hm...

ended up sleeping from 1 to 7... shit. well whatever I'm pressing onward... again. gotta nap.

train kept a rollin', all night long...

so I'm still on it. nice! However, I'm discrediting myself if I say I completely succeeded last night. I was on track all the way through breakfast, where I found out school was closed for the day (sick....), so I went back to the room after breakfast intending to wake up at around 9:40 ish, and what happened was basically a string of inadvertent alarms, text messages, and phone calls going on constantly. I woke up at 10:12 on my own, so I over slept by like 30 minutes, but in my disoriented state, I looked at my alarms that were set to see where I went wrong or whatever, and found that an alarm was going to go off at 10:35, so I figured that I must have ended up going to bed at just after 10 (thinking about it now, I'm fairly certain that I went to bed at 9, didn't fall asleep, so laid down for a 9:30 to 10 nap instead, but when I set my alarm I changed it from 9:35 to 10:35 instead of from 9:35 to 10:05.......). Anyways, I went back to bed at 10:12 thinking I hadn't completed my full nap, and ended up not getting out of bed until 11:30, but never actually falling asleep for more than maybe 15 minutes at a time. So I skipped my 1 oclock and my 5 oclock, and took my 9 oclock at 9:30, and now here I am. I have a HST paper to write (really short... should be easy) and a lot of PHL to read, and then I'm going to go over flash cards for arabic. This should keep me up until the dining hall opens and my 9 oclock and then work. I still haven't been to GEO since the first week of school. However, I am doing fine on my online quizzes, so that's good I guess.... fuck that class.

new morning...

ah... success. so I finished all my homework due today, got a 9/11 on an online quiz in GEO, figured out how to plug the 360 into the projector (minus sound... the jacks for the sound are too far away from the video HD plugs... I'll probably have to use the extension cord for the surround in the room) my roommate is snoring like mad right now, so I'm going to record this shit. hilarious.

ladies and gentlemen...

solution found. energy drinks are... dare I say it... the answer? Notoriously unhealthy and somehow "good" tasting even though you squint when you sip, I gotta say that energy drinks are going to get me through this. I woke with ease, fell asleep with relative ease, and I feel great now. And I haven't really drank that much. cool. I have a quiz and a homework assignment to complete, so.....

hm....

well I'm off to my 5 o'clock.... usually I'm hoping that I wake up, but today I'm hoping that I go to sleep. I'm still kind of wired, plus a little excited at how efficient today has been. more before 6...

feeling great

well, as usual I'm feeling fucking fantastic towards the end of my waking period. Not only because I like this feeling of complete silence/solitude in the middle of the night, or because I'm getting a ridiculous amount of homework done, but because I'm completely wired on energy drinks right now. I must've only had a quarter of the can, but it's doing wonders. I'm going to leave it beside the bed so that even my irrational self can take two seconds to chug some juice as I turn off my alarm or set it to snooze, if I turn out to be that tired upon waking. This will result in me going back to bed for a few minutes before my eyes snap open again and I leap out of bed..... hopefully. In any case, I only have one more brief to write for politics out of the 5 which I began writing at around 11, only breaking for my nap at 1. As I'm writing this sentence, the clock turns to 4. My chest feels as though I'm laying on my back and cinderblocks are slowly being stacked on top of me. But that's okay. It's probably because I've been hunched in this awkward scribe-like position typing/reading relentlessly for almost 5 hours now. I'm going to get up and walk around after I finish this update. Then hopefully I can finish not only this last brief, but another GEO online quiz before my 5 oclock. If I succeed at this, I will only have some Arabic to do, which, after completing, I will have everything for tomorrow prepped, so I can choose to either get ahead on homework for the rest of the week or see if I can hook up the 360 to the projector in the basement and play some pre-ridiculously-early-breakfast-halo. So if I complete arabic, I'll play halo basically. the dining hall opens at 7 and I have a nap at 9 and then class at 10, which, if I make it to, I'll be golden for the rest of the day, and then it's round....3? for me versus day 2 of polyphasia, the likes of which I really have only legitimately seen about 3 times. That's okay. I'm getting better at this, and, as I explained to my cousin, I enjoy the challenge, even if I'm not succeeding. Also, the sleepless state of the experiment sometimes results in some interesting auditory/visual hallucinations... nothing like shrooms, but still enough to make a lecture very interesting.

feeling weary...

alright so void the last post; I failed almost immediately after posting, and as well this (yesterday?) morning. but as always I'm stubbornly pressing onward. I've noticed that posting on this blog has almost necessitated a failure of some proportion immediately after or within two naps. Perhaps I can curb that phenomenon tonight, night 1 of this attempt. Last night's attempt failed when I went to bed at 3. I recall waking up at 3:30, but, due to my roommate snoring, my tired irrational self was able to convince my tired irrational self that I deserve another 30 minutes to attempt to get some REM. If I woke up after this 30 minutes, I don't remember it, although I am fairly certain that I set the alarm. This failure resulted in my laundry soaking in the washer - in limbo between being washed and being dried - for nearly 13 hours, as I awoke with 5 minutes to get to work, and was unable to find a method of breaking my $10 bill down into quarters until after my 2-3:15 class. So yeah that sucked. but I didn't miss any classes or work due to the experiment because of last night, so that's an improvement! On that note, I have considerable motivation to succeed tonight, as my 10 am class today is GEO. This is only a Miami Plan class, so naturally I don't give a shit about it, but I haven't been since the first week, meaning that I've missed 3 classes, and I recall him saying something about absence number 4 and subsequent ones will result in the loss of a grade level each, so yeah I need to go. Fuck. Not that I wouldn't have gone anyway; my goal this semester was not to miss a class, but, as you and I know I don't always reach my goals haha. It just sucks that not only do I feel like shit for missing a class, but my grades are going to begin to feel like shit as well. Another note about the experiment: on his site, Pavlina suggests not using caffeine, due to its effects (negative) on REM sleep, however, I feel as though additional troops are needed to achieve victory, and I want to avoid the mutiple nap method as well, because this kind of willy-nilly de-structured attempt at creating a new day pattern results in a lowered sense of discipline, and therefore less self control, increasing my odds of doing stupid things like, for example, convincing myself that "just another 30 minutes is okay..." I've got homework to do.

headway

Alright, I'm making headway. As of Saturday at noon I've been sticking to the schedule. I feel pretty good, just kind of sick but I think that's because I ate too much candy today. But yeah I've been using my phone alarm rather than the egg timer, and there haven't been any mishaps yet.

oops I did it again

Yup... neither of the past two nights have been successful. Both ended with me setting my alarm (I swear I did), going to sleep at around 5, and waking up late for either class or work. Very demoralizing... but I'm doing it again. Using my phone alarm as well this time - it's slightly louder and more annoying. I am slightly worried though because I have not been sticking to the schedule today nap-wise, so that might catch up with me later.

back in the saddle

As the few if any of you who are reading this may have guessed, based on the couple-day post-less gap, I once again failed... on Monday I woke up at 3 pm. However, I have been on schedule since, sleeping for 20-30 mins within half an hour of 1, 5, and 9 am and pm, with the only exception being the 5 pm nap on Tuesday, which I had to postpone until 6:15 due to a Philosophy class from 4 to 6. I will have to do the same thing later today, as I am consistently in class from 10 until 2. However, in the middle of this, I get out of class at 12:15 and am free until 1. It may be possible for me to hurry back to my dorm, sleep for 20 minutes, and then make it to Arabic on time anyway, even though I don't normally go back to my dorm after Political science. I will make a decision based on what time I am let out of PoliSci tomorrow.

early nap

Okay. I'm going to test Pavlina's theory that more frequent but still no longer than 20 minute naps will work for the first week. I last went to sleep... well... a while ago, but I've been up for 1 hr 40 mins., so there's been enough time in between naps now I believe. I reset my alarm, rather than my timer (that won't happen anymore) and I'm ready to go. I still don't think I'm that far off schedule. more later

5:48

confusion....

Alright so I now know that I cannot use the egg timer. I just got about 2.75 hours of sleep unfortunately. I didn't go to be until 2 but I couldn't sleep because drunks were coming home, so I waited some more and then my roommate got home and then I waited for him to go to bed before I went to bed, so I went to bed at like 3. I was just woken up now by the alarms I set yesterday, rather than by the 30 minute timer I set at 3. I'm going to watch a movie now, but I'm really cold and I need my sweatjacket, so, naturally, I can't find it.

Okay...

Here I go again. I skipped the 1 and 5 naps, and delayed napping again until 10. I will probably take a nap every 3 hours, rather than 4, in an attempt to stay awake (even if it takes longer to adjust to polyphasia) and as a way to give myself more psychologically beneficial checkpoints. I've got plenty of homework along with some laundry to do, so it's going to be a long night, but should be an easy night. More at 1:30 ish....

well fuck

So the staying up without sleep idea to start the week backfired horrendously. I managed to stay up until 5:15 am Saturday morning, at which time I was talking to a friend who claimed that every 10 minutes or so I was drifting off mid sentence (sometimes she was talking when I fell asleep but sometimes I was talking when I fell asleep.... crazy) and my eyes were rolling into the back of my head and such, so I decided it was time to end the sleeplessness and begin the nap stage. So, nervously, I set up my phone alarm AND my egg alarm to go off at about a minute apart from each other @ 5:40 (the egg alarm isn't exact time-wise when compared to my phone, so they would not go off simultaneously), and I ALSO set a timer on my egg alarm for 30 minutes so that it would also go off some time around 5:40. When I woke up at noon, I checked both of my alarms and the timer, and based on the state of the phone and of the egg alarm, the only possible answer to what happened is that I slept through the timer and got up and turned off both alarms all without waking up. Absolutely ridiculous. Anyways, I'm going to march on like always, skipping my 1 pm nap today since I just slept for forever. I will possibly skip the 5 pm nap as well.

And again I want to reiterate that... fuck. This experiment/sleep change/whateverthefuckyouwantocallit is possibly the most challenging thing I will ever attempt. It's different than the challenge of writing a paper for finals or climbing a mountain, I know, but that said, it is still a true challenge, and I think that's my motivation to keep going after I've failed some.... 5? Times now. Anyways, I'm going to attempt to write immediately after taking every nap as to have some motivation to get out of bed - if I'm conscious when I turn off my next alarm, that is.

Back again!!!!

Alright... so, although I am aware that this attempt has been preceded by extreme failures, I found that psychologically I am unable to let go of the idea of this polyphasic sleep cycle. At the very least, it's fun to attempt to succeed. I've enjoyed knowing that I really want something, and the only thing I need is a certain level of self-control, and that I am still failing. haha. It's very interesting. More than this, it's a challenge. So here I am challenging myself once again. This time around is going to be unique in several ways. Firstly, I'm at college now, so the 5 am alarm either has to be a silent alarm (phone on vibrate tied around my stomach?) or I have to sleep outside the room.... before I answer that I'm going to also say that one thing I'm doing very different this time is that I am beginning this week of struggle with a night of absolutely no sleep. Not even the 20 minute naps. Wednesday night I had a gig (by the way anyone reading this that went, thanks for coming - it was a lot of fun), so I didn't get back to the dorm to go to sleep until 5 am. I was going to start the week of struggle right then and there, but, to allude to the gig, I was fairly inebriated, extremely worn down, and in general not willing, so I slept through or half-awakedly (is that even a word?) turned it off and kept sleeping after 5:30 am until about 9 am. Also, I went to bed at around 7 pm this evening when I got back from class and didn't wake up until 10. So collectively today (yesterday?) I've gotten around 6 to 7 hours of sleep as a prerequisite. As a side note right now I'd like to mention that the computer appears to be spinning in front of me, almost as if I'm seasick, but I'm not on a boat and I'm not about to throw up. It might just be that I've been staring at this screen and typing, though, because when I look at the surroundings in Hepburn's basement, it slows down a bit. But whatever I kind of like it. Anyways, I'm staying up straight tonight and all day tomorrow (today... Friday). I'm going to attempt to not go out (or at least stay out) too late this weekend. It's a good set of days coming up to adjust to polyphasia, as I like to call it, because Friday I have two easy classes and we have monday off and I don't have work until Tuesday morning. I might still be rough then, but we'll see. Right now I'm distracting myself with homework, readings on the political situation in the Middle East, and planning my morning routine, which is going to involve breakfast at 7, followed by a run over to the package center, where either a new textbook or bedsheets, slippers, and other incidentals from mother await me. Alright I'm starting to ramble. That's probably going to happen a lot. And I'm not going to apologize. It's my own damn blog anyway. More later... hopefully the next time I'm on won't be after a sleep or several weeks from now with the title "one more shot" or something to that effect.

tootles

Holy shit I'm so tired. I've been watching beerfest and cleaning the house in order to stay awake. Barely working. The urge to sleep is immense, and I also have a huge headache for some reason... 2 more hours....

Day 2; 4:46 AM

Alright so I've practically made it through one whole day - more than I was able to do at my last attempt. Of course, I feel somewhat tired but able at this point in the day (night?), but the real challenge is going to be to waken up after my 5 o'clock nap. I've got nothing to do today other than packing, vocal lessons, and partying, so hopefully I can handle all that. My only concern is that I will still be wiped out come Saturday night, because I have a gig in Cincinnati. If I stay on track, I should be becoming well adjusted by Saturday and be fully adjusted by Wednesday for the Brick Street show.

Day 1; 5:50 PM

so I slept from about 4:45 to 5:24... probably a little less than that, but still... my egg timer didn't go off, I just woke up on my own at 5:24. Lucky! Maybe a bad dream or something. Anyways, I'm still basically on track. I'm going to sleep as soon as I get home from vocal lessons at just a bit after 8:30.

Day 1; 4:10 PM

I've run into a problem... I was going to sleep again at 4 and then again at 8, but I made an appointment that couldn't be changed from 7:30 to 8:30, so realistically I can't sleep til 9, so I'm going to get the 4 o'clock nap at 4:30 instead to compromise for the stretch of time. And after all this, I'll be back on my original 1, 5, 9 track, so, that's cool....

Day 1; 12:10 PM

Still good... I didn't go to sleep again until 11:30, because I wasn't feeling all that tired. The peculiar thing is that now that I'm up again, I am tired. Puzzling....

Day 1; 7:34 AM

Ok, so I'm back on track.... again. I don't have anything going on this week, other than a gig on Saturday, but I should be fine. So I initially went to bed tonight, but, unable to fall asleep (for various reasons, I kept setting my allowance on time backwards, so I ended up doing my half hour from about 6:30 to 7. I've got some deposits to make at the bank, but other than that I'm just trying to kill time surfing the internet and such. Oh yeah - Day 1 is the first day that I began the nap cycle. more later....