Triphasic Sleep: Day 1

This is part one of my Triphasic sleep experiment. Please visit this page for more info.

Right away, I am experiencing some of the symptoms to those others who’ve gone through the same journey towards polyphasic sleep patterns. Distinction between days are blurred and I am more susceptible to temperature changes.

My first nap was from 10:30PM to 12AM which gave me a slight boost to alertness. I said slight because it steadly declined after 2AM, at which point I am reduced to playing some computer games to pass the time.

I hit “The wall” at 4AM and think it’s best to sleep at this time to avoid having to struggle against the wall and set my alarm to wake me at 6AM, then slept from 6AM to 8AM. This is to train my body to understand that I will never get anything past 2 hours of sleep from now on. The reason why polyphasic works is because you trained yourself to go into REM sleep right away, whilst you are still stuck in the old sleep pattern if you stick with biphasic.
The morning is a blur because I can’t really concentrate. Life seems to be a stand still, I experienced the zombie like state that so many have told in which I jokingly remarked how everything gets registered, but I just can’t form any opinion or give feedback to anything. Most likely a shutdown of the frontal lobe as it is the part of the brain that tires out the fastest and least trained to perform repetitive duties.

I made the mistake of drinking coffee at around 2PM. Being in the shopping mood in downtown with the great clear sky smiling down on me et all. I’ve read about the negative effect that this has when you are starting the polyphasic pattern, but I wasn’t thinking enough to realize what I was doing. A routine is a routine and at the moment, it is what kept me going. Immediately, I noticed having cold sweat and more pronounced feeling of detachment from my body.

I pondered an experiment that I used to do whenever I get to wait for the train. To focus on a spot on the floor until tunnel vision sets in, then look up around to notice an increase in the amount of vision information I take in. I tried that in this zombie like state and couldn’t do it. The fact that I chose to try this at this time surprises me, don’t know why and can’t reason about it either. I also made a mental note to do it again when I am more alert.

The sleep from 4PM to 5:30PM was restless, any noise distracted me from falling asleep. I think this is due to the caffeine. I remember being like this before when I was a student and drank too much coffee. It’s as if you are too tired, but still couldn’t shut yourself up. So I tried concentrating on exhaling through the nose. Focusing my thought to follow the exhaling process. I don’t know why I chose to do that then, perhaps subconsciously, I know it is the trail I need to follow to induce a fast track into REM state sleep.

Alas the sleep was short, because my room mate woke me up with loud music from playing computer games. Strangely though, I felt really refreshed as if I had a whole night of sleep.