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Phase I: The conversion to polyphasic sleep
During the first phase of the Uberman cycle, I was converting my sleep from normal, to 6 naps, by adding one 80-minute nap, and taking 80 minutes away from my "core" sleep. This process took about 4 or 5 days. This is when it bacame an adminstrative nightmare. As you can imagine, suddenly, there is no clear break in your day. There is no one time when you're sleeping more than any other time of the day. The day was now broken into 6 equal sections, which didn't even have names at the time.
It was later decided to name these sections "phases", as it simplified the process. Timing of meals and showers and such became more confusing as they could be placed just about anywhere. It was soon enough decided that showers would take place after I woke up from my 22:00 (10pm) nap. This, oddly enough, was the busiest time in my house, and I was generally ticked off at those who wouldn't let me sleep. As for food, I decided to eat every 6 hours, as it had been about the way things worked for me normally. I just had to add a fourth meal at midnight, which I called nightmeal. Nightmeal could emulate any other meal of the day (as could any of the others, though), but it usually took the form of breakfast.
After I was switched over to the 6-naps, the length of these naps decreased by about 30% each day until I was down to 25 minute naps. The process worked almost flawless until I overslept through an entire phase. It wouldn't have normally been that bad except that I slept through a job interview that I was supposed to go to about 3 hours before I finally woke up. This caused the elaboration of my alarm system.
In addition to the "wake-up machine" (which consisted of a light and speakers on a timer), I also had my normal alarm clock moved over to the other side of the room (set to the annoying beeping), and my watch alarm, my cell phone alarm, my Palm Pilot alarm, and just about every other device I could conjure up. Sometimes, I'd put scheduled events on my computer so it would play music to wake me up, but the fans on the system would keep me from falling asleep in the first place.
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Jim was on the Uberman cycle
He looks just like always |
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Phase II: Life as a polyphasic person
As you can imagine, it's kinda tough to find stuff to do at 3:00 in the morning. You can't just call your friends up, and have a LAN party, or go bowling. That'd wake not only your friends up, but everyone in their house, too. So, calling land lines was out of the question. My cell phone doesn't get good reception in my room (probably all the EM interference from my computers). So just what do you do? Well, I had my good friends Adrian and Steve doing the cycle, too. I'm not too sure of their reasons, but I had mine. That third year project was enough of a threat in itself. If I didn't pass everything this year, then I'd have to go to ZSR and tell them that I needed another year. You can imagine how well that would go over. This project had to be something special, hence the extra-time "secret weapon".
As the first 2 weeks went by, we were still oversleeping, but it wasn't about to interfere with classes. Steve gave up on the system, but his timing was such that he became nocturnal. This left Adrian and I in the system. So, what do you do at 3:00 in the morning? Well, there's nightbiking, chess at city hall, or just observing the inactivity of the world.
It's so strange to look at a normally busy intersection, where during the day, cars honk, and creep through, and move at about 1/2 walking speed, and see it completely deserted, the lights changing for cars that just aren't there. The streets were so deserted, you could sit on the city's main road for 3 or 4 minutes without seeing any cars. Just the truck that waters the flowers.
One of the other wierd things is that suddenly fast-food burgers tasted awful. I couldn't believe that I once ate them every day! Instead, I went to Subway. Eat fresh.
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Phase III: Problems with the cycle
One of the snags I hit with the cycle is that when school started, it was difficult to find a place to nap. You can't just walk into a room twice a day, and tell everyone to shut up for 25 minutes. The Neon was too hot to sleep in. Therefore, I was just missing naps left and right. This caused me to oversleep during the night phases. It began to defeat the purpose, and people kept shoving naps around to suit their schedules and such. I found that I didn't have to sleep during the naps, but I did have to at least deep rest. Deep rest is where you're almost asleep, but still consciously aware of what's going on around you. Unfortunately, I could only get away with this once a day. And with 2 naps at the college per day, this is what led to my oversleep.
Phase IV: Quadraphasic Sleep - the alternative
I discovered a solution to the problam of oversleep and sleeping at school. I was getting about 2.5 hours of sleep per day. Adrian was having the same problem, but his solution was different. I opted to switch to fewer, but longer naps. 4 naps, 1 hour in length (to be shortened to 40 mins). Adrian did a 2-hour core sleep, with random naps, and I really don't know much about it. Mine worked great. I had 4 meals, 4 phases. Only 1 nap at school, and it only interfered with classes once a week.
Also, by de-synchronizing mine and Adrian's naps, we were better able to ensure that each other were awake. The system worked. Oversleeps were down, and potential productivity was up. But the demand was gone. Also, other stresses in my life, as well as an impending cold were bogging me down. So, on Sunday, Sept 15th, exactly one month after day 1 of the Uberman cycle began, I cancelled the program, and reverted to monophasic sleep. Slowly, life returned to normal. Subs turned back into burgers. nights turned back into sleep. 4 meals turned back into 3 1/2. Multivitamins collect dust on my desk. My autobiography project is slowed down to a crawl. And life is again normal. Perhaps, using what I have learned, I will yet again be polyphasic to suit the needs of a greater good, but not today.
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Adrian also went polyphasic
Adrian tried the sleep cycle, but his main motivation was to prove that it worked. |
Steve also tried the Uberman
Steve was the first one to suggest the Uberman cycle to us, so naturally, he was part of the team that tried it. |
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