Since becoming polyphasic (I prefer to call it anasomnatic now), I start an inordinate number of my sentences with "If anyone had told me..." For example, behold the following paragraph.
If anyone had told me that I would be able to, within the space of a simple 20 minute nap, go from an alert awake state to that of sleeping so deeply that I would not only not be disturbed by an alarm, but also that I would reach over in my sleep, pick it up, turn it off, and then return to sleep without remembering it, I would have bet them $100 USD.
And they would have won, for that is what just happened. Alert all day; five-thirty rolled around, and since I am attending a virtual course this week I was able to simply turn around and lay on my bed for my 5:30 nap. A little while later, I awake. What happened? What time is it? Where's my alarm clock aka iPhone? I climb out of bed, look around, the other clock says 7pm. I turn around, I find my iPhone in my bed, alarm disabled. I piece together a semi-somnabulistic zombie-like state, where I awake but am not conscious, manage to pick up, look at and turn off the iPhone alarm, then put it back down beside me in bed and with the disturbance rectified, I slip back into blissful unconsciousness.
Lesson to be learned: even for a nap, I now need multiple alarms. Since I have become a little lazy in getting up in the mornings, on my iPhone I have been setting several alarms to go off in succession, each about 1 to 5 minutes apart. It has worked; if I don't get up on the first one, I usually get up on the second or third. But I set up to 10 of them more and more widely spaced right up until the time I absolutely must get up for example, to go to work.
I now need to do this for my naps.
And is this healthy? I would argue that it is. I just went through another 3-day long cold; that's two colds since I have been anasomnatic, and my colds up until now have always been 2 weeks long.
If anyone had told me that less sleep could be healthier...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
A Normal Anasomnatic Life & The Mythical 8 Hours of Sleep a Night
My normal anasomnatic life - I like calling it that instead of polyphasicl Polyphasic makes me sound more like high-voltage power generation module than an almost-human being. It's getting more and more interesting. Way back at the beginning, one of the things I loved about being poly..., er, anasomnatic is that I am so relaxed because I have so much time. That is still somewhat true, although I seem to have now filled every nook and cranny of the 20 waking hours I have each day, and am running out of time again. If only there were a way... oh never mind.
My entire life I have felt that there should be 28 hours in a day - it just seemed like it would be the right length of time. If there were, I would have 4 more waking hours each day, and have the time to really enjoy my life outside of work. Well my idle fantasy has come true, with a bonus hour on top of it, plus the potential for 2 additional hours in a day. The most amazing part about it is, when I tell people about anasomaticsicm, they don't try it! Some say they like sleep too much. Some say they are concerned about the negative effects. I personally think we are in the dark ages of understanding sleep, because my personal experience in this experiment is contrary to everything I know and have been taught about sleep. A lot less is better somehow, but in small doses spread over a longer period of time. When I think about it, it makes more sense; how would a caveman have slept a nice full 8 hours a night? They didn't have comfy mattresses, and even with waterbeds a lot of people can't stay comfortable enough to sleep for 8 hours at a stretch. Just because it's dark, should we assume we should be asleep? Or are there good reasons for a caveman to be awake in the middle of the night, like watching for predators, or tending to a fire, or looking after a baby. Speaking of babies, they don't get born sleeping 8 hours in a night. They have to be trained to sleep that way. Even with all of our inculcation into the mythical 8-hours of sleep per night, how many people you know actually fall asleep each night and wake up 8 hours later? I can't think of one right now - almost everyone wakes up at least once to go to the bathroom during the night, or becomes restless in their sleep in the night.
I did sleep 8 hours the night before last; I had been feeling tired throughout the day for the 3 days prior. I believe it was because I was getting lazy with my schedule, missing naps by two hours in some cases, so naturally it had an effect. It's nice to know that I'm not tied into a rigorous schedule; I can always let a nap slide and then catch up later with some extra core sleep if I wish. The drama in other anasomnatic's blogs around ensuring that naps must be taken exactly on a schedule seems exaggerated now; this was very important at the beginning, but in my fourth month of anasomnatiscism, my body has well-adjusted and is forgiving. And it would make sense that it should be, the caveman didn't have a watch and couldn't stick to a rigorous schedule, so I would think the strict schedule is simply a way to retrain one's body back to a norm of taking multiple deep, short, sleep periods in a single day.
I drove from Baltimore MD, to Charleston SC last nite. I took a nap under a desk at work at 6, left work at 7 and drove until midnight. Napped at a rest area in the backseat for 20 minutes, and then drove until I couldn't stay awake any longer, which was about 3:30. Napped for another 20 minutes again in the back seat at another rest area, then tried to continue. The combination of darkness and my own lack of physical movement conspired against me, and I had to stop at 4:30 for a longer sleep. I slept for 2 hours in the back of the car, awaking alert and refreshed at 6:30 am, ready to finish the trip. One and one-half hours later, I was at the SO's, and wide awake the entire time. I took my usual 8am 20-minute nap, and I was ready for a normal day. I spent the morning at the auction house in WoW while working on a pet project, and now it is time for my noon nap. Nite.
My entire life I have felt that there should be 28 hours in a day - it just seemed like it would be the right length of time. If there were, I would have 4 more waking hours each day, and have the time to really enjoy my life outside of work. Well my idle fantasy has come true, with a bonus hour on top of it, plus the potential for 2 additional hours in a day. The most amazing part about it is, when I tell people about anasomaticsicm, they don't try it! Some say they like sleep too much. Some say they are concerned about the negative effects. I personally think we are in the dark ages of understanding sleep, because my personal experience in this experiment is contrary to everything I know and have been taught about sleep. A lot less is better somehow, but in small doses spread over a longer period of time. When I think about it, it makes more sense; how would a caveman have slept a nice full 8 hours a night? They didn't have comfy mattresses, and even with waterbeds a lot of people can't stay comfortable enough to sleep for 8 hours at a stretch. Just because it's dark, should we assume we should be asleep? Or are there good reasons for a caveman to be awake in the middle of the night, like watching for predators, or tending to a fire, or looking after a baby. Speaking of babies, they don't get born sleeping 8 hours in a night. They have to be trained to sleep that way. Even with all of our inculcation into the mythical 8-hours of sleep per night, how many people you know actually fall asleep each night and wake up 8 hours later? I can't think of one right now - almost everyone wakes up at least once to go to the bathroom during the night, or becomes restless in their sleep in the night.
I did sleep 8 hours the night before last; I had been feeling tired throughout the day for the 3 days prior. I believe it was because I was getting lazy with my schedule, missing naps by two hours in some cases, so naturally it had an effect. It's nice to know that I'm not tied into a rigorous schedule; I can always let a nap slide and then catch up later with some extra core sleep if I wish. The drama in other anasomnatic's blogs around ensuring that naps must be taken exactly on a schedule seems exaggerated now; this was very important at the beginning, but in my fourth month of anasomnatiscism, my body has well-adjusted and is forgiving. And it would make sense that it should be, the caveman didn't have a watch and couldn't stick to a rigorous schedule, so I would think the strict schedule is simply a way to retrain one's body back to a norm of taking multiple deep, short, sleep periods in a single day.
I drove from Baltimore MD, to Charleston SC last nite. I took a nap under a desk at work at 6, left work at 7 and drove until midnight. Napped at a rest area in the backseat for 20 minutes, and then drove until I couldn't stay awake any longer, which was about 3:30. Napped for another 20 minutes again in the back seat at another rest area, then tried to continue. The combination of darkness and my own lack of physical movement conspired against me, and I had to stop at 4:30 for a longer sleep. I slept for 2 hours in the back of the car, awaking alert and refreshed at 6:30 am, ready to finish the trip. One and one-half hours later, I was at the SO's, and wide awake the entire time. I took my usual 8am 20-minute nap, and I was ready for a normal day. I spent the morning at the auction house in WoW while working on a pet project, and now it is time for my noon nap. Nite.
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