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The Marriott Balticon was held at wanted $10/day for an Internet connection, so I didn't update regularly as I had hoped to over my first few days. I thought about writing entries on my laptop to push up to the server when I got home again, but I was at a con and just couldn't bring myself to spend a lot of time on the computer like that.
I decided to start my experiement in polyphasic sleep in earnest to coincide with my trip to Balticon. I hoped (accurately, it turned out) that the convention atmosphere would be conducive to a polyphasic schedule and help me through the difficult days. In retrospect, I should have started a day earlier. This is written today, Tuesday, so it's subject to my memory of the weekend. Some of the times are highly approximate, but should be accurate to within an hour.
As an overview, my plan is to attempt pure Uberman polyphasic sleep (30 minutes of sleep per 4 hour cycle) until I break through the sleep deprivation barrier to the point where it becomes simply the schedule I'm on. After that I intend to evaluate how I feel and consider tweaking the times and possibly switching to a "core sleep" variant if it seems it will work better.
Day 0
[~05:30 - 09:30] I got maybe four hours of sleep Friday morning, so I went into the whole thing sleep deprived. This wasn't part of the plan, but I'm not sure it hurt any. I awoke at 09:30 on Friday and set that as my first marker.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nephogthoon kindly gave me a ride to Baltimore on his way to Washington.
Day 1 (Friday, 26 May, 2006)
[13:00 - 13:30] First nap was 13:00, about half an hour after we set on the road after breakfast. I didn't feel like I'd slept, but Nephog says he thinks I did for at least a bit in there. I popped right up at my alarm, feeling as though I'd been thinking while resting my eyes.
[17:00 - 17:30] Still in the car, somewhere in Delaware. I don't remember anything noteworthy here.
[21:00 - 21:30] This was in the bed at the convention hotel, shortly after I got my badge and signed up to volunteer for the convention. I was taking advantage of the convention's offer that volunteers could crash in the volunteers den. There were usually people around when I napped, which was interesting. I'm pretty sure I got at least 10 minutes of not-conscious in on this nap and most of those which followed.
[01:10 - 01:40] Took about an hour's break from my volunteering to get this nap in. There was definitely some sort of sleeping in this one, and I think I awoke feeling more rested then when I lay down.
[05:10 - 05:40] Another break from volunteering. By this point I definitely remember a pattern was establishing itself, that I felt sleep deprived in general, and would get increasingly tired and feeling a need for sleep. I'd awake from my nap feeling refreshed, although still a bit sleep deprived, and repeat this cycle of increasing tiredness. The four hour cycle seemed to fit my needs quite well throughout Saturday...I'd start feeling uncomfortably tired somewhere around 2.5-3 hours after I awoke, and pushing on until the time for the next mark wasn't difficult, especially with interesting people around and games to play and the like. I think I was on the floor next to the bed for this nap.
[~09:00 - ~09:30] I think this was the nap where I ended up on a chair. It was a bit uncomfortable, and my neck ached a bit when I awoke, but I still got to sleep reasonably well at some point in my half-hour, and awoke pretty easily.
Day 2 (Saturday, 27 May, 2006)
[~13:00 - ~13:30], [~18:00 - ~18:30], [~22:00 - ~22:30] I don't remember much detail about any of these naps. I wish I'd taken some sort of notes.
[~02:30 - ~03:00] Drifted a bit later in part to accomodate schedule events...the drift might have actually occurred somewhere on Saturday. Sometime Sunday I noticed that I was feeling a bit less desperate for sleep each cycle. I also noticed that I was having trouble coming up with enough food to eat during the convention, and that this was probably making things more difficult for me.
[07:00 - 07:30] I was really tired going into this one, after keeping an eye on the Con Suite with fewer and fewer people around there to keep me occupied.
[~11:00 - ~11:30]
Day 3 (Sunday, 28 May, 2006)
[~15:00 - ~15:30] I think this or the one prior was the first time I missed my alarm and overslept a little. That means the total time lying down was closer to 40 minutes before I felt like it must have been half an hour and checked and discovered that I hadn't noticed the alarm. (The first time it was because I had the phone on vibrate, not noise-making.) This happened to me a few times during the convention, but none of them resulted in my dropping into a long, deep sleep.
[18:40 - 19:10] This last one was right before dancing. My alarm kind of startled me, like I wasn't expecting it, but things were otherwise smooth.
[~00:00 - ~00:30], [~04:00 - ~04:30] After this second nap I went on duty (at about 5) keeping an eye on the Dealer's Room. This meant sitting around in a room alone with little to do except read. Oops. I was tired enough that it was very difficult to get involved in what I was reading and concentrate on it; I kept wanting to fall asleep. I managed to resist, primarily by walking around a bunch, until about 6. I *think* I decided to go ahead and take an extra nap at 6 rather than blow the whole thing.
[06:00 - 06:30]? Napped on the carpet in front of the door. It was *cold* in there. Again, the nap was quite restful, although trying to read after it was still quite slow/tiring.
[08:00 - 08:40] Second nap in dealer's room. I seem to recall making myself a snooze alarm for this one and sleeping about an extra ten minutes. Probably not a good sign.
Day 4 (Monday, 29 May, 2006)
[12:00 - 12:30] Normal nap in a bed. Fell asleep fairly quickly and slept deeply (at least from my own perception) until the alarm. Popped right up at the alarm and felt refreshed. I think if it hadn't been for the car ride home, I would have been right on track here.
[15:00 - 20:30] I got a ride home from a fellow congoer who lives in Albany. Unfortunately his car doesn't have A/C, so the windows were down. It's always been difficult for me to keep my eyes open with wind and hair blowing in my face, and this was no exception. I napped most of the car ride home. With spaced interruptions for gas or rest breaks or comments from my companion, this wasn't the deep sleep of the dead I sometimes do after a convention, but it kind of broke my schedule a bit. I came out of it kind of tired and uncertain where I stood. Oh well, back onto the horse.
[22:30 - <03:00] Oops. I put the A/C in the window when I got home because it was so darn warm here. I'm sure it and the fan didn't help me hear my alarm, which I slept right through. Crash. I'm not actually sure when I awoke. I have this vague memory of looking at the time and it having been about two hours that I slept, but I don't have any logs of anything certain until 03:00.
[06:00 - ~07:30?] Oops again. I lay my head back down on the pillow after I awoke just fine from my nap. I'm not actually sure if it was the full hour and a half I have marked here...I'm going from the logs in my IM program which show when I told it to no longer be away. I didn't do anything which left a log until 7:30. I'm going to make a point of making notes to improve my accountability from here on out. Both because it will make this a more useful record, and because I hope it will help me to get up right away if I plan to write it down. I hope the combination of these errors doesn't mean that today is a new Day One. Ah, well...it's now time for my 11:00 nap. Hmmmm...I remember deciding 11:00 was the right time for the next nap. I wonder if that's because I counted 3.5 hours from when I actually awoke...
I decided to start my experiement in polyphasic sleep in earnest to coincide with my trip to Balticon. I hoped (accurately, it turned out) that the convention atmosphere would be conducive to a polyphasic schedule and help me through the difficult days. In retrospect, I should have started a day earlier. This is written today, Tuesday, so it's subject to my memory of the weekend. Some of the times are highly approximate, but should be accurate to within an hour.
As an overview, my plan is to attempt pure Uberman polyphasic sleep (30 minutes of sleep per 4 hour cycle) until I break through the sleep deprivation barrier to the point where it becomes simply the schedule I'm on. After that I intend to evaluate how I feel and consider tweaking the times and possibly switching to a "core sleep" variant if it seems it will work better.
Day 0
[~05:30 - 09:30] I got maybe four hours of sleep Friday morning, so I went into the whole thing sleep deprived. This wasn't part of the plan, but I'm not sure it hurt any. I awoke at 09:30 on Friday and set that as my first marker.
nephogthoon kindly gave me a ride to Baltimore on his way to Washington.Day 1 (Friday, 26 May, 2006)
[13:00 - 13:30] First nap was 13:00, about half an hour after we set on the road after breakfast. I didn't feel like I'd slept, but Nephog says he thinks I did for at least a bit in there. I popped right up at my alarm, feeling as though I'd been thinking while resting my eyes.
[17:00 - 17:30] Still in the car, somewhere in Delaware. I don't remember anything noteworthy here.
[21:00 - 21:30] This was in the bed at the convention hotel, shortly after I got my badge and signed up to volunteer for the convention. I was taking advantage of the convention's offer that volunteers could crash in the volunteers den. There were usually people around when I napped, which was interesting. I'm pretty sure I got at least 10 minutes of not-conscious in on this nap and most of those which followed.
[01:10 - 01:40] Took about an hour's break from my volunteering to get this nap in. There was definitely some sort of sleeping in this one, and I think I awoke feeling more rested then when I lay down.
[05:10 - 05:40] Another break from volunteering. By this point I definitely remember a pattern was establishing itself, that I felt sleep deprived in general, and would get increasingly tired and feeling a need for sleep. I'd awake from my nap feeling refreshed, although still a bit sleep deprived, and repeat this cycle of increasing tiredness. The four hour cycle seemed to fit my needs quite well throughout Saturday...I'd start feeling uncomfortably tired somewhere around 2.5-3 hours after I awoke, and pushing on until the time for the next mark wasn't difficult, especially with interesting people around and games to play and the like. I think I was on the floor next to the bed for this nap.
[~09:00 - ~09:30] I think this was the nap where I ended up on a chair. It was a bit uncomfortable, and my neck ached a bit when I awoke, but I still got to sleep reasonably well at some point in my half-hour, and awoke pretty easily.
Day 2 (Saturday, 27 May, 2006)
[~13:00 - ~13:30], [~18:00 - ~18:30], [~22:00 - ~22:30] I don't remember much detail about any of these naps. I wish I'd taken some sort of notes.
[~02:30 - ~03:00] Drifted a bit later in part to accomodate schedule events...the drift might have actually occurred somewhere on Saturday. Sometime Sunday I noticed that I was feeling a bit less desperate for sleep each cycle. I also noticed that I was having trouble coming up with enough food to eat during the convention, and that this was probably making things more difficult for me.
[07:00 - 07:30] I was really tired going into this one, after keeping an eye on the Con Suite with fewer and fewer people around there to keep me occupied.
[~11:00 - ~11:30]
Day 3 (Sunday, 28 May, 2006)
[~15:00 - ~15:30] I think this or the one prior was the first time I missed my alarm and overslept a little. That means the total time lying down was closer to 40 minutes before I felt like it must have been half an hour and checked and discovered that I hadn't noticed the alarm. (The first time it was because I had the phone on vibrate, not noise-making.) This happened to me a few times during the convention, but none of them resulted in my dropping into a long, deep sleep.
[18:40 - 19:10] This last one was right before dancing. My alarm kind of startled me, like I wasn't expecting it, but things were otherwise smooth.
[~00:00 - ~00:30], [~04:00 - ~04:30] After this second nap I went on duty (at about 5) keeping an eye on the Dealer's Room. This meant sitting around in a room alone with little to do except read. Oops. I was tired enough that it was very difficult to get involved in what I was reading and concentrate on it; I kept wanting to fall asleep. I managed to resist, primarily by walking around a bunch, until about 6. I *think* I decided to go ahead and take an extra nap at 6 rather than blow the whole thing.
[06:00 - 06:30]? Napped on the carpet in front of the door. It was *cold* in there. Again, the nap was quite restful, although trying to read after it was still quite slow/tiring.
[08:00 - 08:40] Second nap in dealer's room. I seem to recall making myself a snooze alarm for this one and sleeping about an extra ten minutes. Probably not a good sign.
Day 4 (Monday, 29 May, 2006)
[12:00 - 12:30] Normal nap in a bed. Fell asleep fairly quickly and slept deeply (at least from my own perception) until the alarm. Popped right up at the alarm and felt refreshed. I think if it hadn't been for the car ride home, I would have been right on track here.
[15:00 - 20:30] I got a ride home from a fellow congoer who lives in Albany. Unfortunately his car doesn't have A/C, so the windows were down. It's always been difficult for me to keep my eyes open with wind and hair blowing in my face, and this was no exception. I napped most of the car ride home. With spaced interruptions for gas or rest breaks or comments from my companion, this wasn't the deep sleep of the dead I sometimes do after a convention, but it kind of broke my schedule a bit. I came out of it kind of tired and uncertain where I stood. Oh well, back onto the horse.
[22:30 - <03:00] Oops. I put the A/C in the window when I got home because it was so darn warm here. I'm sure it and the fan didn't help me hear my alarm, which I slept right through. Crash. I'm not actually sure when I awoke. I have this vague memory of looking at the time and it having been about two hours that I slept, but I don't have any logs of anything certain until 03:00.
[06:00 - ~07:30?] Oops again. I lay my head back down on the pillow after I awoke just fine from my nap. I'm not actually sure if it was the full hour and a half I have marked here...I'm going from the logs in my IM program which show when I told it to no longer be away. I didn't do anything which left a log until 7:30. I'm going to make a point of making notes to improve my accountability from here on out. Both because it will make this a more useful record, and because I hope it will help me to get up right away if I plan to write it down. I hope the combination of these errors doesn't mean that today is a new Day One. Ah, well...it's now time for my 11:00 nap. Hmmmm...I remember deciding 11:00 was the right time for the next nap. I wonder if that's because I counted 3.5 hours from when I actually awoke...
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