Day 1

It is now 7:00AM. I took my first nap beginning my attempt at the uberman sleep schedule 13 hours ago, and have since slept every 4 hours for "20 minutes." I put that in quotes because, in reality, my brain is not yet trained for sleeping immediately upon laying down, so I would hazard a guess that it's a hell of a lot less than that.

My first nap at 6:00pm was excellent. I woke up a little groggy, but within about 5 minutes of being up and around felt solid. I decided that, given my future sleep deprivation, I should do errands/get stocked up on groceries so as to avoid needing to drive. From 6-10 I read 100 pages for latin american studies, went to the gym, and hit up walmart for some groceries. After purchasing an alarm clock and a boatload of proteins and vegetables, I headed home.

I meant to be home at 10, so I could take my second nap in the comfort of my home, but I managed to forget to buy bread. Not wanting to be without such a staple in the coming days (despite the notion that it might make naps more fitful), I stopped at schnuks, whipped the pillow out of my backseat, and settled down to sleep. Roughly 10 minutes in someone's car alarm went off. Aside from this aggravation, I think I actually slept during this nap, as I had an incredibly vivid dream (daydream?) of playing poker with a bunch of gorillas.



After I woke at 10:25 and grabbed bread from schnucks, I hit the home mobile. It was about 11 when I got home, so I got cleaned up and headed out to meet a friend for her 21st birthday. We ended up staying out until 1:45, myself not boozing as it would harm my precious adaptation cycle.

I got home and promptly hit the sack. This sleep was not so good. My brain appeared to be preoccupied with the possibility of not getting good sleep and all the consequences therein, so it kept me up for the majority of the nap. However, I was woken up by the alarm, so at some point in that 25 minute window I must have lapsed into sleep.

Again, I woke up groggy as hell. I set my two alarms at the edge of my room and in my office, so that I have to physically get up and move to turn them off. Once I got up, turned the alarms off, and got a glass of water, I gained enough clarity to again be able to function. Really, the first 10-15 minutes after waking up seem to be an enormous hurdle. I think placing my alarms miles away from my sleep station will help tremendously in making sure I don't miss/oversleep a nap.

For my 2-6 bucket I wrote two papers for nonfiction workshop critique, read up on more uberman things, got a forum account on a polyphasic community, and tried out a game called Rise of Immortals. It was mediocre, at best.

At 6 I dove back into bed. Before I went I decided I would try that old trick of drinking a glass of warm milk. If it works for a monophasic schedule, why not for a poly? The sleep was fitful, at best, as my brain again has a hard time shutting down. I felt quite MEH when I woke up, but, again, after moving for about 10 minutes, lost about 90% of the grogginess.

I'd say it's going pretty well so far. Evidently uberman has a 4 day torturous streak. I have the notion that I just passed through the easiest bit. It gets more difficult at night, so I may have to add in an additional nap or two and wean myself off of them later. That is apparently a much better method than simply oversleeping.

More to come.