Day 2 - Part 2 - 6:00pm - 6:00am

WELL. This is certainly interesting.

6:00PM NAP
I went into the DUC for my evening nap and was immediately assaulted by someone vigorously moving furniture around on the floor below me. I was unable to fall asleep because of this, and had to wait about 15 minutes (the usual sleep time) before I could actually fall asleep.

I was a bit groggy when I woke up but once I got moving I was fine. I swung by a friend's place before heading  home to do some work and meet with another buddy. At this point, I was feeling better than I had earlier in the day, but certainly not as though I had managed to escape my sleep deprivation.

At home I grabbed a quick bite, my friend arrived, and I peaced out to take a nap. Curious as to what the hell I was doing, she stuck around while I was unconscious. This was actually incredibly useful because one of the things I'm noticing is that my short naps feel very long, and that I cannot tell if I am actually hitting REM or just having funky imagery flash through my brain. I was evidently spasming every so often and very clearly having some things go down in my brain while I was "asleep" for those 15 minutes. Afterwards I woke up and felt totally fine, as if I weren't sleep deprived or anything.

This made me super pumped. If I can get one or two good REM naps then I might have a shot at actually converting over. Since I appear to be on the track for that, it loosens some of my terror about not being able to keep my sanity or simply dying.



I cranked through some reading for next week and then watched a movie we were assigned for class. I was doing great up until about 30 minutes into the movie, about 45 minutes before my next nap. The movie was one of those extended scene, no music, sparse dialogue sorts that is certainly very pretty but not exactly gripping when it comes to action/plot. As a result the thing was quite literally putting me to sleep. I got through half of it and then played some League of Legends to get my brain back to functioning levels. Then I hopped in bed for my next sleep.

When I woke from this one (2AM now) I again felt great. Two back to back was like some sort of boon from the gods, so I took advantage of it by reading through some nonfiction pieces for next week and banging out some critiques. However, at about 3:00, I started fading rapidly. And by rapidly I mean absurdly quickly. I decided that I'd take an extra nap at 4, as I had read is a good idea from one of the blogs I  researched.

That nap went fine, though I did not wake up nearly as refreshed as I did for the previous two. I cranked out another critique and then started harassing other polyphasics on the forum and chat channel I found. At 6, I, super pumped, dove into bed.

NOW HERE WE ENCOUNTER A PROBLEM.

I was hoping that my previous sleeps were some indication that this was working swell and that it wouldn't get any more difficult. The sleepiness level I was experience was certainly annoying but not incapacitatingly so, at least not for long enough for me to consider giving up on it.

But holy hell, my friends. I have not known this level of sleep deprivation before.

My 6AM nap consisted of me diving into bed, putting my face on a pillow, and then waking up what felt like 4 seconds later to the alarm going off. I do not feel rested. I do not feel like I have slept a wink in the past two days (which, I suppose, is debatable).I am so tired right now that my eyes are having a hard time tracking my cursor as it flits across the page. Though my brain appears to be doing alright, as I'm stringing sentences together like a champ.my eyeballs are pretty much on strike.

I've got at least two hours before I'll consider taking a mid-way nap to ease the pain. If anything made me rethink this experimental decision, it's this very moment.

I'm going to do pushups and maybe laps up and down the hall. If you feel so inclined, please leave a sassy and motivational comment below. Having friends to cheer me on has helped with the easy part, and apparently I'm just getting into the ugly part. I need some external power.

And on that note, I believe it's time for some chocolate and push-ups.