Everyman Experiment, day 3

This is as far as I've gotten with an altered sleep schedule, and it feels wonderful.

Tonight I woke up at 4am and it was barely a struggle. This means I've forced myself into a core sleep of 4 hours with three naps through the day. This, as Adam Dincorn had suggested, is too much sleep, and right now it feels wonderful. I know some of you are probably saying "Since when was five hours sleep a day "too much sleep," But I consider it quite the deficit. I'll be working on ameliorating this in the near future, but not all too near. I have to trigger those REM sleeps before I can start cutting back my core.

Good news aside, I have some bad news. Yesterday I slept in during a nap. I might attribute this to taking it later than I did the first two days, but I could also attribute it to a weak will power and a nearly not getting up the night before. I slept from 12 - 4 that night and 9 - 10:30, this was my only sleep that day, and I made it all the way through. I even studied for a couple hours! Mind you, this is still siesta sleep, and I want to avoid the twice a day pattern as much as I can. It's an easy pattern to get sucked into, and as many people understand, a hard pattern to get out of. It's the black hole of polyphasic sleep.

Right now, my schedule stands to be a little flawed, but I'm working on it. It's going:

Core Sleep - 12 midnight

Nap 1 - 7am

Nap 2 - 12 noon

Nap 3 - 7pm

This is to accommodate a lot of things about living on residence, quiet times ect. however I'll have to change my night time nap to 6 next semester, and my morning one might not stay where it is because of how close it is to my core. If I move it to 8am, I might have a better chance of seeing the benefit of the core nap. I'll have 4 hours at night rather than 3.

All that being said, I'd like to let all of you know how much I enjoy this time I gain from adjusting my sleep pattern. I never get time to myself anymore, I live with 99 other people, so generally I'm either with one of them, studying, or spending time with my girlfriend. This leaves minimal time to just sit and write or play video games, or get my own personal study on. I enjoy it, SO MUCH. I'd encourage all of you to give the everyman a try sometime. Hit me on facebook, or on here if you need some more info on how it works, and I promise you, it's PERFECTLY safe!

Anyway, happy napping!

Take two

It's finals time here in my first year of university, and what goes better with staying up all night studying than a drastic change in your sleeping pattern! I started two days ago on embarking on my everyman sleep diet once again, and I've been doing fairly well, though I've made certain discoveries, ones that I will share with you as time goes on.

First of all, I'd like to say that if you're a first time reader and are not aware of what the Everyman Polyphasic Sleep Schedule is, you'll have to check out my first post on the topic here. That post was the prequel to an unfortunately failed attempt, however I'm back with gusto, and there's nothing like living on residence to keep you up and busy at 4 o'clock in the morning.

I'm going to redefine some terms here, just so that, even if you have read the old post, you can get caught up and understand exactly what's going on.

The Everyman Sleep Schedule: A sleep schedule revolving around a single core nap, and three naps spaced out accordingly throughout the day.

Core Nap: A long period of sleep which usually occurs at night time. One of the main differences between the Everyman and Uberman schedules. This is a three to four hour period, depending on discipline. It is often the way that an Everyman sleeper differentiates from one day to the next, whereas an Uberman sleeper may not have that luxury.

Sub Naps: Twenty minute periods throughout the day where the body is allowed to enter REM sleep and rejuvenate itself. This is what offsets the loss of five to six hours sleep in the middle of the night. You have variety with the Everyman's subnaps. With a four hour core, two subnaps are required, with a three hour, three naps. With a five hour core and a single nap, it's considered siesta sleep, and technically only a form of diphasic sleep.

UPDATES

Okay, so this is what's been going down. The last two nights I've had to take a full four hour core nap. I've been shooting for three hours, but it seems every time I wake myself three hours after I lay down, I haven't absorbed quite enough energy to make a conscious decision upon waking. Most times I'll wake with my alarm already turned off, or I'll wake a half hour beyond the intended wake up time. This has led to my four hour core sleep. Once my body adapts to the daily naps, triggering REM sleep at the appropriate time, I hope to cut my core down to three hours, and have three daily naps. After this, I plan to move to the more extreme version of the everyman, which is the 1.5 hour core sleep, and 4 - 5 naps throughout the day.

I've been trying to make this sleep pattern work almost all semester, so as far as adjusting goes, I'm not doing very bad. I'd slowly begun napping more regardless, however I believe it was simply out of greed rather than want or need of sleep. However, doing this enabled me to shell out times and techniques for finding a quiet spot in the house and just konking out whenever the need be.

So, it's day 2, I'm not doing so bad. I'll update after my exam this afternoon and we'll see how it affects academia!

-JC

And just like that, it's over

My parents aren't going to let me drive until I stop trying to polyphasic sleep, saying that being ''over tired'' hinders my driving ability. Feel free to support the situation one way or another. Either way, I think I'm out. I apologize

Houston We have a Sleeper

My schedule is a very busy one, not usually allowing any set time where I can be home and in bed, or alone and in bed period, being that at around 8 – 9 o’clock I’m out and with friends. For the sake of the experiment, the weekend parties could be given up temporarily, or I could possibly take a nap at the earlier times just to get through these thirty days, however, negotiating the noon time nap might also be an issue. Napping at school is one of the more difficult things I’ve tried to do. Trying to find a private place to lay my head down in the midst of busting crowds is one of the things that innerves me quite deeply. The Library, once again is a possible solace, and chances are, I’m going to try out that venue tomorrow.

There has been a minor set back, in that I slept a total of five hours last night, having a core of 4 hours and over sleeping my nap this morning. It is a slight set back; however, I was not able to get either of my naps today. Thursday: it is the sole reason I can’t sleep at 4 o’clock every day. I have to teach guitar, across town, every Thursday by 4:30pm, as I get off school at 3:30, this leaves virtually no window of opportunity for a well placed nap until nearly seven thirty in the evening. I think this may be a little far from the normal 4:00, therefore I’m proposing moving my normally 4 o’clock nap to after supper at 5:30, or six, therefore, pushing it, but not crucifying myself every Thursday when I lay my head down to sleep. The only issue with this 5:30 nap may be Sundays, but I can’t see too many problems arising.

Soon, I’ll make a complete assessment of my schedule and start into part two of the polyphasic sleep experiment, successful time management. I’ll be making a bodied schedule of how I’ll be spending this extra time, and letting all of you know how I will be spending these extra four hours a night. I’m assuming there’ll be a lot of writing to be done, video games, ect. My physics project will definitely need some attention, as I have nearly thirty pages to write on Alcubierre’s Warp Bubble before the next two weeks are out. This’ll be hard, actually focusing my attention on the goal, but I feel like I can get there.

I’m starting to hope that my body is going to adapt sooner than later, almost a month to adapt would probably be pretty damaging, though surprisingly enough, my marks have increased since I started depriving myself of sleep. Seems a little odd hmm?

I’ll update again tonight, however, just to let you all know, the sleep is still on.

The Everyman Project Day (1.5)

It's fourth period, I'm at school, and I'm actually not all that tired. I managed to fully grasp the concept of torque in physics, and I'm about to progress to test myself in the wonderful field of calculus. If I can make it through that, I'm pretty sure I can knock over buildings.

I did a little bit more reading, and I was incredibly happy with what I saw. There's some one who did the Everyman for six months (you can find them here) and said that adapting to the Everyman was harder than the Uberman, however it was easier to be flexible once fully on the schedule. Me being a man of constant social movement, the lee-way between naps will definitely be something I take advantage of. Steve Pavlina stated that the Uberman schedule had to be moved by incredibly small increments at a time, while this very avid Everyman user agrees, he says the Everyman allows nearly a full hour before and after your supposed nap time can be allowed.

Schedule Talk

Okay, so I'm thinking about revising my schedule already. Like I said, I'm a little bit social, so I've considered maybe moving my core sleep ahead an hour. This allows me to not require the three hours sleep until possibly 1am. Giving me a larger window to party if need be, and also giving me a much more able social life. As long as I'm home by 1:30, I'll be settled in enough to sleep on the schedule. The flexibility is absolutely perfect.

Error Log

Today I ran into some problems trying to sleep at school at lunch. I can see this being a recurring issue.

a) The student council room (where my chosen nap spot would be) has a comfy couch for me to repose on, however, there is some heavy traffic around there at the beginning of the lunch break.

Possible Solution

The Library has chairs that are comfy, I may try there tomorrow. It's the perfect solace.

b) Some one pulled the fire alarm today while I was halfway through a nap. I think this is unavoidable, it's for my own good, however, I don't look to missing too many more naps on account of this in the future.

Possible Solution

Reinforce more strictly Darwin's Theories.

Final Notes

Over all it's not that bad yet. I'm looking forward to the nap after school.

The Everyman Project Day 1

Okay, so I've come to the conclusion that doing this experiment might not be as hard to handle as I thought, but then again, we're only on day 1 here.

Last night was my first night with only a three hour core sleep. Of course, it was a little difficult staying up between the end of my core sleep and the nap I took at 7:00, however, I'm sure that this is only going to get worse.

Good news about it though, is that I actually got some significant work done. I updated some of the blog layout, I watched a very intriguing move called Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth
 and I read up on Alcubierre’s Warp Bubble. Fascinating stuff. I wanted to push myself intellectually for a couple of reasons last night.

1) To sustain wakefulness, I needed focus.

2) Nothing passes time like physics!

3) I wanted to see how well I retained memory.

Good news, I remember almost every detail about last night’s little foray into over tiredness, including the details about Alcubierre and his illogical theory on warp speed. This is a lucky factor for me as I’m still attending school, and I’m not exactly sure how I could handle not knowing things in time for tests on account of my experiment.

Another pro, I woke up from my nap this morning feeling incredibly rejuvenated. It was like I’d slept for a couple of hours. I think this might be on account of my body already triggering REM sleep just a little bit more quickly that usual. I had quite the vivid dream during the little nap! However, I’m sure this could also be on account of my just starting the experiment.

More insights to come as the day progresses!

The Everyman

I'm starting to get slightly fatigued, though my first real attempt is just around the corner. I think I'll be studying for my biology test in the morning in the free time I gain. It isn't like I haven't only slept for three hours on one night before. I can make it through, I just hope that my grades don't suffer, and that I can remain consistent throughout the experiment.

I want to mention a few things before we get started.

The everyman IS NOT dangerous for your health, neither is it's more extreme cousin the Uberman. Popular belief says that a good night sleep is more beneficial, however, studies cited here

as well as here provide reason to believe that there is actually no way for it to harm you, so long as you remain along the strict schedule and DO NOT skip naps.

I've been wanting to try this for a long time, and I figure now would be an ideal time, it being that last little time in High School I have left, where grades don't have to be priority and where fun should be at it's highest. I'm hoping many of you are behind me here. Don't try to be party poopers hmmm!

Back to the benefits. I'll be gaining somewhere close to 14 hours a week. That's almost two full nights sleep worth of hours I'll have back to use how ever I choose. Substantial? I think so. Worth it? Yes.

I'll be using these hours to work on my physics papers, personal research, blog improvement, music composition. A lot of things. The part I'm most excited about is a daily jaunt through the neighborhood in the crisp morning. I think around six o'clock will be ample time, then upon returning, I'll shower, and take a nap before school. I think it'll be a great way to space out that big break of free late night/morning time.

Disclaimer

I am merely posting my experience in the field of sleep pattern testing. I cannot be held responsible for anyone who is rendered sick, or dead on account of sleep deprivation because they stumbled upon my site and decided that they would start not sleeping for two days at a time.

Thank you

Everyman Experiment Day 0

Okay, so as many of you heard from me today at school, or recently, I’ve decided to take up the polyphasic sleep charge again. I’m going to attempt something somewhat easier this time though.

During my attempt (mind you, incredibly failed attempt) at the Uberman sleep pattern, in which you take six naps spread out through your day, I found that it is incredibly hard to function socially on account of my always having to sleep. The Everyman Polyphasic sleep schedule still allows me two extra hours on each day, and allows a slightly more flexible social life.

Uberman’s schedule was ludicrous, and it would surely take some form of obsession to master it. Sleep for 20 minutes every six hours, no matter how difficult it may be to keep that schedule. I don’t think any one could be sane enough to truly live like that, unless of course they worked from home, had no wife or any children and most frequently urinated on house hold appliances while adapting the the Uberman.

The Everyman makes it much simpler. It simply calls for one core sleeping period, which consists usually of a three to four hour repose, and three periodic naps throughout your day. The core nap, or sleep period of the cycle defuses another problem that Uberman proposed. It allows us to continue differentiating between day time and night time, giving us some sense of method in time.

The three naps can be spaced much differently on account of the core sleep at the theoretical end of your day. My personal schedule will run as follows.

Everyman Sleep Schedule

Core:  12:00 am – 3:00 am

Nap 1:  8:00 am

Nap 2:  12:30 pm

Nap 3: 4:00 pm

Possible Error

I realize that it will be difficult for me to adapt to the schedule, however, the way the naps are going to function will allow me to fall asleep quite easily at the assigned times. This being the problem before, I’m sure it will help to dispose of some difficulty.

I also worry that perhaps the gap between my third daily nap and my Core may be too great. However, I’m led to believe that because it’s leading into the longer more rejuvenating core, that the lengthy period between will not hinder me too greatly.

 

It can be said that I will make revisions on this as soon as I am able, however, tonight will be my most difficult task of falling asleep by midnight, and reawakening by three AM.

To all of you reading, wish me the best of luck.