Well a couple of weeks ago I got my first cold since becoming anasomnatic (that's today's alias for polyphasic . From Ancient Greek prefix ana meaning again + Latin Somnat meaning pertaining to sleep. Gosh how I hate the word polyphasic, it's inaccurate, redundant and just plain ugly sounding.)
My cold progressed quickly - more quickly by far than any I have had. I was teaching and noticed a scratch in my throat. By the next day I was hoarse, and my throat sore. The next day my I was stuffy and sneezing, and the day after my cold had cleared up almost completely. I did not change my sleep schedule, I stuck with my regular three hours' sleep a night, and my regular gym schedule as well.
It was over in three days. I have never had a cold progress so quickly. I find it remarkable that I could have gotten over it in any less time than normal. Logic dictates that with so much less sleep this cold should have progressed to laryngitis (as it has done for me every other time I got a sore throat while teaching) and should have lasted two weeks as it always does.
I can only presume that sleeping deeply and often is what helps one heal best; sleeping for long periods of time seems counter-productive now since it seems that the longer one sleeps, the lighter one sleeps.
Things get more interesting all the time.
p.s. This morning I had another optical disturbance - the wallpaper in the hotel bathroom, consisting of shape-edged high-contrast vertical strips of black, yellow and white seemed to float in my vision a few inches from my face, demanding my attention and distracting me. Blinking did not make it go away, only looking away stopped it.
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as a kid i would stare at the roof of my Mom's car. it had rows of tiny dots in the pleather top, and after a few seconds of staring - the dots would start making layers and layers coming closer to my eyes. i could take my fingers and put them THROUGH the dots in front of my face. it's an optical illusion, probably having to do something with imprinting colors on the cornea when staring at one point for a certain amount of time. -wawa
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