Coleslaw, Natures Sherbert

This morning Jarod said, "I feel like I've given up on an old friend, sleep, and my only wish is that we can still remain close." He said this as he sat in a chair and fought off dozing, a problem that strikes both of us whenever we have any downtime. During the day for the most part the two of us are fine, its during the night when things are quiter that we struggle the most. The both of us watch TV and spend a good chunk of the time waking the other up. The dozing is subtle, you don't even notice it so you really need a buddy to keep you in check. Even though the nights have rough patches I can tell the naps are starting to help. I've been on the system longer and so I seem to be sleeping deeper than Jarod and handling the late hours better for now. Jarod is doing pretty well and he hasn't overslept during any of the naps. I think the sleep cycle is starting to take, and I'm pretty confident that by the time we return to school that we will both be well into the Uberman cycle and fairly functional in class. Oops there goes Jarod, I had to physically bring him back that time, poor kids being a real trooper. The conversion is like everybody said, brutal. Everytime you get tired you realize that you are never going to just lay down for 8 hours and sleep, that 20 minutes is all you get and mentally thats rough on a person. Both of our cognitive functions have suffered, doing physics homework for me took much longer than it should of and I had to constantly read and reread anything in the book. Since we started this process I have lost about 5 pounds, in less than a week. Some of this is because I was losing weight before we started, but not that fast. I'm not sure how much is because of the polyphasic sleep and how much is jsut me lsing weight but I'll definitely be keeping track of it. Thats all I can think to say right now, I hope to god this is coherent.

Into the thick of things

Hey kids,
Jarod updating this time. I've just spent my first night on the schedule. I'll admit, I'm tired, but nowhere near as bad as Tad is apparently. He says that he hates this and that it was his worst idea ever. He wanted me to let you all know that.

Nonetheless, we are in this for the long haul now, it's all or nothing. So far we have a pretty good system. I begin to nod of and Tad yells at me, then Tad begins to nod off and I yell at him. This is how we've made it through the night.

I think that it's not so much a matter of being tired as much as not having stuff to do. Also since it's cold, there is less incentive to unwrap myself from my blanket and get up to do things. But that's just for me. At this point for Tad it is just shear tiredness I feel. He has taken to pacing to keep himself awake.

Those are the logistics of what's been going on. We are going to keep pushing forward and fighting to stay awake. The journey may be hard, but if we are victorious, the rewards will be endless.

We'll post again soon,
Jarod

Delayed Lift-Off

So we managed to drive all the way to Jarod's house. We got there late and I had to nap once during the drive. We arrived right during one of my naps so I ended up post poning it for an hour. This was a mistake, even early into the cycle. I can already feel the need for a nap every four hours, I don't know if thats because I am thinking about it or if I'm really starting to get into the cycle. I had trouble last night though, after Jarod went to sleep, managed to last until about 6:00. Since Jarod and I hadn't unloaded the car and because it was a strange house I dind't really feel comfortable doing anything except watching TV, so I fell asleep and slept for about 3-5 hours. I don't really know because I didn't have a watch or my cell phone to keep track of time. I'm back on the wagon now though and have another nap in about 15 minutes. I'll set aside more things for me to do tonight to keep busy so I don't fall asleep. We'll keep you updated, pretty soon Jarod should throw up a post.

...and it begins

So last night was my last night of sleep. I have been pretty faithful to my nap schedule thus far, and feel pretty good, but it's only been like 10 hours, of been awake, of which about an hour was spent "napping" so thats to be expected. Tomorrow should be more telling. For those of you unfamiliar with what is going on, Jarod and I are attempting to switch to an alternative sleep cycle, known as the Uberman. This requires us to sleep 20-30 minutes every 4 hours during the day. The upside, is we only sleep 2-3 hours a day, thus gaining 6 hours of awake time. The downside is that this 4 hour schedule must be rigorously maintained. There are several other types of alternative sleep cycles, some more practical such as the Everyman cycle made popular by puredoxyk, a cycle that consists of a 1.5-3 hour core nap and four 30 minute naps, some are just historically referenced, such as the cycle Buckminster Fuller was reported to have used with supposedly was a 30 minute nap every 6 hours. Several bloggers have attempted to convert to this cycle, the best known and well documented probably being at Steve Pavlina's blog. He committed to the schedule for over 5 months before switching back to regular, or monophasic sleep. Thats all I have to say on the subject right now, so stay tuned to see how all this turns out.

Monday Night Decisions

This is the first post of the Adventures of the TimeBenders, this blog will follow myself, Tad, and my companion Jarod through our ordeal to become polyphase sleepers. Essentially starting at the end of this week Jarod and myself will sleep for only approximately 2 hours a day, according to the Uberman sleeping schedule. Neither of us has attempted this before so our hope is that together we can claim the prize of an extra 6 hours a day. This is the Monday proceeding the experiment, I will start on Friday, which will coincide with Spring Break. Jarod will begin changing his sleep cycle on Sunday. This way for the first couple of days I will have a somewhat awake person to assist me, and hopefully we can work out any kinks before Jarod starts. According to the Uberman schedule we will sleep only 20 minutes once every 4 hours. This has been attempted by several members of the blogosphere before and our plan is to try an imitate the kind of success with the program that others have had.