Night 6

I snapped this gem at the NC state fair earlier today. I've seen these shirts before, but never in groups. Looks like the kid on the left has been chowin' down on a few too many Jesus Peanut Butter Cups....

I ended up caving in and laying down for a nap at 21:45. Planned on 30 minutes, but I was in my girlfriend's bed and ended up just sleeping until 2:00am. Whoops. My sleep schedule is officially fucked. I've now been up for an hour and a half since then and I'm debating how I should get back onto Everyman. I had a promising run there for a couple days. I think the drinking last night really did me in, not to mention my Thursday night reboot. I still don't feel all that well, so I think I'll probably pass out soon and then tomorrow start napping properly again.

Ok I'm tired and I hurt. I don't know why, maybe it was sleeping on the floor last night. Blah.

Day 6

Last night was one of the MOST FUN TIMES of my life. Got to eat some Panang curry, which took me back to the summer trip in Thailand (we also had spicy coconut soup - amazing). Then went to the ZTA semiformal hosted at: Pizza Palace! I couldn't believe we chose that locale, but it ended up being a suprisingly fun and cost-effective location. Never would have guessed.

Alums are back in town since it's homecoming weekend. One of them began boxing with me and demanded to know why we never slept together last year... um, my "official" response was that I didn't want any STDs...

While last night was great, I also did not stay on sleep schedule. I was 100% accurate in predicting that my pitiful reboot Thursday night would segue into a weekend of old and bad sleeping habits. Last night I slept from about 2:00 to 8:00. 6 hours, and most pathetic is that I did a bad job of napping today. This was most likely due to the copious quantity of alcohol I consumed last night. Alcohol is better than cigarettes when trying to maintain a sleep schedule, but awful in bulk.

No nap from 10:00 (when I actually got to bed) until 16:40. Napped in my car in the parking lot of the mall from then until 17:00. BTW this afternoon the state fair was a lot of fun. crazy people, crazy carnival games that I did not play, and some fried milky way bars & frozen chocolate bananas on top of it all.

So now I am about 4 hours away from my last nap and debating whether to take a mini nap and try to get back on schedule or whether I should just screw it until tomorrow since I have more alumni friends in town that I kind of wanted to hang out with tonight. Tobacco, alcohol, food, and friends are the major factors involved with getting onto a good sleep schedule. None of them mix all that well with Everyman sleep. Boo hiss. I'll trim my lifestyle selectively.

Might nap, might not. I'll blog about the verdict when I wake up/go to sleep next.

Day 5

Julian, this next nap will be dedicated to you. The last one I took was on the floor about 8 feet to your left since you took the backroom sleep location and people were on the futon. You should really think about trying to nap for 30 minutes at a time!

I'm trying to pull it back together. After a poor night of sleeping pattern (slept 7.5 hours... ugh) I'm trying hard to get back on track. But this weekend doesn't look too promising. I took a 16:15-16:40 nap and woke up feeling non-hazy (very niice!!).

However, tonight I have my girlfriend's semiformal to go to... this will involve dinner, pregame, and dancing/party somewhere. Drinking does not mix well w/ polyphasic sleeping and neither do long commitments that don't fit nap schedules. So, I think I will be using some help from a Thai energy drink (M-150) to skip my evening nap tonight. I'll probably also be really bad and break schedule tonight again.

TOMORROW IS THE STATE FAIR!

I Feel kinda bad, because last week we agreed that WeeklyMeeting.DevTeam will be Saturdays at 14:00, but I had already promised my girlfriend that I would go with and her friends. And it will be great. I'll just get caught back up tomorrow night upon returning. I'm looking forward to trying fried coke, a 2006 Texas State Fair shiner. And I want to see some pigs and tractor pulls. Damn, I guess I have lived in NC for 20 years now...

Ok for the tekkies, Tee just sent me a *sweet* link to a great web development site. Maybe I'll devote some of my extra time gained with Everyman to reading this like a bible. Oh, Tee also managed to coin a new term last night:

Implusion: using a true statement to incorrectly support a false statement. An Impluder, one who impludes, is always characterized by a general sense of douchebaggery.

And that's the word of the week! So long from Shoeboxed.com!

Reboot 2

Bad, bad news. Last night I was planning on 2:30-7 core sleep. Upon waking up at 7, I promptly turned off both my alarms semi-subconsciously, then went back to sleep. Only by luck did I wake up at 10:00 just in time for my class. It may just be golf, but it's still a class.

I was hazy too. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep. But then again I also realized that by going back to sleep, I'd make it worse. Stuck in this catch-22, I thought the best option was probably to just lay there for a while. But a sense of responsibility got the better of me and I jumped up, tossed on a hat (for the first time in months), and ran to my car for golf. I do NOT like not showering in the morning, mainly because my hair sticks out in all directions and is pretty long.

Dammit. It's as if I slept through my entire first waking cycle of the day. I was planning on a nap right before golf, yeah I know it's only a couple hours into the day, but that would set me through ~4pm when I would have time to take one again.

Effects of sleeping so long: Right now (2 hours later) I'm just starting to feel not groggy and hazy. This sucks because not only did I waste an extra 3 hours on sleeping, but I also have spent the past 2 hours not being able to think. PureDoxyK had it completely right about messing with core sleep leaving you feeling weird all day. It hasn't completely worn off, but I have no choice but to get shit done. If missing naps is supposed to be worse, I am terrified to the point of overnapping now.

Causes of sleeping so long
Last night was a Thursday night. For people who don't remember college, this is an AWESOME night to go out on, mainly because no one really cares about Friday classes/work and there are a lot of good specials, like Big Beers at Satisfaction for 4 bucks. Every Thursday without fail. Brilliant. For weird sleep schedules, social habits are bad -- such as drinking and smoking. I hate to admit it, but I've been an on-and-off nicotine subscriber for the past 2-3 years. Not in large doses, but enough to make me wish I had a cigarette from time to time. Last night was one of those times. Since I've been reading about how Everyman is more forgiving than straight polyphasic or uberman, I figured what the heck, with 2-3 hours before core sleep, why not have a drink or have a cigarette?

I passed on the drink because I was working and realized that a Big Beer at 00:00 would knock me out. But I did have half of a cigarette. I'm pretty sure that my body processing that crap along with maybe not having quite enough water is what made me feel awful upon waking up this morning. That led to a total reboot of 7.5 hours of sleep. This is almost really embarrassing, enough to make me want to skip all of today's naps. But that's NOT a good plan.

This episode may facilitate kicking the habit. That's really what this experiment is all about -- being able to learn my bodily functioning to the point that I can predict it, make clear decisions, and stay in charge of what goes on in my day-to-day life. Getting rid of tobacco is very necessary. Beer, not so much. But tobacco is no good and I know that.

Ok time to pick up the pieces. More to come soon.

Night 4: Stupidman

Tee and Matt J have admitted to being a part of a polyphasic variation movement. This is new and very groundbreaking. They've coined their sleep patterns the "stupidman" sleep cycle.

The stupidman sleeper doesn't go to sleep until he is TOTALLY SATISFIED with what he's accomplished during the day. Maybe he falls asleep in the process of trying to accomplish this. Matt J says this happens pretty often. He's woken up several mornings with his laptop opened up on his bed. He gets depressed when he sees this; it's worse than normal waking up.

Tee usually wakes up 4-6 hours after falling asleep with a feeling of despair about not finishing what he's done. What do these guys think of polyphasic sleeping and the everyman cycle?

"It takes too much committment and thought, for a stupid man. It's pretty self explanatory: the stupidman sleeper says he'll begin the everyman cycle -- tomorrow." Tee and Matt J collaborated on that one. Brilliant.

Tee explains his most recent sleep cycle: "went to 4 oclock bed 9am." Obviously this is a very efficient method of retaining full mental capacities for extended periods of time.

Idiots. They'll be everyman converts soon.

As to my night schedule: nap from 22:00-22:30. Woke up a bit pissed that someone called me mid-nap and woke me briefly. But I got over it and now I'm being productive! Planning on a core sleep time of 2:30-7

The Power of Nap

Tomas: "I just dreamt about somebody trashtalking polyphasic sleep." Rob: "It must have been very vivid"

(we were talking about it while he was sleeping.....)

Tomas and I just agreed that a polyphasic nap is DRASTICALLY different from a normal one. I've noticed going through most of a nap with the conscious thought in my head, "I'm just laying here, why am I not asleep yet??" only to wake up 5 minutes later and think, "DAMN, I was just passed out for a solid 30 minutes and now I feel great....".

I guess this is what happens when you drop into REM very efficiently. Craziness. I think once I've learned to let go a bit more when I nap, I'll have some great lucid dreams!

Day 4

Agenda: Woke up (7am -- overslept again...), worked on editing paper. Submitted this morning, went to FIP conference intro. Did homework during. Was really tired through class (10:05-11:20). Crashed for a *sweet* nap at 11:30 on the Teer couches. Note to self: one of the resources that must be made available with a campus map is editable locations of good sleeping spots. Because Teer is a great one. I may start sleeping there exclusively. Lord knows I haven't made my bed yet since fall break because I've been living on my futon. Maybe once I get into a good schedule pattern I'll start using the bed again. But not now.

Did great all day, felt like I needed another nap around 16:00 pushed it to 17:00(30m). Went to the Shoequarters and passed out on our nice little sleep chair. It's glorious. Now I'm up and coding quite happily! I think I'll plan on another nap around 22:00. Ok busy with work, so I'll deal w/ that and not make a really long post right now. busy, busy, busy!

From PureDoxyK:
"Messing with the core-times is bad, in that it will make you feel generally unrested all day. But messing with a nap is a big no-no, because it makes you feel like somebody drove a bus into your frontal lobe, parked it there and had a clambake. *gag*"

Thanks Tomas for pointing that out. I would have to agree.

Justin seems to be doing well, so does Tomas.

Tomas: "they've been going pretty well. it sucks to miss a nap, because you don't feel tired then but then you crash. it messes you up for your core sleep because you're so tired even though you don't realize it."

Well put, agreed. I think I'll be at the shoe-office until about 2am tonight! maybe a break for dinner, but I should get some major work done after being in a time-warp the last couple days.