Polyphasic Sleep, Day 6 | The Probabilist . com

Polyphasic Sleep, Day 6 January 6, 2007

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I’ve found myself following a 48 hour pattern. Two times now I’ve overslept for about two hours in an interval of two days. This has left me feeling very refreshed and alert, so instead of being able to sleep for 10 naps in between the core sleep times, it’s been closer to 6-8 naps. This sums up to 4-5 hours of sleep for every two days. Although it could already be considered as a successful adaptation, I’m not fully satisfied with that. And it might not be a sustaining and continuous pattern.

Initially I wanted to feel as if I’m living in a 12-hour rhythm as my polyschedule shows, not in a 48-hour rhythm. With the current way things have come about, I’m feeling great for the first day and unable to sleep well on my nap times. By the end of the 2-day cycle I can already feel that there’s a nap coming up, from which I’m not waking up after 20 minutes of sleep. I’ve actually never fancied the 24-hour pattern as I wished that a day comprised of 28 hours instead. This could explain why the roughest sleep deprivation period gradually shifted from night time over to the morning and noon periods instead. Planetary movements may have more force behind them than me, but I’m not letting them run my life.

Still pursuing the original plan of always sleeping 20-minute naps every four hours might be against my nature since my subconscious mind hasn’t fully agreed upon following it yet. I’ll still attempt to see it through though, but in the end, what comes naturally to me is a better solution than foolishly wanting something that my higher self knows that I don’t really want. I’m driven to reach the most optimal solution I can discover, so I’ve started to make some minor tweaks and adjustments that could possibly help me to reach my goal of no more than 2 hours of sleep for every 24 hours and a constant level 1 alertness.

Final verdict: 1.5. I felt moderately tired between 4 am and 8 am so my 8 am nap was the one that went overboard. So far the periods that I’ve felt most tired in have been night ( ~16 hours after I left monophasic sleep behind), night (~24 hours after previous period of tiredness), morning/noon (~28 hours after previous period of tiredness), afternoon (~28 hours after previous period of tiredness - first oversleep), morning (~40 hours after previous period of tiredness - 2nd oversleep). When I look at my sleep from this perspective I’m feeling optimistic though since it could mean that I eventually don’t need the core sleep/oversleep at all and my normal 20 minute naps always hit home.