Sooooo, where to start.
First of all, about my first vlog. WOW. I mean did you guys watch that?? Why did you guys not tell me completely out of my mind I looked!?! I just rewatched it yesterday and could not believe how out of it I liked. Boy I'm glad I didn't upload the unedited video. It was a whole 2 minutes longer, and that was just pauses and me saying "uhhhhh." Yeah, I know. Ridiculous. But watching the second video, I think I made some big improvements, don't you?
Secondly, I kind of like making the videos, but the majority of people have told me they like the posts better, and I guess I can't blame them. I'd rather read a log of this than watch a video of a lunatic blabbering like an idiot. You don't have to be nice, I know that's what it looked like :P So, I will try to keep the videos to a minimum, but when I do make them, I'll do my best to keep it on the exciting side. Add some dancing or something, I don't know. A little spark to keep it interesting.
And finally, the update on the past 3 days. I've come to realize 3 really important things this weekend, both expected and surprising. First, I'm starting to see the difficulties in maintaining this if you have an extremely busy and social (and by social I mean daily, late night partying). If you drink daily, consider this sleeping cycle impossible, at least in the first week. It's not going to work unless you have multiple friends who will drag you out of bed and beat you if you try and go back to sleep. Rush is starting for the Greek life here at the University of Texas and as I'm sure many of you know, big parties are starting to be thrown. I have come to find that this and the polyphasic sleep cycle do not go together in the slightest. If you find yourself even slightly intoxicated, it's going to be quite difficult to wake up. This, unfortunately, is what has happened to be the past two nights. I'm not even a big drinker either. I drink maybe once every couple weeks, 2 or 3 if there are a lot of parties going on that I care to go to, and even when I go to them, I'm not getting drunk. I just don't find it my kind of thing, but even getting slightly tipsy will make it near impossible to wake up. Trust me.
So, what exactly has happened? I slept about 8 hours the past two nights, but in order to keep my body used to the naps and make it easier to get back on schedule, I maintained a strict schedule during the daytime, taking a nap every 4 hours after waking up for a total of 3 naps before going out for the night with friends. What is suprising me is that my body is still adapting and taking the napping well, even with my sleeping at night. What astonishes me, though, is that I dont feel any more awake during the day having had 8 hours of sleep as with three more 30 minute naps. In fact, I think I may feel more tired during the day after having a night of sleep. Is that crazy? Or am I crazy. I'm pretty sure my mental capabilites are just fine at this point in time, so I'm gonna have to go with the first one. This may be the first indications of the increased level of alertness brought with the polyphasic sleep cycle. I'm eager to see this develop.
The third thing that surprises me is how easy I can jump back and forth, and after only one week, no less! The past 3 nights I have taken a full night of rest, maintained my naps, and right now I'm heading back on schedule and feel perfectly fine. I have no doubts that I'll be able to get through the night and get back on my polyphasic schedule. Surprising indeed. Just think of the possibilities. Keep a polyphasic sleep schedule and when social or work obligations just can't cooperate, jump to monophasic, take a few naps, rinse, dry, and put away! I question whether I'm able to do this because it's still only a week from when I was fully on a monophasic schedule, but after I fully adapt, I'll be sure to test it out.
That pretty much covers how my schedule went, but I've got some more to say. My most exciting news is I had my first dream during a nap today! By that I mean I had my first dream during a nap, not my first dream ever, and it happened to be during a nap. Excuse the bad wording :) It was quite clear and I woke up with full recollection of it. Probably because my alarm interrupted it, but still. That tells me 1) I'm for sure hitting REM, but 2) I'm not getting a full cycle in. At least not all the time. Nevertheless, it was an exciting moment for me, more so because I haven't had a dream that I remembered having in quite some time. Months actually. Saddening, I know.
Anyways, that pretty much covers anything. I'm excited for this week. You guys have no idea how much this sleep schedule has changed me for the better. First, the obvious of having more time. So often do we want more time, wish we could buy more of it. I feel like I've cheated. I've gotten it for free! I really can't express how awesome it is to finally have all the time I need and then some. Instead of trying to figure out how I'm going to get everything done in so little time, I now have to try and figure out what I'm going to get done in so much time. It's absolutely spectacular. Second, despite having time coming out of my ears, its actually made me a better planner. Even though I could just find random things to get done at different times, I've found that I'm starting to plan things out, down to the minute, to make the most of all the extra time I have. This is certainly not something I planned to do nor expected to happen, but I'm glad it has. I feel like I'm actually using my time wisely, something on my New Year's Resolutions list. It's a great feeling, but I've definitely got to make sure I continue it. It helps me a lot and I don't want to lose that. I've really found a gold mine here with this polyphasic sleeping and I'm sure I haven't even scraped the tip of the iceberg on what I can do, accomplish, and experience with the whole thing. Stay tuned.
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