Sleep Experiment '08 - Day 4

2:15 AM: Very nearly didn't get up this morning. The Little Kitty woke me up a few minutes after I had turned off the alarm and crawled back into bed. Beyond that I feel pretty much like I did yesterday morning (extremely tired), but that'll probably go away on it's own pretty soon here. Well, all's well that ends well I suppose.

Sleep Experiment - Day 3

2:15 AM: This morning it's pretty hard to stay going. It's still not quite as bad as I was expecting, but boy am I tired. Hopefully I'll keep waking up more and more as the day goes by. There's a good chance that this is going to be the worst day I think. Guess I'll have to wait a few hours and see how I am then.

7:19 AM: So the zombie status only afflicted me for around an hour after I woke up this morning. For all I had read I really had expected things to be much harder than they have been. I get yawny sometimes, and am tired by the time I go to bed at night, but I've also been falling asleep faster than ever once I actually lay down to sleep. It looks like the experiment is a success so far, and if it keeps up for the next couple of days I should be in the clear, hoorah!

Sleep Experiment - Day 2

2:08 AM: This morning hurt pretty bad getting out of bed, but funny thing, I'm actually not that much more tired than when I woke up getting ready to go to work. I am definitely more tired, just not as nightmarishly so as I had envisioned. I'm going to jump in the shower to help get the blood moving and then do some chores to keep me moving. I'm really finding it odd that I'm not dead this morning. Heck, I did manage to write this blog post! Lol.

5:51 AM: I'm a bit more tired than I was yesterday morning at this time, but still nothing like I expected. Been up for nearly 4 hours now, so far I've taken the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and put the dirty ones in, washed the pots, cleaned out the fridge, disinfected the fridge and counters, and swept and disinfected the kitchen floor. I've also played video games, watched the first episode of Heroes, and written on the blog for the second time. Have I mentioned how long a day lasts now? Psychologically it's a very strange feeling, kind of like it's still before most people are even awake? I'm glad I took the day off of work. I wouldn't be in a very good mood if I had to go and do work stuff from 8-5. As it is, it's like I get a free extra Saturday! As such, gonna go watch some anime before nap time from 6:40-7.

10:28 PM: The day has been pretty good, not overly tired or anything. Right now though I'm ready to go to sleep. Kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop and see if I really get exhausted. Guess we'll find out tomorrow!

Sleep Experiment - Day 1

2:47 AM: Been up since 2 AM. Woke up pretty well and I'm not tired, but that's to be expected right now. The human body can take things like this no problem for a day. It's the next few days that's gonna be difficult. The Little Kitty was up too, she's been having some trouble sleeping due to some back/side pain from her stomach stretching and making room for the Little Monster, so we watched a little of an old John Stewart standup, and she went back to sleep.

Well, I have 4 and a half hours to blow before I go to work, so I'll probably clean the kitchen, pick up the living room, and play some video games. Tomorrow's plan involves disinfecting the fridge, sweeping and mopping the floors, and probably lots of other chores that I'm asking the Little Kitty to think up to keep my body moving.

6:20 AM: This is a long time to be awake. I've gone to Wal-Mart, cleaned the kitchen and straightened the living room, play about 1 - 1 1/2 hours of video games, walked nearly a mile, grabbed the mail on the way in, took a shower, and watched some anime. My brain is already trying to play tricks on me saying that it's not really worth staying up this much and that there's no way I'll fill all this time. I know this to be fundamentally untrue however, as for the last few months I've been thinking of all the things I want to do that I can't due to time constraints. I'm not even particularly tired, but I have a feeling that by the time this evening rolls around I'm going to start to want to zonk out a lot more. Well, time to get ready for work so that I don't have to do it after my first nap. :-)

I'll write more this evening monitoring my progress. :-)

9:27 PM: Wow, this has been a long day. I've been up for 19 1/2 hours, minus my naps. Today was forever long, and it seems like this morning was yesterday. Interesting experience. I've read about time dilation, but even at this early stage I'm already noticing a little. I'm starting to get pretty tired, but that's to be expected I suppose. Anchor sleep is in an hour and half, so hopefully I won't oversleep or anything. Tomorrow is when the hard part starts. Kind of dreading it, but if I can power through it then everything should be good. Well, one day down, a few more to go!

Sleep Experiment '08!

Sorry I haven't written very much the last few weeks. Things at work have gone pretty crazy, but it's all settling down now.

This post is a warning about the next week or so.

Tomorrow night I plan on starting my adaptation to a polyphasic sleep schedule. This will (hopefully) enable me to sleep less and stay up more, since I really dislike sleep for the most part and have a LOT of things I want to learn and do and explore. My current schedule is set to be:

11 PM - 2 AM: Anchor sleep. This is where I get the majority of my rest.

7 AM, 12 PM, 5:30 PM: 20 minute nap

I've done a lot of research on this, reading up on people who have done it and continue to do it, what horrors to expect, and ways to stay on schedule and not mess up so that the adjustment is as quick as possible. So why do this?

Well, as I stated before, I want to do a lot of things, such as catch up on reading and studying, learn guitar and origami, exercise, play some games, and lots of other stuff. I never have time to do all the things I'm interested in, so this gives me an opportunity to do them. As the saying goes, work smarter, not harder. Hopefully it will work, and if it doesn't, well, I'll have to try again in another few months with another plan in mind.

I'll try to keep the blog updated with the current standings on how things are going. If something get's typed that's really weird, chances are I'm having sleep deprivation and I'm not thinking totally straight. The hardest part of the adaptation is making it through the sleep dep short-term so that you force your brain to begin working more efficiently and use the time it has better.

Oh, and if I pull it off, that means that from 2 AM - 7 AM the Little Kitty won't have to stay up with the baby. We won't have to be the crazy-tired new parents! How great would that be?

So wish me luck and see you on the other side!