Dreaming Hallucinations

A weird thing has started happening in the last two days. When I nap, as I drift off to sleep (which happens in 2 minutes or less) I get an overlap between my dreaming and my consciousness. I think I am REM'ing very quickly because sometimes when I am very tired, as soon as I close my eyes, I am already dreaming. But I am not yet fully asleep, so I get the perception that I am hallucinating, because I feel like I am awake, but I am visually seeing and hearing my dreams, as if I were asleep. For example, yesterday as I closed my eyes to nap as a passenger in the truck, my SO turned on the radio. My conscious mind was fully aware it was a radio and simply a song, but my sleeping mind pictured everything the song described and I could visually see each scene as if I were there and I were participating in the scene as an observer. It was a country song, at one point it talked about leaving clothes on the bathroom floor. I was literally in a bathroom with stalls and tiles on the walls and floor and I could see the clothes laying on the floor. My brain added the details of tiles and stalls and a denim jacket and jeans and I can still see the picture of it in my mind.

My brain can't tell which these visions are - a dream or reality - I suppose because there is no intermediate state because I begin dreaming as soon as my eyes close. This has lead to mental confusion for me - being uncertain what is happening or has happened to me, what I have done and what I have seen or heard, because my brain recalls these events as if they were memories and not dreams. It is clear to me now what is happening and as I write this it is easy to describe the process and its effects, but I still have the memories of confusion, which are a little disconcerting. On the other hand, it seems to be an interesting effect, it occurred to me that if someone was inclined to do drugs because they would like to hallucinate could instead try this approach; it's legal and completely convincing, although the duration of my hallucinations are probably shorter, at least they are so far. Given the discipline polyphasicness takes, I doubt there will be many who opt for this route.

There is a potential positive aspect to this semi-lucid dream state - it appears to be a period of high suggestibility (as evidenced by the spontaneous visualization of the song scenes); it is a fast path to a high-grade hypnotic state in which suggestions could be made and probably have a very significant effect. I am contemplating attempting this with my SO to see if this is true.

I have also overcome the "I must lay down to nap" limitation. I can sleep in any position now it seems. I can easily sleep in a chair with my head to one side, or lay my head down on the table and sleep quickly (I only do this for 5 or 10 minute naps) or even today, as I had to do, go into a stall, sit down elbows on knees and head drooping, sleep for 5 minutes. Amazing that I can do that. Laying down is still my preferred position for a nap, but I do not have a limitation any longer on where I can do it if need be.

Oh something else odd happened two days ago. Firstly, I'll say that I got a full night's sleep - 9 hours, because my SO showed up and I wanted to spend a full night's sleep with him. That I did. I felt a little odd that day after, dizzy seems to fit but not that strong, just a slight disorientation. I continued on my nap schedule that day. Because I had a full night's sleep I let my schedule slip and it wasn't until almost 10pm that I had my 8pm nap. I put in my earplugs to nap - bad idea, because I sleep so soundly now I don't wake to my alarm when I have them in. But my Dad had the TV on so I wanted to get a nice nap and so earplugs it was. I awoke yelling loudly about an hour later. While I was asleep I felt someone pulling on my feet as it disturbed me so much I awoke violently yelling not to do that. That is my version of the story. My SO's version is that my alarm went off and woke him from his nap and it kept running for 1/2 hour so he threw a small pillow at me from the couch about 3 feet away. I didn't move, so he threw a blanket at me. No movement. He says he then touched my feet (not pulled), and that's when I went off like a madman. The only explanation I can come up with is that after having things tossed at me while sleeping, I may have started dreaming about being attacked, and then with the additional physical contact with my feet I reacted in a half-dreaming/ half-awake state. My parents were concerned about my experiment and at this point gave me advice to get more sleep. I did get more sleep last nite - 4 hours.

Day Whatever

It's been a while - time to catch up a bit.

I'm still polyphasic (it sounds like i need to be cured of something.) I get between 1 and 3 1/2 hours core a nite, depending on how I feel. Occasionally I will sleep a little more, like 4 or 5 hours core. I have slept 8 hours only one night in the past month I think. Last night I got a luxurious 4 hours because I was doing deadlifts today and wanted to be well-rested. Guess what. It didn't help - I was down a couple of reps from last time. It might have been that I did extra warm-up on the bike, or that I needed one more day recovery from the squats two days ago - I finally got to two plates on my squats - only 3 reps, but they were deep, thighs down to parallel with the floor - and my legs were still a little sore, but it wasn't the sleep at least because my routine is improving as per normal with a setback today only. These things happen.

I routinely sleep in the back seat of my car now at work (whatever car I happen to have since I work on location and rent vehicles regularly.) I head out there at noon and get a nice 20 minute nap. I overslept one noon-time nap last week - for an hour!! The reason was that I had accidentally turned the volume all the way down on my iPhone and the alarm didn't sound. Luckily the students were all busy with an exercise and no-one cared that I was late getting back to class.

I have tried taking my core at about midnight, around 4am, and around 6. It seems to work fine no matter which of those I choose. I find I sleep longer if I take it earlier - I think I'm just susceptible to turning over and going to sleep again when I know I don't have to get up for work.

On non-work days I nap at 8am, 12pm, 4pm, 8pm, 12pm (or core), 4am (or core).
On work days I nap at 8am, 12pm, 6pm, 9:30pm, 1am (or core), 4am (or core).

Two things I have noticed consistently is that my eyes are weaker than before, and my short-term memory suffers, Both are slowly improving. It's not a wonder that my eyes are strained, I use them a lot more than I used to - it's taking a while for the muscles to build up stamina. Also, the short-term memory problem is just basic things like forgetting what I was about to say, or putting something down and forgetting where I put it - fairly normal stuff.

So the key thing to note is that my experience so far is not a static one that is pefect, fit-into-the-mold Everyman schedule. The thing that fits is the 20-minute naps. Longer than that and I am sleepy afterward. Shorter and I am not well-rested enough. I set my timer for 21 or 22 minutes to give me a couple minutes to get comfortable and drift off so that there is a 20-minute sleep period. But I don't set it for longer than that.

It is also nice to note that since starting I have not had any caffeine. I have completely lost my desire for it, since I have so much more time than before and if I were to have any it would wreck my ability to nap well, breaking my polyphasic ability and so actually slow me down because I would have fewer hours in the day. How's that for incentive? Works for me!