but two! If you ever practised polyphasic sleeping, especially Uberman or Dymaxion like me, then you’ll understand the importance of what I just said.
The moment I started hallucinating and falling in and out of sleep I knew I had to do something. So, I started consuming caffein pills left and right, straight dark coffee (no sugar or cream), and anything/everything else caffeinated just to stay awake. Don’t think I planned to make this the long term solution though, this was just one of those temporary band-aid ideas (that never work in the long run).
In my last week of February I ended up oversleeping three naps by two hours each (that’s a total of six hours of oversleeping). I didn’t think too much of it though, I probably skipped about 15 naps in February (that’s five hours total of missed naps) and the oversleeping thing probably equalized everything.
Right now, I’m back to normal (yeahhhh!). I’m sleeping every six hours with 10 minutes flexibility here and there. But, in the back of my mind I still worry about how I’ll survive another “crazy-social-life-no-naps” period in my life. I wouldn’t be able to handle living off caffeine alone again. I’d die.
Something had to change, and soon.
… Did you think I was going to say that I’m quitting?! I’d never be that sensible silly. Although, I’ve just hit my goal (if you remember correctly I stated that I wanted to last until March on two hours sleep per day), I’ve expanded on my previous goal by trying to achieve that all illusive one year mark.
Think about it, a whole year where I sleep two hours per day, WOW. Nine/ten more months to go. And not only will I be sleeping two hours a day, but I’ll be doing it on the flexible-Dymaxion polyphasic sleep pattern, something everyone has said couldn’t be done. For personal reasons this makes me extremely happy, I love proving people wrong.
My flexible schedule has to be MORE flexible
My flexible-Dymaxion schedule is in fact what’s going to change, I’ve realized that I’m going to have to stretch this out to it’s limits just so I can keep up with my personal life. Right now I’ve achieved 10 minutes flexibility (meaning that I can differentiate my naps by ten minutes), but for March I’m going to try to raise it to 20 – 30 minutes flexibility.
If you want to think about how great a feat that is just realize that by moving a 30 minute nap 30 minutes forward/backwards I’m basically missing the entire scheduled nap time altogether. Yes, I’m making it that drastic.
As I write this I’m practising 12 minutes flexibility (one step at a time), and everything seems to be going swell. It’s not as great as a pure-on-schedule nap is, but it’s getting there. I’m either getting used to it, or it’s getting used to me.
Future experimentations
I’ve already stated that I’m going to practice lucid dreaming (and blog about it), but I have other things I’ve been thinking about. Here’s a (very) short list of things I’m thinking of trying:
- On-and-off naps
- Two hours of sleep per day with fewer nap times (three, two, and maybe even one… but I doubt it)
- Sensory naps (just made this up)- where you sleep, dream, and yet still be aware of your surroundings. I’m wondering if humans have the ability to do this due to our history of having to survive in jungles, forests, etc.
- And of course lucid dreaming (plus all the niche topics it covers)
I’ve failed at something though
I’ve failed at keeping up with my daily Dymaxion sleep pictures. I’m sorry… I’m too busy! I literary haven’t touched my camera in a month, and for someone who loves photography in general, that’s horrible.
I’ve also slacked on my twitter updates about my polyphasic sleeping. But that was on purpose. This whole thing has become a part of my life now, like sleeping eight hours per day is for most people. Do they tweet every-time they wake up and tell you how it felt?! No! It’s wayyy too egomaniacal for me.
But, in all seriousness, if you can think of an easier way for me to take (decent) pictures of myself quickly please let me know, right now even the quickness of Flickr isn’t quick enough for me… And I’m not doing DailyBooth.
I was thrilled to receive email and comments from some of y’all asking me to help with your polyphasic sleep schedules. As I stated, I’m not a doctor (just a guy who has personal experience), but I will help with anything I can.
So… ASK/COMMENT AWAY!
photo credit: dr_vaibhavahuja