Day 5

I seem to have slept in two 90 minute blocks. It was supposed to be a 1.5 + 4 day, but when I went to bed for my 10:00 am nap, I didn't wake up until 11:30. I suppose today was an experiment in split-core Everyman. It worked beautifully. I took/will take all my naps on schedule, and there were no sudden waves of grogginess. If I should have a class early in the morning next quarter (with about two hours until the next class), this is exactly what I'll do.

Day 4

Day 4 was a 3 + 3 day; I had an exam, so I only had time for three naps.

My dorm played a game of broomball in the evening (the opposing team, incidentally, was Caradoc and Aethelwine's dorm, although only Caradoc actually played). Broomball is essentially ice hockey in sneakers with "broomsticks" and a foam ball (two, in this case). It was incredibly fun; I've never played anything like it in my life! Of course, since I didn't really know what I was doing, and was slipping like crazy on the ice, I ended up spending half the game stickfighting on my knees. I have a few mashed fingers and some enormous purple bruises on my knees, but it was worth it. I can't wait for the (tentative) rematch!

And the only real relevance of the above is that I swung my nap by about an hour and a half (half an hour more than recommended maximum) -- I slept in the car on the way there. Did not affect my (nonexistent) broomball skills.

It occurs to me that I haven't checked my sanity in a while. Here are today's results.

Short term memory tests
Numbers: 11.31
Letters: 13
Words: 33

Day 3

Today was another 1.5 + 4 day. I was sorely tempted to make it 3 + 3, when I had to make the decision at 6:00 am, but considering I really do have to adapt, I forced myself out of bed. (Willpower, I haz it. (sometimes)) This core sleep business can be very aggravating at times; it's twice as difficult to wake up from during adaptation, and presents the temptation of "just one more REM cycle, it's only 6:00". It's way too easy to be tempted at 6:00 am.

I had quite a frightening dream at 11:30 pm. I was on a battlefield, in the thick of the fray, with a long, blood-soaked pike I clearly snatched off the ground; I could barely lift the thing. The field was slick with dew and blood, the mist so thick that no one could see more than a few feet in front of their noses. I could hear the piercing, shrill screams of horses as they were cut down (Was it horse blood on that pike?), the clash and scrape of blades and armor, the groans of dying men, and the shouts of the living. I could only really see the few men immediately next to me, all pikemen from the broken line, gathered in a tight half-circle, a desperate last stand against a mass of cavalry we could not see -- but we could hear them thundering towards us. I brace the pike against the ground as best I can, unwieldy though it is. The head and shoulders of the first horse breaks through the mist. The rider raises a bloody sword, slashing a wide arc into the huddled infantry. I duck -- and slip, and fall into the wet grass -- and a body falls across me. The horse's ironshod hooves descend -- the alarm rings, and I wake up.

Day 2

I decided that I should restart the day count for Everyman; hence, it is day 2.

I had a normal 1.5 + 4 schedule today. I was running maybe 10% in the morning (7:00ish) -- it seems harder to get up from core sleep than it does from a nap. Although I suspect it has a lot to do with the time of day. I used to absolutely hate mornings; now, I do enjoy them -- I just wish my body would change its mind!

I also swung one of my naps about 20 minutes, with no discernible ill effects. So far so good.

Day 1

Just finished my first day on Everyman. I had my core sleep at 4:30, intending to wake up at 6:00, but overslept and woke up around 9:00. Bummer. But the great thing about Everyman is that I can compensate for oversleeping by cutting the number of naps I take the rest of the day; on Uberman, there was no correcting for slip-ups. Because I had stuff to do (and wasn't tired), I just took the last two naps of the 1.5 + 4, rather than shifting to a 4.5 + 2 schedule for the day. Went admirably. Bounced right up from both naps.

Now I have to core sleep. Good night (morning?), all.

Day 19: A Decision

My sleep schedule as of now is a right mess. It's somewhere between Uberman and 3 + 4 pseudo-Everyman, and in defiance of logic, that's nothing close to 1.5 + 4 Everyman. This needs to be fixed. Ergo, I have come to a decision two days in advance. Looking back at my "Thoughts on Everyman" posts, the pros heavily outweigh the cons. I'm switching to 1.5 + 4 Everyman.

Schedule as follows (+/- 30 minutes' flexibility):
4:30 - 6:00 am -- Core Sleep
6:00 - 10:00 am -- Morning Block
10:00 - 10:20 am -- Nap
10:20 am - 2:30 pm -- Noon Block
2:30 - 2:50 pm -- Nap
2:50 - 7:00 pm -- Afternoon Block
7:00 - 7:20 pm -- Nap
7:20 - 11:30 pm -- Evening Block
11:30 - 11:50 pm -- Nap
11:50 pm - 4:30 am -- Night Block

Day 18.2: More Thoughts on Everyman

One fascinating thing I've discovered about Everyman is that once adapted, you can vary your core-to-nap ratio day-by-day to fit your schedule. You could literally decide on the number of naps you want to take/would be convenient on a particular day, and adjust your core sleep to fit. You could even go monophasic (eight hours) one night with little consequence, as long as you went back to Everyman for the next week or so. I like the sound of this! This means that I can pretend to be biphasic, or even monophasic, over Parents' Weekend. (Note: my parents have somehow figured out that I've been "sleeping less", though they don't know the whole deal, thank goodness. I just got a talking-to over the phone last night.)

One significant downside to Everyman that just occurred to me is jetlag. I fly quite a bit, and I'm not sure how jetlag would affect my core sleep. See, under Uberman, I would never get jetlagged; I'd just have to match the timing of my naps to Pacific Standard Time, wherever I happen to be. For instance, if I spent a few days on the East Coast, my naps in EST would be one hour earlier than they were in PST, but would actually be happening at the same absolute time. Presumably, my core sleep under Everyman would be short enough that even though it would be matched to a PST absolute time, it wouldn't conflict with whatever I'm doing locally.

I suppose I should work out the 3 + 3 and 4.5 + 2 schedules as well; they'd be good to have on hand. The 2:30 nap, of course, is fixed, unless I skip it all together. On the other hand, the core sleep period shouldn't change dramatically; I should be adding to the original 90 minutes, rather than moving the entire thing. The naps, though, are extremely flexible +/- 1 hour on 3 + 3, and +/- 2 hours on 4.5 + 2.

3 + 3 = 2:30 pm, 7:30 pm, and 12:30 am naps; 4:30-7:30 am core
4.5 + 2 = 2:30 pm, 10:30 pm naps; 4:00-8:30 am core

Wow, just looking at that... 4:00-8:30 feels almost sinful.

Day 18.1: Thoughts on Everyman

I messed up again this morning! 45 minutes, from about 9:30 until the "almost naptime" alarm at 10:20. This core sleep just isn't going away, is it? (A pox upon ski trips!) It just kills me to know that had it not been for ski trip, I would probably be on Uberman right now. I was doing well that first week!

Something I mentioned to Caradoc last night: It would have been so much easier had I had someone else to do it with. The idea behind polyphasic support groups is that you prod each other and keep each other awake, providing external stimuli to stave off sleep. It's terribly hard to fight the sleep monsters when I'm stuck being very quiet alone in the dark, with my roommate asleep a few feet away, and the entire dorm also asleep throughout the hall. (The lounge doesn't helps much; the couches are soft enough to be tempting.) Being very quiet in the dark is easier with someone else.

Anyhow, let me work out an Everyman schedule, because from the way things are looking now, I'm going to need it...

The 2:30 pm nap cannot change, because of my class schedule. Ergo, I would have to shift my other naps, to make slightly longer blocks between naps. I would have one at 10:00 am, one at 7:00 pm, and one at 11:30 pm. Some of these might become a tad inconvenient, because I had originally planned my schedule to fit Uberman, not Everyman. Ah, well, I can swing it about half an hour either way. Core sleep would be 4:00-5:30 am, or 4:30-6:00 am, depending on when I got tired. I'll end up tweaking it; Everyman, being non-equiphasic, is more about feeling out your circadian rhythms than about sticking to a rigid, periodic schedule.

Oh, and before I forget...

Short term memory tests
Numbers: 11.67
Letters: 13
Words: 29

I'm doing fine on these, but I sure hope there aren't any more sudden amnesic moments.

Day 18: An Assessment

Temporary bout of amnesia aside (I knew I jinxed it yesterday!), I think need a better plan. Or rather, a plan, of any sort, to replace my current nonexistent one. I've been stuck in a rut ever since snow trip, and this needs to change.

Major Development: I am considering the Everyman schedule.

What is the Everyman schedule?
The main difference between Uberman and Everyman is core sleep. That is, under Uberman, I should never sleep more than 20 minutes at a time. On an Everyman schedule, there is a core sleep (sometimes two) of at least 1.5 hours, in addition to naps throughout the day. It is based on the fact that one normal REM cycle is 90 minutes long. A monophasic sleeper getting 8 hours (really 7.5 hours) a night is getting 5 REM cycles. The idea is that a nap can replace a core sleep REM cycle, by compressing the non-REM stages of sleep. Everyman is the classification of any schedule between Uberman and biphasic that involves a multiple of 1.5 hours of core sleep, and the corresponding number of naps (4.5 hrs + 2, 3hrs + 3, or 1.5 hrs + 4).

Uberman vs. Everyman, a comparison
Uberman: more waking hours, more rigid schedule, more severe sleep deprivation to adapt, more difficult adaptation, shorter adaptation phase
Everyman: (the differences between this and Uberman grow more pronounced with longer core sleep/fewer naps) fewer waking hours, more flexible schedule, lighter sleep deprivation to adapt, easier adaptation, longer adaptation phase
One blogger who has done both (I forget which, but I think it was Puredoxyk), summed it up nicely: On Uberman, you adjust your life to fit your sleep schedule; on Everyman, you adjust your sleep schedule to fit your life.

Uberman or Everyman?
Other than satisfaction of curiosity, what I hope to get out of a polyphasic schedule is more awake time. We already know that once fully adapted, the quality of my waking hours should be equal to, if not greater than they were in high school or last quarter (I was chronically sleep-deprived in high school). But I want a few more hours, too, mostly in my weekdays (I don't mind hibernating on weekends). I know that I can survive and be functional on about five hours of sleep on weeknights. I'd say, therefore, that totaling any more than four hours a day isn't worth it, because there wouldn't be an increase in waking hours. Thus, the Everyman schedules I'm considering at the moment are 1.5 hrs core + 4 naps (total sleep = 2 hrs, 50 mins) and 3 hrs core + 3 naps (total sleep = 4 hrs).
It appears that I have been unintentionally adapting to a 3 hr core + 4 naps schedule. Not quite Everyman (one nap too many), but just about. The easiest course of action at this point is just to cut one nap and finish adapting to this. But I don't want to settle for easier (never have, and never will). Recall that one of the main attractions of Uberman is its maximal efficiency. The only real appeal of the 3hr + 3 schedule is its flexibility; once adapted, I would be able to swing naps +/-1 hr, whereas on the 1.5hr + 4, I would only have +/-30 min leeway. Still, compared to Uberman, +/- 30 minutes is divine; the rigidity of the schedule is starting to wear on me. I think I'll wait until the end of week 3 (day 21) and see if the situation improves before I decide if I want to switch.

Day 17.1

A quick post -- two things:
1. I had dinner today! Seriously, two (cafeteria) meals in one day hasn't happened since... at least ten days ago. It feels like such an accomplishment.
2. It's getting more difficult to motivate myself to get out of bed after naps. Possibly indicates a decrease in enthusiasm for the experiment (the novelty was definitely part of what got me out of bed the first few days). Also likely has to do with the "unadapting" that I've done.