Uberman Adaptation HALP!

Recently a commenter wrote me asking for help with that dreaded period of Uberman adaption that comes between days 2-3 and last until about day 4-5.  (I call it "days 2-4", but that’s a generalization, obviously.  I could call it "the end of week one", except that by day five, with no mistakes, things get radically easier.  The Super Hard Part is almost always over before the first week is out, assuming no mistakes.)

The commenter explains that he keeps getting about two days in and then oversleeping uncontrollably:  "I’ve just overslept for an hour and a half and nothing seems to be working. I’ll take a nap but I won’t recover at all. I become so tired that I sleep through all alarms and nobody can wake me up. I’m really stuck…" he writes.

This is not only common, it’s THE story for about 90% of Uberman adaptations I read about.  Which leads me to think that most people who decide to take on the Uberman schedule either don’t believe me about how hard the first week of adaptation is, or that it’s just something that you really can’t get your mind around until you’ve done it.  Mind you, I know that it’s possible, but I think that it requires more in the way of a) commitment and b) planning than people give it credit for.

Some of my reply to him follows.  If you have any interest in Uberman, you should probably read it.  I’ve bolded things that, well, I felt needed bolding.  ;)

"What’s happening to you is normal: Day 2-3-4 is HARD. Major sleep-deprivation is not something most people ever have to deal with, but you’re describing it exactly when you say that naps don’t help at all, that you sleep through all your alarms and even people trying to wake you. That’s normal, believe it or not. That’s what we’re talking about when we talk about the serious sleep-dep, the “hump” that you have to get over in order to adapt to Uberman. (There is a reason that only a handful of people have ever succeeded at adapting to Uberman, and days 2-4 is that reason.)

"You can still be successful, but I bet you have a better idea now of how serious you’ll have to be in order to make it happen. In order to succeeed, you MUST NOT oversleep. You must get through days 2,3,and 4 feeling like a total zombie, and darn near needing the apocalypse to wake you up. (This is why all the discussion, in my book and on this site, about clever things to rig up to help you wake up: It’s not because people usually need those things on polyphasic schedules. It’s almost all for days 2-4!)

"If you can be that serious, then step back and make some hardcore plans, and figure out some alarms that will work. A friend who’s willing to pour ice-water on you and physically drag you awake can work; so can really extreme alarm setups involving ice, light, water, or danger. (I wouldn’t recommend the last one for fear of a lawsuit, but I did talk to one genius who had a loud alarm, and a second alarm 60 seconds later that would have dropped a whole bucket of forks right on his head. Ouch! But it made him get up for that first alarm.)

"You need to be 100% committed in order to get through that period…and it’ll seem long while you’re in it, but it’s really just a few days; by the end of day 4, with no mistakes, most people are feeling tons better, and by week two it’ll be nearly effortless. The sleep-dep is really unpleasant, but it isn’t dangerous. What IS dangerous is continuing to oversleep and keep going anyway — that can hurt you, if you do it too long. So where you’re at, it’s time to commit or get out of the kitchen, really.

"For what it’s worth, I and the others who’ve adapted to Uberman do think it was worth it. We also shudder whenever we think about those few days of adaptation…it’s a world-class challenge, no lie. Of course, the benefits on the other side are also amazing…"

So, there.  What you should take away from that, I think, is that

*  Uberman is very, very hard to adapt to
*  The hard-hard part is over by the end of the first week, but only if you don’t screw up
*  It’s harder than you think!  It takes mucho commitment and planning to pull it off.  Srsly.
*  Polyphasers do not need whacky alarm-setups to stay on their schedules — the whackiness is just to help with the hard part of the adaptation.  And there’s a good reason for needing that help.  You are NOT going to get past the hard-hard bit with just an alarm clock or three!
*  It’s normal, during the hard part, to feel like a zombie, to feel like the naps aren’t getting you any rest at all, and to develop a near-superhuman ability to oversleep.  You must be able to beat those things, in order to get through the hard part!

…Hope that’s helpful to some of you hopefuls out there! 

P.S.  If you’re actually doing this, don’t forget to read up on When To Quit — there’s a whole section on it in the book, and I’ve talked about it elsewhere, I’m sure.  The upshot is, short-term sleep dep itself won’t hurt you (as long as you don’t operate heavy machinery or anything stupid), but you don’t want to get into long-term sleep-dep.  That means you don’t want to screw up, try again, screw up, try again…you’re just staying sleep-deprived if you do that.  So don’t!!  If you don’t succeed, seriously consider taking at least a month off to sleep normally and plan better before trying again.  Please.