imagine a computer with no internet connection that is locked up in a closet. it can run whatever computations, but it can't hurt anything outside of itself if it's not connected to the internet. just running weird code couldn't be bad. right?
relevant side question: is it possible for a computer to simulate a human brain perfectly? our brains are made out of carbon and such, but it's not the carbon alone that does the thinking, and our thinking does not revolve around carbon. so why can't you design a computer that can simulate a human brain that has thoughts just as real as the thoughts that happen in carbon brains? like, a brain made out of metal. i think you can have such a computer.
imagine a computer so powerful that it could simulate a human brain perfectly, and that it continually introduces pain signals to a simulated brain so that it is eternally tortured. how is this different than taking a carbon human brain out of a real human and sticking it in a machine that does the same thing -- sending pain signals? i say this is immoral.
one would agree the program i mentioned above is immoral. but that is only one example. there is another that only sends pain signals during every other second. and another that makes the brain think it's always inside a human stuck in an underwater cage without oxygen.
out of all of the immoral programs you could write, only one of them is the shortest immoral program. it would be interesting to see which immoral program, when encoded into binary, would be the shortest. i'm talking about the smallest sequence of 0's and 1's that would be immoral to run on a computer -- the shortest immoral program. first we may need some widely accepted definition of immoral, which might be hard to come by. but it is still super weird to think that such a sequence of 0's and 1's exists.
someday, it may be important to not give anyone enough processing power and disk space to run this program. this is because if you give someone 5.381 million terabytes of disk space, you are giving them enough space to store an immoral program. imagine, without any such restriction, your neighbors could be simulating a world full of war and rape inside a little box in their basement and you'd never know. how would you like to know that the world we live in is a simulation being run by some dude outside the universe who is playing what-if with us, and that's why your dog died today? your dog died because the dude outside the universe wanted to see you cry. if that would make you mad, then hopefully you would agree it may be important to not give this kind of processing capacity to just anyone. if the dude was going to see what it would be like if he kept killing all of my family and friends, i know i would wish that someone made it against the law for the dude to simulate our universe.
20120918
20120904
biphasic sleep log
from the blogs i could find, most people who report trying biphasic
sleep and finding that it was too hard didn't give it a fair chance.
the adjustment period is reportedly 1 to 2 weeks or even longer, and
the people who gave up on biphasic sleep that i could find did not wait
for the entire adjustment period.
i tried biphasic sleep for 50 days, with a little intermission halfway through. i stuck to my schedule very well, almost never slept in on accident and slept in a cycle or two on purpose only a few times.
i did not give up, but i did quit after a solid, continuous month-long trial in which i determined that biphasic sleep (4.5+1.5 hrs) is not for me because even weeks after the adjustment period, i was still consistently tired.
if there was anything that was wrong, it was that i was stressed out from a heavy workload at school, and because of the stress, i could not get sufficient quality sleep.
however, if you have a flexible schedule, i recommend trying an 7.5-hr biphasic sleep schedule such as 6 + 1.5 hrs, occasionally seeping for 9 hours (7.5 + 1.5). i recommend that you take the nap when you're tired, rather than a predetermined time.
here is the log:
___________
i want to practise the uberman polyphasic sleeping schedule, but i am in school and cannot schedule the naps in a way that does not conflict with classes. as i am lucky enough to have nothing planned between 19:00 and 20:30 on any day, i'm trying out biphasic sleep. for the record, i do not drink, and i almost never have caffeine.
my waking day is 18 hours, with 6 hours of sleep per day. i set my phone alarm to go off 30 minutes before i need to be asleep and at the times i need to wake up. every day i sleep from 01:30 to 06:00 (4.5 hrs) and from 19:00 to 20:30 (1.5 hrs).
[2012-04-19 22:49] sorry if the log is boring. if i ever get used to this, i want my longer-than-average adaptation period to be encouraging for others, so i talk alot about how i am feeling, which can be dry. if i don't ever get used to this, i have evidence that i really am tired all the time.
day 1 -- just fine -- (04-09): [04-11 00:13] felt pretty good after the nap, but later on i was disappointed that i couldn't go to sleep because i remembered i was following this schedule. but this is probably because i didn't sleep too much the night before. i wasn't able to fall asleep very quickly, but this is probably because of school-related stress (another story; keywords: unofficial course website).
day 2 -- wish i could sleep, but no big deal -- (04-10): [04-11 00:13] i had a minor soar throat that i must've caught from my sick roommate, and worried i might need to quit doing biphasic sleep because otherwise my sickness would keep getting worse. sleep was definitely on my mind during my free time, but luckily i had a lot of classes today which actually helped keep me focused and awake. going for a run helped me feel less sick, and i was not tired during the run. then i had the nap, and waking up was as easy as waking up for an early class like any other day. i thought it was the next day when i woke up, but it was just a 90 minute nap! the light from my phone always helps me wake up quickly in the morning, and it helped after this nap. to my surprise, i no longer felt sick. it's 0:00 now and i'm slightly tired, but staying up until 1:00 will be pretty easy. a success so far, and i've been eating heavy meals, which is supposed to make you tired. ovt breakfast burrito for breakfast and mac, and cheese for dinner (lunch was a pop tart).
day 3 -- slightly miserable, sick, might quit -- (04-11): [8:56] had a soar throat again when i woke up but that went away quickly. i have only one class today and i haven't had it yet, so staying awake is not too hard but mostly annoying. i'm happy to say that annoyingly tired is the worst i've felt so far. [04-12 01:00] later on but before my nap today, i was considerably tired, and my soar throat had come back. only having one class made me really drowsey, but i'm sure i would've felt bad anyway. before my class, i got almost nothing done after i studied esperanto due to severe lack of motivation. i had a headache after my class, so i got applejuice from plaza because i read that it helps with headaches resulting from sleep deprivation on someone else's blog post about polyphasic sleep. the 1.5 hr nap was another miracle. my soar throat is again as minor as the morning of day 2. time to go to sleep!
day 4 -- tired but better -- (04-12): [14:12] dragged along this morning but was able to concentrate a little better as i was slightly less tired and most importantly didn't have a headache =). having classes helps a lot, and now i'm done with class and actually don't feel too bad other than my nose feels sick. i know that i'd sleep like a baby bear if i laid down though. pumped to get some work done and then go for a run!
day 5 -- still tired -- (04-13): [04-14 14:00] draggy as usual in the morning, but became wide awake when i played frisbee for a little while in the rain and then ran (also in the rain). after the nap i was alright but then we had a movie night at my friend juanmiguel's place and it was hard to stay awake. first deviation from schedule: went to sleep 30 minutes late, woke up about 15 minutes late the next day.
day 6 -- still tired, little motivation -- (04-14): [14:04] waking up after my 4.5 hr sleep has been quite difficult. it used to be that looking at my iphone screen would wake me right up but now i don't know how i'd get up without it. once i get up i'm usually okay, but still too tired to want to be productive. in general so far i feel most awake after my 1.5 hr nap, which i'm looking forward to today. the last few days i've been using an iphone app call "sleep cycle" that wakes me up during an appropriate time according to my sleep cycle, but it seems to report that it has been waking me up from pretty deep sleep. don't know why it's algorithm thinks it picks a good time. i think i'll just wake up at a fixed time and my body can just work around it. the guy that wrote the blog where i stole the schedule from said that by day 9 he was enjoying the extra hours and productivity. hopefully this will happen to me soon. maybe he adjusted quickly because he had already practiced the uberman sleep schedule. [16:05] i've been reading about people's biphasic sleep experiences for the last two hours and i've found few success stories and plenty of failures. the successful people seem to enjoy the productivity even during their adjustment periods, which makes me think i am biologically different in such a way that makes me unsuitable for 4.5/1.5 biphasic sleep. [17:28] i had a almond butter and jelley sandwhich and some water, turned on my lights, opened up the blinds and opened up my biology textbook (a pdf on my computer, which means more light from the screen). i actually feel pretty normal right now -- amazing! so if you are trying biphasic sleep, *don't make it any harder than it needs to be and make sure you turn on the lights!* also, an inspiring note from my suitemate who just visited my room: one of his friends tried biphasic sleep and it actually *took him two weeks to adjust*. this makes me feel much better, because it seems to be so easy for everyone on the blogosphere. i'm just now realizing how many things are a few things working against me as well. 1) as mentioned, the sleeping statistics the "sleep cycle" iphone app gave me indicate that i've been waking up at bad times in the morning (in the middle of deep sleep), which would explain why the mornings are so hard (waking up from the naps has been easy). 2) i got sick the day after i started the experiment, and though i've been better for the last few days i'm still blowing my nose all the time. 3) (today only) i've been planning to do work i don't want to do all day (i hate reading homework!), and the result is i haven't been working. everyone knows you are supposed to have a large project to work on if you want to try polyphasic sleeping, but also essential is that it must be a project that you want to work on! otherwise you won't be able to get yourself to do it and it'll be just as bad as not having a project. 4) these are probably not a big deal, but i think i need more sleep than the average human being, and also i run every day and exercise makes you need more sleep, but i'll let these ideas pass for now. perhaps later i can compensate with 6 hour sleeping episodes on certain days of the week. [04-15 01:26] oops got carried away programming, will go to sleep 30 min late again and wake 30 min late. tired, but could concentrate very well! you gotta love your project.
day 7 -- okay, minus a drousy period (an improvement!) -- (04-15): [22:33] according to /sleep cycle/, i got deeper sleep last night. i was able to concentrate relatively well all moning until about 11:00 when i couldn't focus on my reading anymore but not necessarily because of sleep deprivation. i was still quite tired, and whenever the lights went off where i was studying (motion detector) i had to get up and turn them back on. again, light is a must. after my nap i feel very good and i don't even want to sleep, even though it was cut short as i couldn't fall asleep too fast, and my roommate woke me up once. overall, i'd say today is an improvement. [04-16 00:26] indeed, day 7 marks the first day of noticeable improvement. i must be on my way out of this lousy adaptation period.
day 8 -- sluggishly tired again -- (04-16): [04-17 00:05] according to /sleep cycle/ i didn't get such great sleep last night. as always, i had a pretty difficult time getting up. fortunately, after an hour of going through my waking up process, i didn't have too much trouble concentrating on reading for my classes. so, still an improvement over the earlier days but not as good as yesterday. my nap didn't feel too great either, but i didn't use the sleep cycle app so i might've been interrupted from deep sleep. i wish the sleep cycle app could tell me the quality of my naps, but 1.5 hrs apparently doesn't give enough data for it to draw an accurate graph. i assume the nap wasn't too good regardless of how i woke up from it, because i've been awake for almost two hours now and i'm still very tired. it occurred to me today that when possible (weekends), i should take my naps 5 hours after i wake up, not such that i have five hours before i go to sleep, because this is the time when i feel the most tired, and i remember reading on someone's blog a reference to some guy that said that naps are more effective when you feel most tired. however, i also read that you have to start your adjustment period over if you skip naps or change their times. i've still been using light to keep me awake, but i have to admit i haven't been eating lightly. i still eat breakfast burritos and peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches and mac & cheese and black bean burgers. still, i'm disappointed that 8 days have gone by and i'm still adjusting. "adjusting"...maybe this just isn't working. we'll see. some people say the adjustment period is *two* weeks, but not enough people say that.
day 9 -- tired, but no problem concentrating -- (04-17): [06:45] after what appeared to be another not-so-great night of sleep (according to the sleep cycle app), i had a hard time waking up again. 45 minutes into my day and i feel alright, but i just shouldn't be that tired when i wake up. my best sleep so far was saturday night. i am beginning to wonder how big a deal stress plays in my sleep. it could be that saturday was relatively stress-free, because i hadn't been going from class to class and there was nothing due the next day. i am going to try to stay relaxed today and see how well i sleep. [15:12] i've been semi tired all day, but i've been able to concentrate very well in all three of my 90-minute classes today. i'd love to go to sleep right now, but i just have to wait 30 minutes until my run, and running wakes me up. it's hard to say anything about productivity; i don't know if i would've normally done other things during the free time i had today if i was caught up on sleep. i have been doing something all day, but not my homework, which i don't want to do. this is not a new problem, but it might be a bigger one when i'm tired. [04-18 00:47] i made sure i wasn't stressed all day today, and i indeed had a very refreshing nap from which i had little difficulty waking up! hopefully tonight's sleep will be the same. i've been sleepy for some hours now. i believe this nap was the second time i deviated from my schedule a little bit; i went to sleep about 1 and a half hours early, slept from 17:20 to 19:05 -- an extra 15 minutes. it should average out because sometimes the sleep cycle app decides to wake me up early.
day 10 -- a little tired, then an awesome nap -- (04-18): [13:10] according to the sleep cycle app, i just had almost my worst sleep yet! this is despite my efforts to be not stressed out yesterday, though if i was stressed out i imagine it only would've been worse. it took me an hour to get out of bed (this is not uncommon for me last say, maybe ... 9 days, haha) during which time i researched how to get deep sleep because i didn't seem to get any that night, and again i contemplated quitting. i'm happy to say that i've only been mildly tired all day so far, so i'm not as bad as i was during the hard times of last week. normally i'd be dead by this time of day or even way earlier. but, this could very well be because i had cereal instead of a breakfast burrito, and i had my breakfast burrito just an hour ago for lunch. i'll probably keep eating cereal in the morning now because i feel so much better. because of this morning's research, i have some things i want to try for better sleep: 1) don't look at computer or phone screen 30 minutes before sleeping as light messes up your internal clock, 2) move nap to after running, then eat after napping, instead of running, eating then napping, as having food to digest distracts your body from sleeping 3) get out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off to keep my internal clock in sync, 4) sleep without my sweatshirt on to keep cool, as you need to cool off to fall asleep. [21:42] i had the awesomest nap! i refrained from eating before it and didn't wear the hood of my sweatshirt to keep cool. i'd say the not-eating is probably what did it. i had an average time waking up, which is great because i never have an easy time waking up, and since i woke up i've been as rested as i normally am on a mono schedule.
day 11 -- good sleep but pretty tired, can concentrate -- (04-19): [22:15] my second good sleep, according to the sleep cycle app. in all of my classes today i had to actively try to stay awake, but in my history class i was amazingly basically able to conentrate for the whole 80 minutes of lecture, and i did alright in my other classes as well. i wasn't tired while running (i never am) and thus far i have not noticed any adverse affects on my 3/4-mile casual running performance as just 2 days ago i sprinted up a large hill with no trouble. the third slight deviation from my schedule was when my sister called me 1 hour through my nap, so i'm missing 30 minutes. i'd say i'm giving this a pretty fair shot so far though since i haven't overslept yet. so it's after my nap now, which i have a feeling was a deep nap though cut short, and i'm still feeling the tiredness and eagerly await my 4.5 hr sleep. also i hate everyone whose adjustment period was less than 11 days.
day 12 -- bad sleep, pretty tired for afternoon, but awesome nap -- (04-20): [07:17] btw, two nights ago i started a night time ritual to help me go to sleep: looking at the stars. my grandpa does this every so often and he is a deep guy so i'm going to try doing it too so i can be a deep person and say deep things and maybe even get deep sleep. it didn't work last night though, according to the sleep cycle app. i got horrible sleep, but this might just be from a semi stressful evening before the ritual. last night, i also wore a lighter sweatshirt to keep cool, because i've been waking up sweaty lately, and i might not be used to not wearing a hoodie, which my usual sweatshirt had. i didn't eat anything for several hours before i slept so that wasn't the problem like i thought it was before, but i'll still keep good eating habits. today i have to try again to not get stressed out. tonight i'll have to remember to pee before i go to sleep. [14:26] i thought i did pretty well until 12:00, but now i'm struggling to keep my eyes open even in the discussion section i'm attending right now. normally being in a classroom helps keep me awake but i don't know about now. 12 days, still suffering. sad sad sad. [2012-04-21 07:07] i didn't have any trouble staying awake for frisbee friday today. after frisbee, i had the world's best nap. felt great for the first few hours after my nap, then i was a little sleepy, but it wasn't even bad. a deep nap does wonders.
day 13 -- best sleep yet, first awesome day minus strange bout of sleepiness -- (04-21): [07:10] i had the easiest time waking up today, and according to the sleep cycle app i've had one of my best sleeps yet, if not the best. i've been sticking to my no-eating-3-hours-before-sleep policy and trying to reduce stress, but i don't know how much of my good sleep i can attribute to either of these things, and it could be that i'm just getting adjusted now because enough time has gone by. [14:43] felt amazing all day - as good as normal, and barely even wanted to sleep. i started feeling tired at about 14:00. i used to get tired between 9 and 11, but at the same time this is when i was eating breakfast burritos at 7:30 and today i had my breakfast burrito at 12:00 (had cereal at 6:30), so i don't know if i'm getting tired later in the day because i ate my burrito later or if it's because i got better sleep. perhaps it's both. [16:53] looks like my awesome sleep didn't last too long -- i'm very tired! i've been reading things that are interesting to me (about software testing) because i know my homework would put me straight to sleep, but guess what? i've never had this problem in my life before, but i've been almost falling asleep between sentences. very weird. i can't tell if this means i'm extra tired from building up sleep deprivation, or if it's beacause i'm getting better at sleeping on the spot. it's a very weird sensation, though. normally when i'm trying to go to sleep for the night, i know i'm falling asleep because i'll catch myself having a thought that doesn't make any sense. this happened to me just now while i was writing this, between two sentences! i made a typo where i ommitted a letter, and while i was going back to fix it i was thinking that the ommission of this letter would mean that ... well i don't remember the thought (just like i don't remember the exact logic i use in my dreams) but it meant something bad for my future. [17:24] yeah i'm feeling great again and i haven't left my chair--weird. my sleep attack lasted about 15 minutes, but i was tired for a couple hours there. come to think of it, this entire time i've always had random times where i felt okay and then felt tired again. sometimes i feel so awake that i am weirded out to discover i am tired just a couple hours later. but then a sport or a class or even time can bring about sudden wakefulness. i never know how i'll feel in the next 60 minutes, and also i never know when i'm going to get a good night's sleep. today has been a definite improvement so far over the last several days, having had that awesome sleep, which was after an awesome nap yesterday. today is also the first day where i haven't had to blow my nose too much (yeah by the way, i've been needing to blow my nose this whole time, but i still hold that i wasn't sick! i've just been cleaning out my system from when i was sick.) [2012-04-22 09:17] i felt great all night after the nap. first awesome day.
day 14 -- only some good sleep, bouts of tiredness persistent -- (04-22): [11:49] i woke up very tired and it took me at least two hours to wake up, but now i am wide awake. according to the sleep cycle app i got one good 1.5 hr segment of good sleep and the other parts were pretty light. i think my roommate woke me up in the middle of the night. i ordered a white noise machine on amazon. time for a breakfast burrito. [2012-04-23 09:37] i regret to write that at 13:55, i took a five minute nap on a chair in the lounge in which i was trying to read for an essay i had to turn in. this was quite the necessary, because i was simply too tired to pay attention to what i was reading, and to be able to read quickly. the nap did semi-wonders, and i was wide awake for the rest of the day, but it was my fourth deviation. it makes up for the time when my nap was cut 30 minutes short. after my main 1.5 hour nap, i felt fine all night long.
day 15 -- 2 weeks past, slept in, feel great -- (04-23): [09:40] two weeks has passed, and being tired when i wake up is just not okay anymore. the adjustment period has broken its promise to me and now the schedule has paid for it. today when my alarm went off, i set it again for another 1.5 hours. i am hoping this means i'm all caught up now. if i feel good this week, then my recommendation to biphasic sleep prospects is going to be to sleep for 6 hours on friday night and wake up 1.5 hours later on saturday morning.
day 16 -- slept in 30 minutes, still tired for class -- (04-24): [2012-04-25 09:19] i slept for an extra 30 minutes. during my last class today i was so tired that i was taking notes with my eyes closed. every time the instructor finished a sentence, i tried to check if i actually wrote down what he just said, and it was like waking up from a dream. i read what i just wrote and was like, "oh yeah, that did happen!" just like one would say when recalling a dream. sometimes i wrote the same thing twice because i forgot i just wrote it. in the classes before that i way just fine, and for the run today i was fine. i took my nap 30 minutes early because i already showered and was ready to sleep. waking up from my nap took me a little while, but i felt good, and at midnight i was a little tired but i stayed up until 1:48.
day 17 -- slept in 1.5 hrs -- (04-25): [09:26] so i set my alarm last night for 6 hrs. i'm just want to catch up a little bit because i know i'm sleep deprived, but hopefully my body still knows to sleep deeply when it can. i read that for polyphasic sleepers, it's healthy to splurge on sleep every once in a while. i might note that i was wide awake when my alarm went off today, which is a good sign, so i will try to stay on schedule for now. problem is i have to fly to redmond, washington for an interview with microsoft and that's going to mess everything up. [2012-04-26 20:40] i don't remember this day too well anymore but i remember being a regular amount of tired for it being night time when i was studying. it could be that stress has kept me awake.
day 18 -- slept only 3 hrs, no nap, tired -- (04-26): [20:37] today i woke up one sleep cycle early so i could study for my biology test at 8:00 and after class i had to get ready for my flight. i'm flying right now and tried to sleep but couldn't, which is too bad because i know i'm tired. i had another tough struggle staying awake in my last class today with another bout of sleepiness, but i've actually been okay besides that. maybe i'm not actually so tired but i just have a headache because all i ate today was cereal and pop tarts, but again it could be stress that's keeping me awake and feeling awake.
day 19 -- slept for 7.5 hrs, no nap, felt great -- (04-27): [2012-04-30 20:56] i felt great all duringy my interview with microsoft even after lunch and even on the plane, but i slept a little more than 4.5 hrs.
day 20 -- slept in, no nap, but tired bout -- (04-28): [2012-04-30 20:58] trying to catch up on sleep before starting up again. i believe i felt mostly fine all day. but i don't remember. not important as wasn't on schedule.
day 21 -- short power nap, felt great -- (04-29): [2012-04-30 21:15] was going to start again today but i slept for a very short amount of time in the computer science basement because i was dying, then felt energized all night after that so there was no need for a regular nap.
*** [starting numbering over because of interruption in schedule due to travel. i will no longer mention slight deviations in schedule as following such a strict schedule is probably causing me more stress and making me get worse sleep, rather than helping my internal clock really figure out what's going on.]
take 2 day 1 -- starting again! hard waking up -- (04-30): [21:09] slept the normal hrs last night and had difficulty waking up as usual. i felt good during the day, and i had my usual nap today and i'm feeling good now. besides waking up the only bad part was trying to stay alert in my history discussion section.
take 2 day 2 -- an okay day -- (05-01): [2012-05-02 18:06] i wasn't too tired but my boring class was cancelled so yeah. after my nap i didn't feel as refreshed as normal but i stayed awake for an extra hour anyway because i wanted to sing in the stairs.
take 2 day 3 -- slept in, an okay day -- (05-02): [18:09] i slept in for 1.5 hours, and since i went to sleep a half hour late last night this brings me to almost 8:00. i stayed in bed for about an hour because i got distracted on my phone, but getting up right away would've been hard. but then i had what felt like a very productive morning. not feeling the productivity right now though, and i'm definitely not feeling my best, but i'm not having a hard time staying awake.
take 2 day 4 -- bed sleep, slept in -- (05-03): [2012-05-05 14:08] i woke up in the middle of the night because i had a dream that my roommate was typing really loudly and listening to music or something in my room, and in my dream i woke up several times but was paralyzed and tried to tell my roommate to shut up but couldn't, and could hardly sit up. could be sleep paralysis, which would mean it wasn't actually a dream and i was paralyzed, but the noise and my roommate being at his computer was a hallucination. so i slept in for another 90 minute cycle. i don't remember this day too well i'm pretty sure i wasn't deathly tired but i also have been sleeping in.
take 2 day 5 -- good sleep and felt alright -- (05-04): [2012-05-05 14:05] i felt alright all day. had a quick 10 minute miracle nap in the computer labs and i don't even know if i actually fell asleep. i still often had the nagging feeling that i could easily fall asleep if i wanted.
take 2 day 6 -- slept in 1.5 hrs, feel good -- (05-05): [14:11]: my alarm worke me up after almost 6 hours, and the sleep looked good. then i went back to sleep and woke up from a text message another ~90 minutes later, so i basically got a normal night's sleep. this is actually the first time i had any good dream recall. i had like 3 dreams i remembered, some good some bad, all from that one cycle. i feel almost totally caught up on sleep at this point but i'm perhaps just tired enough to feel good about being able to take a nap later today. [05-06 13:33] i was able to fall asleep for my nap without any trouble and was feeling tired for the last few hours of the day and didn't have trouble sleeping then either, but it really wasn't bad at all.
take 2 day 7 -- slept in 3 hrs, feel amazing -- (05-06): [13:33] i slept for 8 hours last night because the sleep cycle alarm-setting mechanism is weird and i didn't set the alarm right. yeah 8 hours, a normal night, but it felt like 10 or 12 hours! i had that groggy feeling i get whenever i slept way too much on weekends while on a monophasic schedule, but with only a normal nights' sleep. i feel fully awake now. [01:24] wow, after totally oversleeping, i was still ready for my nap when the time came! fell asleep easily, then woke up 30 minutes later because of an alarm that i forgot i set to remind me to do something when i woke up from my nap (but i got a late start on my nap so it woke me up during my nap). so i started my nap over and the sleep cycle app woke me up in a little over 60 minutes. felt a little groggy getting up but i feel pretty good now. [2012-05-09 10:06] the rest of today felt like a normal 8-hr-of-sleep day.
take 2 day 8 -- great day -- (05-07): [2012-05-09 10:15] having slept in so much over the weekend, it's no surprise that today felt like a normal monophasic sleep day.
take 2 day 9 -- good day, tired bout -- (05-08): [2012-05-09 10:08] i made the mistake of having a breakfast burrito inbetween my classes, and was very tired and had trouble staying awake in my history class. i need to eat my breakfast burritos 1 to 2 hours before a time when i know i will be able to take a five minute nap. other than this, i felt pretty good all day, except at night i wanted to sleep early, so i skipped my night-time star-gazing-in-the-fog ritual and went straight to bed and fell asleep after sitting in bed for an hour. my body was expecting the sleeptime ritual i guess.
take 2 day 10 -- i'm tired -- (05-09): [10:12] i had a light breakfast but have been tired all morning. despite sleeping early enough last night to get an extra cycle and still wake up at 7, i still only got about 4.5 hrs of sleep because i couldn't sleep and my roommate set his alarm clock to 6:20 which he was not supposed to do. 4.5 hrs is still a full night's rest though and i'm sad that i'm tired. [2012-05-10 22:19] i think i took a 10-minuter and felt alright after that, but i don't remember. i don't remember being tired at night, but in the morning i was unacceptably tired so i'm keeping today's title "i'm tired".
take 2 day 11 -- bad sleep, good day! -- (05-10): [22:11] i was quite stressed out while trying to write an 8 page essay last night and didn't finish before i went to sleep, so i got pretty light sleep. i felt energized all day though, though this might just be from how adrenaline from having to finish an essay by 13:50. after turning it in though, i stayed awake for a whole movie during class, patched up my bike tire and went for a run, though i admit i felt tired when getting ready for the run. then i had the most satisfying nap which only took 70 minutes (sleep cycle app woke me up early). feel great now.
take 2 day 12 -- slept in 1.5hrs, tired at night -- (05-11): [23:52] as planned, i slept in for 1.5 hours today (a friday, weekend enough) and i felt good all day. i had a 10 minute nap before i played frisbee which always makes me feel much better. after my real nap though, i went to souplantation. i ate a lot, so that might be why i'm quite tired now. when i'm tired at night though, it's different than being tired during the day, in a much better way. i'm tired, and want to sleep, but i'm weirdly strangely rested in some other way. i feel calmer and less dead. it's not as hard to fight it. hard to explain. perhaps another 10 minute nap to digest would fix it. [00:05] i just put my head down on this table for literally 2 minutes and 59 seconds (stopped watch at 7:01). i didn't fall asleep but i already feel better. weird. [00:22] and now i'm tired again.
take 2 day 13 -- slept in 1.5rhs, productive, feel good! -- (05-12): [2012-05-13 14:57] i felt very productive today and about as good as i do when i sleep monophasically. sure i got 7.5 hours of sleep the last two days. this sleeping in is deliberate by the way--it's the weekend.
take 2 day 14 -- horrible sleep, slept in 1.5hrs, feel okay, still productive -- (05-13): [15:00] according to the sleep cycle app, i got almost no deep sleep and almost woke up twice. indeed i felt a little dead when i woke up, so i slept in for 1.5hrs. i was only planning on sleeping in 2 days in a row but i thought i needed it. i believe the bad sleep last night was due to stress (i can't concentrate on reading unless i intentionally stress myself out) and virorous exercise not too soon before sleep (a quick bike ride home from the computer science basement). i cut down my stargazing in the fog ritual to 10 minutes. i will try not to make my days end like this again. this morning, it took me a good while to get out of bed again--a bad habit which i shall again give consideration to quitting. i am not really feeling my best right now, but i'm doing okay and not dying. [01:24] i had the world's awesomest nap. i have felt very well all evening and am starting to feel a pleasant kind of relaxing sleepiness. perfect!
take 2 day 15 -- an okayish day -- (05-14): [2012-05-16 14:15] well i slept in all weekend and today i felt pretty normal. still always knew i could sleep. adrenaline helped me stay awake all day too, since i had a bio quiz which turned out to be hard for everyone, then i had to study for a midterm tomorrow.
take 2 day 16 -- another okayish day -- (05-15): [2012-05-16 14:18] i'm was glad i felt okay on this day because by tuesady i'd expect to be getting that dead feeling again. please note that okay is not the same as "good". i still go an hour at a time here and there feeling tired but still able to concentrate. but something i've noticed is that despite a persistently heavy diet, i've been conquering any dead-tiredness easily with naps usually less than 3 minutes. also i've been able to get out of bed easier recently, though getting out of bed is always a challenge. i might just be more cautious not to stay in bed too long though because i know now what a waste of time that can be. something kinda scarry is that i was worrying about on this day was that i feel like i might not be less sleep deprived but i'm just getting used to it and my body is just coping.
take 2 day 17 -- a better day -- (05-16): [20:18] i recall feeling okay earlier today, but a better kind of okay. i did need to take another quick 3-minuter. i just had the deepest nap! i took it earlier in the day at 17:00 which i can't normally do. been awake for two hours since my nap now and i don't feel any urge to go to sleep. it's wednesday, and i'm definitely not feeling any worse, which is good because this week is relatively a good one so far. [2012-05-17 10:03] by about 1:00 i was feeling a little sleepy but was still fine.
take 2 day 18 -- tired! -- (05-17): [10:04] it's thursday, late in the week since my weekend, but nonetheless the tiredness in my biology class today was unacceptable. i was able to pay attention to the movie clips we saw in class but could not pay much attention at all to the powerpoint slides. had to fight a little to stay awake. it was so week 1! hopefully next week this won't happen. [13:18] in mexican history class, can't pay attention, hard to stay awake. been tired all day so far. this is no good. [2012-05-18 09:30] i didn't feel all that great when i woke up from my nap. i was sleepy the whole night but could stay awake easily.
take 2 day 19 -- tired, then awesome -- (05-18): [09:31] hard time waking up, feeling jetlaggish but able to stay awake easily. [22:18] so i took a nap that must've been like 5 - 8 minutes long in the computer science basement and that was amazing. i felt refreshed for a great while after that. i wore earplugs for my nap so my sleep cycle alarm clock didn't wake me up right away. so, i slept for at least 15-30 minutes longer than i was supposed to. that was a great nap. it ended a while ago and i've been fully awake ever since.
take 2 day 20 -- extra 1.5 hrs, felt good! -- (05-19): [21:44] i slept with my friend in my bed (hence no sleep cycle graph for last night) and didn't anticipate getting any kind of good sleep so i didn't set an alarm. i woke up maybe two or three times, which wasn't too big of a deal because falling back asleep was easy. i felt very good all day today! so i decided to push my nap up to 19:00 again since normally i've been taking it as early as 17:00 whenever possible. only a couple hours before this nap did i feel at all tired. my naps are typically 60 to 65 minutes long but sleep cycle woke me up after almost the whole 90 minutes today. felt pretty good waking up. i feel a little tired now, but so little that i wouldn't even really call it tired--just calm and relaxed.
take 2 day 21 -- tired in afternoon -- (05-20): [02:30ish] slept in for almost 2 hours this morning but was pretty tired all afternoon after my run. felt okay for the evening but never felt 100% today.
take 2 day 22 -- an okay day -- (5-21): [2:24] a good day, though i was programming the whole time. i had just one class and it was boring, and i got kinda tired for that but woke back up easily when i got out. nap didn't feel so refreshing but my evening was good. i am either so accustomed to being tired or i am starting to adapting, but either way i don't really even remember how tired or awake i was today.
take 2 day 23 -- awake, not productive -- (5-22): [17:46] was too tired to be productive and concentrate this morning but didn't have trouble staying awake. [2:29] i had a wakeful evening which was unproductive at first due mostly to social distractions which may have contributed to the wakefulness. i was feeling the sleepiness a little during my stargazing in the fog ritual. general/long-term side note: getting up in the mornings is still difficult esp if i don't have an 8:00 class, and waking up from naps is easier but still not easy.
take 2 day 24 -- felt good at night -- (5-23): [morning forgotten] [5-24 8:16] felt good all night after my nap.
--naps moved to morning--
take 2 day 25 -- tired -- (5-24): [5-25 1:59] was tired in then morning and had to fight to stay awake for history class. i decided that since i am so consistently tired at this time of day, i will take my naps in the morning even if i can't make it at the same time every day. someone on the blogosphere thought taking naps when you're tired is more important than taking them at the same time each day. i felt much better after my nap although i got a little sleepy here and there.
take 2 day 26 -- slept in 1 hr, felt good -- (5-25): [20:55] i had a hard time waking up this morning and ended up sleeping in for almost an hour. then i was busy when it was time for my morning map and didn't want to sleep so i took my nap in the evening. i was able to fight sleepiness without too much effort this morning. i feel great now though. [2:25] was only a little sleepy at the end of the day at about 1:00.
take 2 day 27 -- slept in 4.5 hrs, felt great! -- (5-26): [11:26] i planned to sleep in for 1.5 hrs and then i slept in until 11:25 (4.5 hrs) [22:29] felt great until i got sleepy just a few hrs ago but even so i'm still fine. my body is expecting its nap tho. i'm going to try to sleep for the night but idk my body will think it's a nap. power was out at school today, btw. phone might die, maybe no sleep cycle graph tonight.
take 2 day 28 -- felt good -- (5-27): [5-28 09:07] i am enjoying having my naps in the morning. today was good day but i slept a lot yesterday. didn't get any work done that i don't like doing, which is always the real test.
take 2 day 29 -- tired -- (5-28): [23:54] i had a hard time waking up today (both times) and never felt good until half an hour after my second nap.
*** it's been long enough so i'm going to sleep early tonight, and i'm probably going to keep sleeping early. i will sleep 6 hrs at night and take 1.5 hr naps. 7.5 hrs per day isn't enough for me normally so hopefully when it's split up i should feel good all the time.
(5-29): [8:01] slept for at least 6 hrs last night as planned. i crawled into bed at 1:00 but it took me a while to fall asleep so no surprise that setting my alarm for 7:00 was going to get me in a sticky situation, namely waking up in the middle of a cycle. sleep cycle woke me up at about 7 but i fell back asleep accidentally until my 7:30 backup alarm. even when i am getting more sleep, waking up is still hard. i must be very behind. i feel okay now tho.
(5-30): [31 9:55] was tired in the morning despite extra sleep. felt ok at night.
(5-31): [9:53] i have been sleeping 1.5 hrs more per day but i still feel tired in the mornings. weird. i want to sleep right now but i have two more classes.
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sleep cycle images: (please excuse me for just plopping them on the page here.)
i tried biphasic sleep for 50 days, with a little intermission halfway through. i stuck to my schedule very well, almost never slept in on accident and slept in a cycle or two on purpose only a few times.
i did not give up, but i did quit after a solid, continuous month-long trial in which i determined that biphasic sleep (4.5+1.5 hrs) is not for me because even weeks after the adjustment period, i was still consistently tired.
if there was anything that was wrong, it was that i was stressed out from a heavy workload at school, and because of the stress, i could not get sufficient quality sleep.
however, if you have a flexible schedule, i recommend trying an 7.5-hr biphasic sleep schedule such as 6 + 1.5 hrs, occasionally seeping for 9 hours (7.5 + 1.5). i recommend that you take the nap when you're tired, rather than a predetermined time.
here is the log:
___________
i want to practise the uberman polyphasic sleeping schedule, but i am in school and cannot schedule the naps in a way that does not conflict with classes. as i am lucky enough to have nothing planned between 19:00 and 20:30 on any day, i'm trying out biphasic sleep. for the record, i do not drink, and i almost never have caffeine.
my waking day is 18 hours, with 6 hours of sleep per day. i set my phone alarm to go off 30 minutes before i need to be asleep and at the times i need to wake up. every day i sleep from 01:30 to 06:00 (4.5 hrs) and from 19:00 to 20:30 (1.5 hrs).
[2012-04-19 22:49] sorry if the log is boring. if i ever get used to this, i want my longer-than-average adaptation period to be encouraging for others, so i talk alot about how i am feeling, which can be dry. if i don't ever get used to this, i have evidence that i really am tired all the time.
day 1 -- just fine -- (04-09): [04-11 00:13] felt pretty good after the nap, but later on i was disappointed that i couldn't go to sleep because i remembered i was following this schedule. but this is probably because i didn't sleep too much the night before. i wasn't able to fall asleep very quickly, but this is probably because of school-related stress (another story; keywords: unofficial course website).
day 2 -- wish i could sleep, but no big deal -- (04-10): [04-11 00:13] i had a minor soar throat that i must've caught from my sick roommate, and worried i might need to quit doing biphasic sleep because otherwise my sickness would keep getting worse. sleep was definitely on my mind during my free time, but luckily i had a lot of classes today which actually helped keep me focused and awake. going for a run helped me feel less sick, and i was not tired during the run. then i had the nap, and waking up was as easy as waking up for an early class like any other day. i thought it was the next day when i woke up, but it was just a 90 minute nap! the light from my phone always helps me wake up quickly in the morning, and it helped after this nap. to my surprise, i no longer felt sick. it's 0:00 now and i'm slightly tired, but staying up until 1:00 will be pretty easy. a success so far, and i've been eating heavy meals, which is supposed to make you tired. ovt breakfast burrito for breakfast and mac, and cheese for dinner (lunch was a pop tart).
day 3 -- slightly miserable, sick, might quit -- (04-11): [8:56] had a soar throat again when i woke up but that went away quickly. i have only one class today and i haven't had it yet, so staying awake is not too hard but mostly annoying. i'm happy to say that annoyingly tired is the worst i've felt so far. [04-12 01:00] later on but before my nap today, i was considerably tired, and my soar throat had come back. only having one class made me really drowsey, but i'm sure i would've felt bad anyway. before my class, i got almost nothing done after i studied esperanto due to severe lack of motivation. i had a headache after my class, so i got applejuice from plaza because i read that it helps with headaches resulting from sleep deprivation on someone else's blog post about polyphasic sleep. the 1.5 hr nap was another miracle. my soar throat is again as minor as the morning of day 2. time to go to sleep!
day 4 -- tired but better -- (04-12): [14:12] dragged along this morning but was able to concentrate a little better as i was slightly less tired and most importantly didn't have a headache =). having classes helps a lot, and now i'm done with class and actually don't feel too bad other than my nose feels sick. i know that i'd sleep like a baby bear if i laid down though. pumped to get some work done and then go for a run!
day 5 -- still tired -- (04-13): [04-14 14:00] draggy as usual in the morning, but became wide awake when i played frisbee for a little while in the rain and then ran (also in the rain). after the nap i was alright but then we had a movie night at my friend juanmiguel's place and it was hard to stay awake. first deviation from schedule: went to sleep 30 minutes late, woke up about 15 minutes late the next day.
day 6 -- still tired, little motivation -- (04-14): [14:04] waking up after my 4.5 hr sleep has been quite difficult. it used to be that looking at my iphone screen would wake me right up but now i don't know how i'd get up without it. once i get up i'm usually okay, but still too tired to want to be productive. in general so far i feel most awake after my 1.5 hr nap, which i'm looking forward to today. the last few days i've been using an iphone app call "sleep cycle" that wakes me up during an appropriate time according to my sleep cycle, but it seems to report that it has been waking me up from pretty deep sleep. don't know why it's algorithm thinks it picks a good time. i think i'll just wake up at a fixed time and my body can just work around it. the guy that wrote the blog where i stole the schedule from said that by day 9 he was enjoying the extra hours and productivity. hopefully this will happen to me soon. maybe he adjusted quickly because he had already practiced the uberman sleep schedule. [16:05] i've been reading about people's biphasic sleep experiences for the last two hours and i've found few success stories and plenty of failures. the successful people seem to enjoy the productivity even during their adjustment periods, which makes me think i am biologically different in such a way that makes me unsuitable for 4.5/1.5 biphasic sleep. [17:28] i had a almond butter and jelley sandwhich and some water, turned on my lights, opened up the blinds and opened up my biology textbook (a pdf on my computer, which means more light from the screen). i actually feel pretty normal right now -- amazing! so if you are trying biphasic sleep, *don't make it any harder than it needs to be and make sure you turn on the lights!* also, an inspiring note from my suitemate who just visited my room: one of his friends tried biphasic sleep and it actually *took him two weeks to adjust*. this makes me feel much better, because it seems to be so easy for everyone on the blogosphere. i'm just now realizing how many things are a few things working against me as well. 1) as mentioned, the sleeping statistics the "sleep cycle" iphone app gave me indicate that i've been waking up at bad times in the morning (in the middle of deep sleep), which would explain why the mornings are so hard (waking up from the naps has been easy). 2) i got sick the day after i started the experiment, and though i've been better for the last few days i'm still blowing my nose all the time. 3) (today only) i've been planning to do work i don't want to do all day (i hate reading homework!), and the result is i haven't been working. everyone knows you are supposed to have a large project to work on if you want to try polyphasic sleeping, but also essential is that it must be a project that you want to work on! otherwise you won't be able to get yourself to do it and it'll be just as bad as not having a project. 4) these are probably not a big deal, but i think i need more sleep than the average human being, and also i run every day and exercise makes you need more sleep, but i'll let these ideas pass for now. perhaps later i can compensate with 6 hour sleeping episodes on certain days of the week. [04-15 01:26] oops got carried away programming, will go to sleep 30 min late again and wake 30 min late. tired, but could concentrate very well! you gotta love your project.
day 7 -- okay, minus a drousy period (an improvement!) -- (04-15): [22:33] according to /sleep cycle/, i got deeper sleep last night. i was able to concentrate relatively well all moning until about 11:00 when i couldn't focus on my reading anymore but not necessarily because of sleep deprivation. i was still quite tired, and whenever the lights went off where i was studying (motion detector) i had to get up and turn them back on. again, light is a must. after my nap i feel very good and i don't even want to sleep, even though it was cut short as i couldn't fall asleep too fast, and my roommate woke me up once. overall, i'd say today is an improvement. [04-16 00:26] indeed, day 7 marks the first day of noticeable improvement. i must be on my way out of this lousy adaptation period.
day 8 -- sluggishly tired again -- (04-16): [04-17 00:05] according to /sleep cycle/ i didn't get such great sleep last night. as always, i had a pretty difficult time getting up. fortunately, after an hour of going through my waking up process, i didn't have too much trouble concentrating on reading for my classes. so, still an improvement over the earlier days but not as good as yesterday. my nap didn't feel too great either, but i didn't use the sleep cycle app so i might've been interrupted from deep sleep. i wish the sleep cycle app could tell me the quality of my naps, but 1.5 hrs apparently doesn't give enough data for it to draw an accurate graph. i assume the nap wasn't too good regardless of how i woke up from it, because i've been awake for almost two hours now and i'm still very tired. it occurred to me today that when possible (weekends), i should take my naps 5 hours after i wake up, not such that i have five hours before i go to sleep, because this is the time when i feel the most tired, and i remember reading on someone's blog a reference to some guy that said that naps are more effective when you feel most tired. however, i also read that you have to start your adjustment period over if you skip naps or change their times. i've still been using light to keep me awake, but i have to admit i haven't been eating lightly. i still eat breakfast burritos and peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches and mac & cheese and black bean burgers. still, i'm disappointed that 8 days have gone by and i'm still adjusting. "adjusting"...maybe this just isn't working. we'll see. some people say the adjustment period is *two* weeks, but not enough people say that.
day 9 -- tired, but no problem concentrating -- (04-17): [06:45] after what appeared to be another not-so-great night of sleep (according to the sleep cycle app), i had a hard time waking up again. 45 minutes into my day and i feel alright, but i just shouldn't be that tired when i wake up. my best sleep so far was saturday night. i am beginning to wonder how big a deal stress plays in my sleep. it could be that saturday was relatively stress-free, because i hadn't been going from class to class and there was nothing due the next day. i am going to try to stay relaxed today and see how well i sleep. [15:12] i've been semi tired all day, but i've been able to concentrate very well in all three of my 90-minute classes today. i'd love to go to sleep right now, but i just have to wait 30 minutes until my run, and running wakes me up. it's hard to say anything about productivity; i don't know if i would've normally done other things during the free time i had today if i was caught up on sleep. i have been doing something all day, but not my homework, which i don't want to do. this is not a new problem, but it might be a bigger one when i'm tired. [04-18 00:47] i made sure i wasn't stressed all day today, and i indeed had a very refreshing nap from which i had little difficulty waking up! hopefully tonight's sleep will be the same. i've been sleepy for some hours now. i believe this nap was the second time i deviated from my schedule a little bit; i went to sleep about 1 and a half hours early, slept from 17:20 to 19:05 -- an extra 15 minutes. it should average out because sometimes the sleep cycle app decides to wake me up early.
day 10 -- a little tired, then an awesome nap -- (04-18): [13:10] according to the sleep cycle app, i just had almost my worst sleep yet! this is despite my efforts to be not stressed out yesterday, though if i was stressed out i imagine it only would've been worse. it took me an hour to get out of bed (this is not uncommon for me last say, maybe ... 9 days, haha) during which time i researched how to get deep sleep because i didn't seem to get any that night, and again i contemplated quitting. i'm happy to say that i've only been mildly tired all day so far, so i'm not as bad as i was during the hard times of last week. normally i'd be dead by this time of day or even way earlier. but, this could very well be because i had cereal instead of a breakfast burrito, and i had my breakfast burrito just an hour ago for lunch. i'll probably keep eating cereal in the morning now because i feel so much better. because of this morning's research, i have some things i want to try for better sleep: 1) don't look at computer or phone screen 30 minutes before sleeping as light messes up your internal clock, 2) move nap to after running, then eat after napping, instead of running, eating then napping, as having food to digest distracts your body from sleeping 3) get out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off to keep my internal clock in sync, 4) sleep without my sweatshirt on to keep cool, as you need to cool off to fall asleep. [21:42] i had the awesomest nap! i refrained from eating before it and didn't wear the hood of my sweatshirt to keep cool. i'd say the not-eating is probably what did it. i had an average time waking up, which is great because i never have an easy time waking up, and since i woke up i've been as rested as i normally am on a mono schedule.
day 11 -- good sleep but pretty tired, can concentrate -- (04-19): [22:15] my second good sleep, according to the sleep cycle app. in all of my classes today i had to actively try to stay awake, but in my history class i was amazingly basically able to conentrate for the whole 80 minutes of lecture, and i did alright in my other classes as well. i wasn't tired while running (i never am) and thus far i have not noticed any adverse affects on my 3/4-mile casual running performance as just 2 days ago i sprinted up a large hill with no trouble. the third slight deviation from my schedule was when my sister called me 1 hour through my nap, so i'm missing 30 minutes. i'd say i'm giving this a pretty fair shot so far though since i haven't overslept yet. so it's after my nap now, which i have a feeling was a deep nap though cut short, and i'm still feeling the tiredness and eagerly await my 4.5 hr sleep. also i hate everyone whose adjustment period was less than 11 days.
day 12 -- bad sleep, pretty tired for afternoon, but awesome nap -- (04-20): [07:17] btw, two nights ago i started a night time ritual to help me go to sleep: looking at the stars. my grandpa does this every so often and he is a deep guy so i'm going to try doing it too so i can be a deep person and say deep things and maybe even get deep sleep. it didn't work last night though, according to the sleep cycle app. i got horrible sleep, but this might just be from a semi stressful evening before the ritual. last night, i also wore a lighter sweatshirt to keep cool, because i've been waking up sweaty lately, and i might not be used to not wearing a hoodie, which my usual sweatshirt had. i didn't eat anything for several hours before i slept so that wasn't the problem like i thought it was before, but i'll still keep good eating habits. today i have to try again to not get stressed out. tonight i'll have to remember to pee before i go to sleep. [14:26] i thought i did pretty well until 12:00, but now i'm struggling to keep my eyes open even in the discussion section i'm attending right now. normally being in a classroom helps keep me awake but i don't know about now. 12 days, still suffering. sad sad sad. [2012-04-21 07:07] i didn't have any trouble staying awake for frisbee friday today. after frisbee, i had the world's best nap. felt great for the first few hours after my nap, then i was a little sleepy, but it wasn't even bad. a deep nap does wonders.
day 13 -- best sleep yet, first awesome day minus strange bout of sleepiness -- (04-21): [07:10] i had the easiest time waking up today, and according to the sleep cycle app i've had one of my best sleeps yet, if not the best. i've been sticking to my no-eating-3-hours-before-sleep policy and trying to reduce stress, but i don't know how much of my good sleep i can attribute to either of these things, and it could be that i'm just getting adjusted now because enough time has gone by. [14:43] felt amazing all day - as good as normal, and barely even wanted to sleep. i started feeling tired at about 14:00. i used to get tired between 9 and 11, but at the same time this is when i was eating breakfast burritos at 7:30 and today i had my breakfast burrito at 12:00 (had cereal at 6:30), so i don't know if i'm getting tired later in the day because i ate my burrito later or if it's because i got better sleep. perhaps it's both. [16:53] looks like my awesome sleep didn't last too long -- i'm very tired! i've been reading things that are interesting to me (about software testing) because i know my homework would put me straight to sleep, but guess what? i've never had this problem in my life before, but i've been almost falling asleep between sentences. very weird. i can't tell if this means i'm extra tired from building up sleep deprivation, or if it's beacause i'm getting better at sleeping on the spot. it's a very weird sensation, though. normally when i'm trying to go to sleep for the night, i know i'm falling asleep because i'll catch myself having a thought that doesn't make any sense. this happened to me just now while i was writing this, between two sentences! i made a typo where i ommitted a letter, and while i was going back to fix it i was thinking that the ommission of this letter would mean that ... well i don't remember the thought (just like i don't remember the exact logic i use in my dreams) but it meant something bad for my future. [17:24] yeah i'm feeling great again and i haven't left my chair--weird. my sleep attack lasted about 15 minutes, but i was tired for a couple hours there. come to think of it, this entire time i've always had random times where i felt okay and then felt tired again. sometimes i feel so awake that i am weirded out to discover i am tired just a couple hours later. but then a sport or a class or even time can bring about sudden wakefulness. i never know how i'll feel in the next 60 minutes, and also i never know when i'm going to get a good night's sleep. today has been a definite improvement so far over the last several days, having had that awesome sleep, which was after an awesome nap yesterday. today is also the first day where i haven't had to blow my nose too much (yeah by the way, i've been needing to blow my nose this whole time, but i still hold that i wasn't sick! i've just been cleaning out my system from when i was sick.) [2012-04-22 09:17] i felt great all night after the nap. first awesome day.
day 14 -- only some good sleep, bouts of tiredness persistent -- (04-22): [11:49] i woke up very tired and it took me at least two hours to wake up, but now i am wide awake. according to the sleep cycle app i got one good 1.5 hr segment of good sleep and the other parts were pretty light. i think my roommate woke me up in the middle of the night. i ordered a white noise machine on amazon. time for a breakfast burrito. [2012-04-23 09:37] i regret to write that at 13:55, i took a five minute nap on a chair in the lounge in which i was trying to read for an essay i had to turn in. this was quite the necessary, because i was simply too tired to pay attention to what i was reading, and to be able to read quickly. the nap did semi-wonders, and i was wide awake for the rest of the day, but it was my fourth deviation. it makes up for the time when my nap was cut 30 minutes short. after my main 1.5 hour nap, i felt fine all night long.
day 15 -- 2 weeks past, slept in, feel great -- (04-23): [09:40] two weeks has passed, and being tired when i wake up is just not okay anymore. the adjustment period has broken its promise to me and now the schedule has paid for it. today when my alarm went off, i set it again for another 1.5 hours. i am hoping this means i'm all caught up now. if i feel good this week, then my recommendation to biphasic sleep prospects is going to be to sleep for 6 hours on friday night and wake up 1.5 hours later on saturday morning.
day 16 -- slept in 30 minutes, still tired for class -- (04-24): [2012-04-25 09:19] i slept for an extra 30 minutes. during my last class today i was so tired that i was taking notes with my eyes closed. every time the instructor finished a sentence, i tried to check if i actually wrote down what he just said, and it was like waking up from a dream. i read what i just wrote and was like, "oh yeah, that did happen!" just like one would say when recalling a dream. sometimes i wrote the same thing twice because i forgot i just wrote it. in the classes before that i way just fine, and for the run today i was fine. i took my nap 30 minutes early because i already showered and was ready to sleep. waking up from my nap took me a little while, but i felt good, and at midnight i was a little tired but i stayed up until 1:48.
day 17 -- slept in 1.5 hrs -- (04-25): [09:26] so i set my alarm last night for 6 hrs. i'm just want to catch up a little bit because i know i'm sleep deprived, but hopefully my body still knows to sleep deeply when it can. i read that for polyphasic sleepers, it's healthy to splurge on sleep every once in a while. i might note that i was wide awake when my alarm went off today, which is a good sign, so i will try to stay on schedule for now. problem is i have to fly to redmond, washington for an interview with microsoft and that's going to mess everything up. [2012-04-26 20:40] i don't remember this day too well anymore but i remember being a regular amount of tired for it being night time when i was studying. it could be that stress has kept me awake.
day 18 -- slept only 3 hrs, no nap, tired -- (04-26): [20:37] today i woke up one sleep cycle early so i could study for my biology test at 8:00 and after class i had to get ready for my flight. i'm flying right now and tried to sleep but couldn't, which is too bad because i know i'm tired. i had another tough struggle staying awake in my last class today with another bout of sleepiness, but i've actually been okay besides that. maybe i'm not actually so tired but i just have a headache because all i ate today was cereal and pop tarts, but again it could be stress that's keeping me awake and feeling awake.
day 19 -- slept for 7.5 hrs, no nap, felt great -- (04-27): [2012-04-30 20:56] i felt great all duringy my interview with microsoft even after lunch and even on the plane, but i slept a little more than 4.5 hrs.
day 20 -- slept in, no nap, but tired bout -- (04-28): [2012-04-30 20:58] trying to catch up on sleep before starting up again. i believe i felt mostly fine all day. but i don't remember. not important as wasn't on schedule.
day 21 -- short power nap, felt great -- (04-29): [2012-04-30 21:15] was going to start again today but i slept for a very short amount of time in the computer science basement because i was dying, then felt energized all night after that so there was no need for a regular nap.
*** [starting numbering over because of interruption in schedule due to travel. i will no longer mention slight deviations in schedule as following such a strict schedule is probably causing me more stress and making me get worse sleep, rather than helping my internal clock really figure out what's going on.]
take 2 day 1 -- starting again! hard waking up -- (04-30): [21:09] slept the normal hrs last night and had difficulty waking up as usual. i felt good during the day, and i had my usual nap today and i'm feeling good now. besides waking up the only bad part was trying to stay alert in my history discussion section.
take 2 day 2 -- an okay day -- (05-01): [2012-05-02 18:06] i wasn't too tired but my boring class was cancelled so yeah. after my nap i didn't feel as refreshed as normal but i stayed awake for an extra hour anyway because i wanted to sing in the stairs.
take 2 day 3 -- slept in, an okay day -- (05-02): [18:09] i slept in for 1.5 hours, and since i went to sleep a half hour late last night this brings me to almost 8:00. i stayed in bed for about an hour because i got distracted on my phone, but getting up right away would've been hard. but then i had what felt like a very productive morning. not feeling the productivity right now though, and i'm definitely not feeling my best, but i'm not having a hard time staying awake.
take 2 day 4 -- bed sleep, slept in -- (05-03): [2012-05-05 14:08] i woke up in the middle of the night because i had a dream that my roommate was typing really loudly and listening to music or something in my room, and in my dream i woke up several times but was paralyzed and tried to tell my roommate to shut up but couldn't, and could hardly sit up. could be sleep paralysis, which would mean it wasn't actually a dream and i was paralyzed, but the noise and my roommate being at his computer was a hallucination. so i slept in for another 90 minute cycle. i don't remember this day too well i'm pretty sure i wasn't deathly tired but i also have been sleeping in.
take 2 day 5 -- good sleep and felt alright -- (05-04): [2012-05-05 14:05] i felt alright all day. had a quick 10 minute miracle nap in the computer labs and i don't even know if i actually fell asleep. i still often had the nagging feeling that i could easily fall asleep if i wanted.
take 2 day 6 -- slept in 1.5 hrs, feel good -- (05-05): [14:11]: my alarm worke me up after almost 6 hours, and the sleep looked good. then i went back to sleep and woke up from a text message another ~90 minutes later, so i basically got a normal night's sleep. this is actually the first time i had any good dream recall. i had like 3 dreams i remembered, some good some bad, all from that one cycle. i feel almost totally caught up on sleep at this point but i'm perhaps just tired enough to feel good about being able to take a nap later today. [05-06 13:33] i was able to fall asleep for my nap without any trouble and was feeling tired for the last few hours of the day and didn't have trouble sleeping then either, but it really wasn't bad at all.
take 2 day 7 -- slept in 3 hrs, feel amazing -- (05-06): [13:33] i slept for 8 hours last night because the sleep cycle alarm-setting mechanism is weird and i didn't set the alarm right. yeah 8 hours, a normal night, but it felt like 10 or 12 hours! i had that groggy feeling i get whenever i slept way too much on weekends while on a monophasic schedule, but with only a normal nights' sleep. i feel fully awake now. [01:24] wow, after totally oversleeping, i was still ready for my nap when the time came! fell asleep easily, then woke up 30 minutes later because of an alarm that i forgot i set to remind me to do something when i woke up from my nap (but i got a late start on my nap so it woke me up during my nap). so i started my nap over and the sleep cycle app woke me up in a little over 60 minutes. felt a little groggy getting up but i feel pretty good now. [2012-05-09 10:06] the rest of today felt like a normal 8-hr-of-sleep day.
take 2 day 8 -- great day -- (05-07): [2012-05-09 10:15] having slept in so much over the weekend, it's no surprise that today felt like a normal monophasic sleep day.
take 2 day 9 -- good day, tired bout -- (05-08): [2012-05-09 10:08] i made the mistake of having a breakfast burrito inbetween my classes, and was very tired and had trouble staying awake in my history class. i need to eat my breakfast burritos 1 to 2 hours before a time when i know i will be able to take a five minute nap. other than this, i felt pretty good all day, except at night i wanted to sleep early, so i skipped my night-time star-gazing-in-the-fog ritual and went straight to bed and fell asleep after sitting in bed for an hour. my body was expecting the sleeptime ritual i guess.
take 2 day 10 -- i'm tired -- (05-09): [10:12] i had a light breakfast but have been tired all morning. despite sleeping early enough last night to get an extra cycle and still wake up at 7, i still only got about 4.5 hrs of sleep because i couldn't sleep and my roommate set his alarm clock to 6:20 which he was not supposed to do. 4.5 hrs is still a full night's rest though and i'm sad that i'm tired. [2012-05-10 22:19] i think i took a 10-minuter and felt alright after that, but i don't remember. i don't remember being tired at night, but in the morning i was unacceptably tired so i'm keeping today's title "i'm tired".
take 2 day 11 -- bad sleep, good day! -- (05-10): [22:11] i was quite stressed out while trying to write an 8 page essay last night and didn't finish before i went to sleep, so i got pretty light sleep. i felt energized all day though, though this might just be from how adrenaline from having to finish an essay by 13:50. after turning it in though, i stayed awake for a whole movie during class, patched up my bike tire and went for a run, though i admit i felt tired when getting ready for the run. then i had the most satisfying nap which only took 70 minutes (sleep cycle app woke me up early). feel great now.
take 2 day 12 -- slept in 1.5hrs, tired at night -- (05-11): [23:52] as planned, i slept in for 1.5 hours today (a friday, weekend enough) and i felt good all day. i had a 10 minute nap before i played frisbee which always makes me feel much better. after my real nap though, i went to souplantation. i ate a lot, so that might be why i'm quite tired now. when i'm tired at night though, it's different than being tired during the day, in a much better way. i'm tired, and want to sleep, but i'm weirdly strangely rested in some other way. i feel calmer and less dead. it's not as hard to fight it. hard to explain. perhaps another 10 minute nap to digest would fix it. [00:05] i just put my head down on this table for literally 2 minutes and 59 seconds (stopped watch at 7:01). i didn't fall asleep but i already feel better. weird. [00:22] and now i'm tired again.
take 2 day 13 -- slept in 1.5rhs, productive, feel good! -- (05-12): [2012-05-13 14:57] i felt very productive today and about as good as i do when i sleep monophasically. sure i got 7.5 hours of sleep the last two days. this sleeping in is deliberate by the way--it's the weekend.
take 2 day 14 -- horrible sleep, slept in 1.5hrs, feel okay, still productive -- (05-13): [15:00] according to the sleep cycle app, i got almost no deep sleep and almost woke up twice. indeed i felt a little dead when i woke up, so i slept in for 1.5hrs. i was only planning on sleeping in 2 days in a row but i thought i needed it. i believe the bad sleep last night was due to stress (i can't concentrate on reading unless i intentionally stress myself out) and virorous exercise not too soon before sleep (a quick bike ride home from the computer science basement). i cut down my stargazing in the fog ritual to 10 minutes. i will try not to make my days end like this again. this morning, it took me a good while to get out of bed again--a bad habit which i shall again give consideration to quitting. i am not really feeling my best right now, but i'm doing okay and not dying. [01:24] i had the world's awesomest nap. i have felt very well all evening and am starting to feel a pleasant kind of relaxing sleepiness. perfect!
take 2 day 15 -- an okayish day -- (05-14): [2012-05-16 14:15] well i slept in all weekend and today i felt pretty normal. still always knew i could sleep. adrenaline helped me stay awake all day too, since i had a bio quiz which turned out to be hard for everyone, then i had to study for a midterm tomorrow.
take 2 day 16 -- another okayish day -- (05-15): [2012-05-16 14:18] i'm was glad i felt okay on this day because by tuesady i'd expect to be getting that dead feeling again. please note that okay is not the same as "good". i still go an hour at a time here and there feeling tired but still able to concentrate. but something i've noticed is that despite a persistently heavy diet, i've been conquering any dead-tiredness easily with naps usually less than 3 minutes. also i've been able to get out of bed easier recently, though getting out of bed is always a challenge. i might just be more cautious not to stay in bed too long though because i know now what a waste of time that can be. something kinda scarry is that i was worrying about on this day was that i feel like i might not be less sleep deprived but i'm just getting used to it and my body is just coping.
take 2 day 17 -- a better day -- (05-16): [20:18] i recall feeling okay earlier today, but a better kind of okay. i did need to take another quick 3-minuter. i just had the deepest nap! i took it earlier in the day at 17:00 which i can't normally do. been awake for two hours since my nap now and i don't feel any urge to go to sleep. it's wednesday, and i'm definitely not feeling any worse, which is good because this week is relatively a good one so far. [2012-05-17 10:03] by about 1:00 i was feeling a little sleepy but was still fine.
take 2 day 18 -- tired! -- (05-17): [10:04] it's thursday, late in the week since my weekend, but nonetheless the tiredness in my biology class today was unacceptable. i was able to pay attention to the movie clips we saw in class but could not pay much attention at all to the powerpoint slides. had to fight a little to stay awake. it was so week 1! hopefully next week this won't happen. [13:18] in mexican history class, can't pay attention, hard to stay awake. been tired all day so far. this is no good. [2012-05-18 09:30] i didn't feel all that great when i woke up from my nap. i was sleepy the whole night but could stay awake easily.
take 2 day 19 -- tired, then awesome -- (05-18): [09:31] hard time waking up, feeling jetlaggish but able to stay awake easily. [22:18] so i took a nap that must've been like 5 - 8 minutes long in the computer science basement and that was amazing. i felt refreshed for a great while after that. i wore earplugs for my nap so my sleep cycle alarm clock didn't wake me up right away. so, i slept for at least 15-30 minutes longer than i was supposed to. that was a great nap. it ended a while ago and i've been fully awake ever since.
take 2 day 20 -- extra 1.5 hrs, felt good! -- (05-19): [21:44] i slept with my friend in my bed (hence no sleep cycle graph for last night) and didn't anticipate getting any kind of good sleep so i didn't set an alarm. i woke up maybe two or three times, which wasn't too big of a deal because falling back asleep was easy. i felt very good all day today! so i decided to push my nap up to 19:00 again since normally i've been taking it as early as 17:00 whenever possible. only a couple hours before this nap did i feel at all tired. my naps are typically 60 to 65 minutes long but sleep cycle woke me up after almost the whole 90 minutes today. felt pretty good waking up. i feel a little tired now, but so little that i wouldn't even really call it tired--just calm and relaxed.
take 2 day 21 -- tired in afternoon -- (05-20): [02:30ish] slept in for almost 2 hours this morning but was pretty tired all afternoon after my run. felt okay for the evening but never felt 100% today.
take 2 day 22 -- an okay day -- (5-21): [2:24] a good day, though i was programming the whole time. i had just one class and it was boring, and i got kinda tired for that but woke back up easily when i got out. nap didn't feel so refreshing but my evening was good. i am either so accustomed to being tired or i am starting to adapting, but either way i don't really even remember how tired or awake i was today.
take 2 day 23 -- awake, not productive -- (5-22): [17:46] was too tired to be productive and concentrate this morning but didn't have trouble staying awake. [2:29] i had a wakeful evening which was unproductive at first due mostly to social distractions which may have contributed to the wakefulness. i was feeling the sleepiness a little during my stargazing in the fog ritual. general/long-term side note: getting up in the mornings is still difficult esp if i don't have an 8:00 class, and waking up from naps is easier but still not easy.
take 2 day 24 -- felt good at night -- (5-23): [morning forgotten] [5-24 8:16] felt good all night after my nap.
--naps moved to morning--
take 2 day 25 -- tired -- (5-24): [5-25 1:59] was tired in then morning and had to fight to stay awake for history class. i decided that since i am so consistently tired at this time of day, i will take my naps in the morning even if i can't make it at the same time every day. someone on the blogosphere thought taking naps when you're tired is more important than taking them at the same time each day. i felt much better after my nap although i got a little sleepy here and there.
take 2 day 26 -- slept in 1 hr, felt good -- (5-25): [20:55] i had a hard time waking up this morning and ended up sleeping in for almost an hour. then i was busy when it was time for my morning map and didn't want to sleep so i took my nap in the evening. i was able to fight sleepiness without too much effort this morning. i feel great now though. [2:25] was only a little sleepy at the end of the day at about 1:00.
take 2 day 27 -- slept in 4.5 hrs, felt great! -- (5-26): [11:26] i planned to sleep in for 1.5 hrs and then i slept in until 11:25 (4.5 hrs) [22:29] felt great until i got sleepy just a few hrs ago but even so i'm still fine. my body is expecting its nap tho. i'm going to try to sleep for the night but idk my body will think it's a nap. power was out at school today, btw. phone might die, maybe no sleep cycle graph tonight.
take 2 day 28 -- felt good -- (5-27): [5-28 09:07] i am enjoying having my naps in the morning. today was good day but i slept a lot yesterday. didn't get any work done that i don't like doing, which is always the real test.
take 2 day 29 -- tired -- (5-28): [23:54] i had a hard time waking up today (both times) and never felt good until half an hour after my second nap.
*** it's been long enough so i'm going to sleep early tonight, and i'm probably going to keep sleeping early. i will sleep 6 hrs at night and take 1.5 hr naps. 7.5 hrs per day isn't enough for me normally so hopefully when it's split up i should feel good all the time.
(5-29): [8:01] slept for at least 6 hrs last night as planned. i crawled into bed at 1:00 but it took me a while to fall asleep so no surprise that setting my alarm for 7:00 was going to get me in a sticky situation, namely waking up in the middle of a cycle. sleep cycle woke me up at about 7 but i fell back asleep accidentally until my 7:30 backup alarm. even when i am getting more sleep, waking up is still hard. i must be very behind. i feel okay now tho.
(5-30): [31 9:55] was tired in the morning despite extra sleep. felt ok at night.
(5-31): [9:53] i have been sleeping 1.5 hrs more per day but i still feel tired in the mornings. weird. i want to sleep right now but i have two more classes.
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sleep cycle images: (please excuse me for just plopping them on the page here.)
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