The Uberman Is Not Dead!

Day: 6, Nap Count: ?, Alertness: 2

I am not dead! I just haven't posted anything for a few days because I really have had nothing really new to report on. My days are fully alert and the nights are getting a bit better but are still a little hard. I oversleep a little here and there but nothing too bad.

One new thing I must report on, as I said before I was going to be taking the ACT today. So last night I did something risky, I tried to stop the Uberman, big mistake. I figured that since I have overslept here and there on accident that I can easily purposefully oversleep. Nope. I just sat there, awake and fully alert, until 2 where then I fell asleep, only to wake up about 45 minutes later. So I turned to plan B. Plan B is a CD that my mother has had for years that I borrowed at the beginning of this experiment. It is supposedly supposed to put out Delta Waves and help you sleep better. The original plan was for me to use this as a way to go to sleep during my naps, but further reading made me change my mind because it seems like it was only going to keep me OUT of REM sleep. But since I was having trouble sleeping this night I might as well try it because I was going to be sleeping for several hours and wanted as deep as a sleep as possible. Well I don't know what Delta Waves do to a normal person but for me it didn't put me to sleep. Well kinda I sat there like before just alert as can be, but more relaxed I do have to say and I know I fell asleep a few times because I remember waking up a few times during the night. The big thing it did was give me these very relaxed day dream sort of dreams. I knew I was awake and I knew I was just laying there but I was very very relaxed and I knew I was in the process of falling asleep. It was like my imagination was running on overdrive. A hallucenation? I don't think so, I have experienced these before while not on Uberman and they are always right before I fall asleep (which I did more then once during the night). I woke up several times during the night for a brief second and then slip into a half dream for a minute and then wake up and see the time had changed a half hour to an hour or so. Defiantly strange.

Well Monday is the first day back at school. Hopefully I can keep this up.

The Shame Of Oversleeping

Day 3, Nap Count: 14, Alertness: 2

Well I knew it would eventually happen, I overslept. I didn't just oversleep, I overslept two naps in a row. So all in all I got 2 more hours then I should have today and its probably because of that that I had a hard time falling asleep during my naps today. This has really alerted me to my need of a really good back up alarm. So I am going to be on the hunt for alternative ways to wake myself up besides the alarm I am currently using on my iPod.

I have been feeling pretty much normal today. Fatigue is pretty much non-existent and I am ,for the most part, completely alert. One thing I have been noticing is though is that the day/evening hours are a lot easier to cope with then the early morning. By 4 am I am really fighting to stay awake but I link that to a lack of activity and mind stimulation due to the fact that everyone is asleep and I am just wandering around looking for stuff to do in my basement. Maybe another reason for my early mornings to be a struggle to stay awake is the fact that my body still hasn't ditched the ideology of "its 3 in the morning I should be asleep". But I can tell my body is adjusting because I feel perfectly alert during the day, so it is not like I am sleep deprived so badly as to I am falling asleep standing up. Another thing I am starting to notice is that because I am so alert during the day napping feels like a chore. I am still not sleeping during even 30% of my naps and because I am so alert I feel like I just want to skip "napping" (I say "napping" because for the most part I lay there for 30 minutes bored out of my mind) instead of just dropping what I am doing at the top of my 4 hours and go attempt to sleep.

One benefit I am really enjoying about this whole experiment is that Spring Break seems to be going by slowly instead of quickly. Of course this is because I am not sleeping in til 2 every day and wasting 12 hours a day on sleep. It feels great knowing its barely Wednesday when it feels like it should be Friday already.

I frankly am amazed at how well I feel at the end of day 3. I figured by this point I would feel at least foggy most of the day, but that isn't the case at all. Hopefully this alertness will spill over into next week when I get off break and start school again. Hopefully.

Day 2, Nap Count:8, Current Alertness: 3

I am going to be straight up and say that I almost pussed out this morning. I almost threw in the towel because this morning (6-10) was by far the hardest block of this experiment so far. Harder then the last dreaded 2-6 block, harder then THIS 2-6 block. Fortunately for me I somehow plowed through it and had a glorious 10 o'clock nap. From then on (besides about 30 minutes of grogginess slightly after that nap) I felt completely normal. It was like I slept for 12 hours and had the best sleep of my life. I was alert, I was functional, and although I thought sitting in a dark theater for 90+ minutes would have put me to sleep (on top of the thrown together piece of crap that Clash Of The Titans was), it didn't. I even stayed constantly alert when I skipped my 6 oclock pm nap (stupid I know, but I was in the middle of making cookies and lost track of time, worst cookies ever too so it wasn't even worth it. I have learned my lesson).

Today was also my first interaction of on-the-go napping. I had decided at about midnight to go visit a buddy of mine. So I walked the mile or so to his house (due to the lack of vehicular transportation) and was enjoying myself (besides the 4 inches of snow that hit my Utahan city, but hey thats the weather for you). Pretty soon it came around the time for my 2 a.m nap. But being the kind of person that never really does things in a logical, normal way (I mean I am giving up 60% or so of my normal sleep) I made camp in the bathroom.

It wasn't as bad as one might think and I actually came pretty close to actually falling asleep (a pleasure I have only accomplished on maybe 2 or 3 naps so far). So I figure once Spring Break is over and I am forced to sleep in school, I can do it. If you can sleep in a bathroom, you can sleep anywhere.

One thing that all my Ubermen forefathers have experienced and have talked about was the increased amount of dreams that they remember actually having. Well I am amazed to report that after only 2 days and a handful of naps I have on atleast 3 ocassions remember dreaming during my 30 minutes of rest. Now of course I was stupid and did not write any of them down for any indication that I am going insane, but what matters is that they happened. Does this mean that after only a handful of naps my body is starting to go into REM sleep during the naps? I honestly do not know, I am not a scientist. But if this is the case I am very surprised at how fast this is working out. Hopefully I will not have such a long adjustment period after all.

An update on ideas for what to do during the dreaded 2-6 block: do something active and physical, but not TOO physical. Being that it snow a few inches today I decided to not do something very unique like I said I would do during this chunk of time but instead attempt to shovel my relatively large driveway. I was feeling good towards the beginning. I had just walked the mile back to my place from my friends and I was feeling pretty alert and was grateful I actually had something physical to do to keep my awake. But after a while I really started to wear myself out. So eventually I just gave up shoveling (leaving a very awkwardly placed 1/4 of a drive way covered in snow) and went inside. Right now I am feeling tired, not exhausted, not foggy, just tired. I didn't take my 3 am shower like I had hoped for being afraid that it will only relax me more and make me more open to falling asleep. But oh well that gives me something to do during 6-10 block.

Tomorrow is really going to be the test of my alertness on account of I need to work on this really really important flash animation I am doing for school that is really going to take some time to complete and is due no later then Thursday. I will keep you posted on how THAT is going.

The Dreaded 2-6 am Block

Day 2. Nap Count:4

Well everyone was right, 2-6 is the time you REALLY have to be careful. It is only the 2nd day and the first time I have had to live through this block and let me tell you, everything they say about finding something to do is ABSOLUTELY TRUE. I don't feel tired really because I have been sleeping less, but because I am so bored. I went back to my childhood and played some Typer Shark for a little while but soon that became really mind numbing so I tried to wake myself up by walking around my basement for a few minutes and that seemed to help.

I said that I would be using this time to try and accomplish some sort of unique goal I wouldn't regularly accomplish if I did not have all this free time on my hands. Well as of now I have had zip to none ideas as to what I should do during the dreaded 2-6 block, so really it is sort of my own fault that I am so bored. So I have tried keeping myself busy by (attempting to) building a house of cards. I am not sure if it is due to repeated failure, determination, or my growing frustration at these stupid cards that is keeping me from passing out. So whether or not I actually get to a 2nd level of my house, I am awake still.

I am starting to feel the experiment wear on me. There is this weird looming feeling of the thought that I am not going to be able to take a huge chunk of time and sleep off all my growing fatigue. Its just strange to think that the only sleep I am going to get soon is the 30 minute nap I am going to be taking in the next 40 or so minutes. While right now I am at a solid 2 or 3 on the alertness scale I know that I am going to start going more and more downhill as day 2 progresses.

Note to self: find out things you can do while in the basement that will not wake up the rest of the house. Also test out your alarms to see how loud they can go but still be undetected by the people sleeping upstairs. Also test the shower because most likely my new shower time is going to be at 3 or 4 am to insure I don't start dozing off (second note to self: don't fall asleep in the shower).

P.s I am most likely going to use this time block to do regular blogging to keep myself busy. Plus that way when you people on normal schedules wake up you can have a fresh blog post for your morning (call it a self esteem booster to know that someone is suffering from lack of sleep while you slept all night...you're welcome).

1st Nap + More Info

Day 1. Nap Count: 1

I just took the first nap and let me say it was really really boring. I just laid there bored for probably the longest 20 minutes I have felt in a while. But for the last 10 minutes of the nap I slipped into a sort of half asleep state. I was a lot more relaxed and I felt like if I was to sleep for another 10 minutes I would be really asleep. I was actually surprised when my alarms went off.

Speaking of alarms, here is the set up: I set the alarm on my ipod to go off after 30 minutes. Then I have my phone as my back up alarm. I want to get ahold of some sort of kitchen timer from a pawn shop or something for really cheap so I can have that as a last resort back up.

I read on the internet that you should try to stay away from sleeping in your actual bed when you take your naps because it increases your risk of oversleeping. So to avoid this I am sleeping on an air mattress in my room. While it is still comfortable I have never really felt like sleeping on an air mattress to be the same as sleeping on a bed so hopefully I wont oversleep.

I also found this chart on the official uberman sleep blog during the research period. It is what I am gonna base how I feel from day to day.

1=Foggy; losing interest in remaining awake; slowed down

2=Functioning at high levels, but not at peak; able to concentrate

3=Awake, but relaxed; responsive but not fully alert

4=Somewhat foggy, let down

5=Foggy; losing interest in remaining awake; slowed down

6=Sleepy, woozy, fighting sleep; prefer to lie down

7=No longer fighting sleep, sleep onset soon; having dream-like thoughts

X= Asleep

Prep is DONE!

Ok the scheduling of the naps is now DONE! I had to create a main schedule and 2 variations for school (one for A days and one for B days). The verdict is that I will be taking a 30 minute nap at 2,6,and 10 a.m and 2:30,6 and 10 pm (the 2:30 being that I will not be able to sleep at 2 due to school). The minor variations are that on A days I will have to sleep at 10:40 due to school requirements.

Another thing to bring up is from what a lot of other people who have done this have said the chunk of time between 2 am and 6 am is the hardest (probably because you are used to be asleep at that time). They say that this is a crucial time to really have something to do or else you are pretty much doomed to fall asleep. They say planning lots of things to do is the key to keeping yourself awake. That usually includes every day things like doing laundry or paying bills or what have you. But during this 2-6 am block I want to do something special so there is no way I can fall asleep. So I am going to start coming up with a list of "unique goals" stuff that you don't do on a normal day basis that I could possibly do during this chunk of time. So when I get that list done or partially done I will post it here along with all the rules of this experiment.

Well that is it for now. the 1st nap is in t-minus 35 minutes so I will tell you all how that went as soon as its over (My guess is that it will be nothing ground breaking)

What This Is All About.

Being the fact that I am human, I need sleep. We all need sleep. But sleep sure takes up a lot of time. As a student I am finding it harder and harder to find a good balance of working and keeping my slacker lifestyle alive. I am usually up late most nights and feeling like crap in the morning. Well a good friend of mine a few days ago proposed that together we try what is called the Uberman Sleep Schedule. In a nutshell this means replacing a gigantic block of sleep per day with a 20 minute nap every 4 hours. Yes that means about 2 hours of sleep per day.

The ideology behind this is that when you sleep you enter what is called REM sleep. This is some sort of unconscious state where your body gets its rest from along with other benefits. Well when you sleep for large chunks at a time your body only enters into REM sleep a few times, and it goes in cycles. So while you fall asleep at 12 lets say, you only enter REM sleep at about 1:30 or 2 a.m. What this Uberman Sleep Schedule is supposed to do is trick your brain in a way to go into REM sleep earlier.

The thought of having only to sleep 2 hours a day intrigued me. Being that I feel sleep deprived already provoked me to start an experiment. I am going to try said sleep schedule. They say that it takes about 2 to 3 weeks to get used to. And its very demanding in the sense of missing naps supposedly screws you up for days. Yes I know, the first several days/weeks are going to be awful. I am going to feel like crap, but who knows? Maybe this will work. Maybe someone CAN get by on 2 hours of sleep. Its going to be interesting to see just how far I can push myself to stay awake and to see how creative I can be to find ways to stay awake. Life is boring right now, I have to fill it with something. It might as well be this. I am going to be using tonight and tomorrow to research/prepare for what is going to go down. Maybe it will fail horribly and I puss out. But maybe it will work. I am not looking for anything long term here (although some people swear by it) being I do not know how this will affect my health. But hey you gotta do at least one really cool (albeit stupid) thing in your life or else why are you here?