Personal Growth

Feb 15, 2am

Can hardly keep my eyes open. Reading is impossible, though writing seems a lot easier. 30 minutes till my next nap. I nearly feel asleep several times sitting in my (large leather office) chair, when I defeatedly allow my eyes to droop. I wonder how I will be able to ward off sleep, as this gets more difficult later on.

5:30am

Dammit, I crashed. I just had 3 hours of sleep instead of my nap. I must’ve slept right through several alarms as the mp3 timer was playing repeatedly on my iPod.
I’m still extremely tired though; my eyes are yearning to just stay closed and I can’t concentrate very well.
I’ll take my next nap as scheduled at 6:30, hopefully I won’t crash again, might have to think about using something other than my bed to take my naps (if it’s too comfortable I won’t want to get out)

7:30am

Well, that was weird; I was sitting on the side of my bed, and I must’ve fallen asleep. After I got up from my previous nap at about 5 to 7, I stood up and walked around a bit to wake myself more; I sat down on the side of my bed, and the next thing I know I wake up lying sideways on my bed, after what was approximately 20 minutes of nap; about the same as what I’ve been doing for my scheduled naps; It seems my body has adapted a little; and to top it off, it was an REM nap. I woke up from a dream (though I don’t remember what it was now).
This is a great development, after my crash I though my progress would have slowed but this doesn’t appear to be the case.
I’m going to continue my 2 hourly naps a while longer, the next one being at 8:30am.

11:50am

My 8:30 nap went well, REM again, which is great; it seems my body has figured out to enter REM immediately. For my 10:30 nap I couldn’t fall asleep, at least I don’t think so, I was awake at the end of the mp3 sleep track (the white noise fades to a minute of silence before the alarm; when the white noise is gone I know the nap is over), I might’ve drifted in and out of consciousness though.
I think the problem with not falling asleep is not so much not being tired, as my body’s unwillingness to fall asleep when it’s daytime. The white noise blocks out a lot of outside sounds but they still audibly exist to my ear even if they’re not recognisable. I think this is something I will get used to as I continue this; my body will hopefully fall into sleep more easily as I progress, so I’m going to continue with the 2 hourly naps.

6:00pm

I had my 12:30 nap, and then I had a couple of things to do downtown. I assumed I would miss one nap, but it took longer than expected and I missed both the 2:30 and 4:30 naps. When I arrived back home at about 5:30 I took a nap straight away, which is now throwing my schedule a bit; But I couldn’t have left a 6 hour gap between naps; this five hour one shouldn’t be too weird as when I’m fully polyphasic I should be able to spread my 6 naps out to be between 3 and 5 hours apart.
I’ll try going for the 6:30 nap as well because if I don’t I think it’ll be harder over the night; hopefully the gap of only one hour won’t cause a problem.

10:50pm

Woke up from my nap at 10:30, my naps are becoming less regular, I missed the nap before that. Since waking I prepared myself some food to snack on during the night so I don’t have to keep searching the kitchen in between naps.
I feel basically awake, I’m not sure how I felt at this time yesterday but it was definitely hardest around 2am, so I’ll see how things develop towards that.
The mp3 sleep track is proving a little problematic; If I keep it quiet I won’t wake up at the end if I’m really tired, whereas if I make it louder my head begins to hurt from white noise, not to mention the physical discomfort of the earphones. I think I’ll have to get some better earphones/headphones and get a sleep track with no, or lower volume white noise. However if I just figure out how to use it properly now, it should be all right. I just need to remember that if I’m very tired I need to turn it up, which’ll be fine because it shouldn’t stop me falling asleep anyway, and if I’m not as tired I need to put the volume down so I can fall asleep and the quieter alarm should wake me up (just have to find the balance). But to make matters worse, during the day, outside noises stop me from falling asleep and white noise loud enough to cover it is very uncomfortable and quickly gives me a headache (thus preventing me from sleeping anyway). Also, the amount of sunlight seems to prevent me from sleeping during the day. To solve these two problems I think I’ll need some good blinds in my room and some noise-reducing headphones.
As I’ve been writing this I’ve been subject to steadily depleting wakefulness, I suddenly feel a lot more tired.