A Lack of a Fear of Failure
Hey yo. Sorry about the intermittent postings; things are markedly crazy here. My house is being worked on (largely by me), we’re adding another person to the household mix (for awesome and exciting reasons), and the clock is ticking on the countdown to Starting Me Own Business. (Once that’s happened, I can legitimately put spots on my daily schedule for "Minding Me Own Business", yeah?)
And, oh, lots of stuff. I got my first commissions for chainmail work, so the picky little hobby has the added flavor of (minimal but actual) cash; and I’m trying to study up on math — not physics, which I like, but arithmetic and algebra, which I don’t — so that I don’t fail the test I need to take to get into grad school. Oo, and I got my diploma…and before I had it a day, spilled a whole monsoon of coffee on it. I was upset at first, but then I thought about it, and coffee-stains are so appropriate for a philosophy degree, especially this one. So I’ve decided that it has character now. (Anyway, my awesome husband washed it, and now you can barely tell.)
And while I’m on about fearlessly leaping into doctoral education and small business administration like they’re so many happy lukewarm mud-puddles, I’ve been sort of fearless about my sleep-schedule lately too.
(This part is going behind a cut, because it contains conclusions that strongly depend on having done a polyphasic schedule for over two years now, and if you’re just starting out with, or contemplating, polyphasic sleep, this isn’t necessarily good information for you to have right now. It’s also massively theoretical, being that I’m the only person I know about (besides Dr. Fuller) to do this this long — so if you do read further, please keep in mind that this is my experience and *only* mine.)
(But yeah, I’m getting pretty fast and loose with this…)
So, what with all the Crazy, it’s been hard to get naps for the last couple weeks. I’m estimating that I get all three naps once or twice a week; two naps three to four times a week; and one or even no naps once or twice a week.
This isn’t all my fault — sometimes it’s stress or something keeping me from sleeping, but just as often, it’s maya, the world, that’s getting in the way. I’m basically living a life now that, if I were monophasic and planning on adapting, I’d say there was no way I could fit into a polyphasic framework…but since the framework was already there, and I find giving it up unpalatable, I’ve been basically "trying my best" and sticking with it.
I’ve been watching myself, too, to see if this is having negative health-effects — being one of America’s Ridiculously Many Uninsured, I don’t f*ck around with health stuff — but so far, I see no problems. I try to err on the side of getting enough sleep whenever I can; if my schedule got blendered the day before, I try to make sure I get enough sleep at night to compensate. I continue to be surprised, though, that there are no "crashes" — in all the last two years, I have never fallen out for ten or twelve hours (except when very sick), which you would definitely expect to happen sometimes if this was wearing on me in terms of accumulated sleep-debt. I’m also not usually tired, though obviously I get yawny for about 1/2 hour whenever I miss a nap — even if I slept extra the night before; it’s weird.
It goes down like this: If I get 3 naps (sometimes four), I sleep approximately 3 hours that night. (The "approximate" is usually governed by when I go to bed; sometimes I’m tired early and hit the hay at 12:30 or so; sometimes not until one or even a bit later. I try to listen to myself regarding bedtimes; any time after 12:00, if I get tired, I go lay down.) If I got two naps, I sleep 4.5-5 hours (sometimes by going to bed early; sometimes by waking up closer to 5:30-6:00 instead of 4). One nap means six hours’ sleep — that one’s the most stable of them, believe it or not; if I got one nap I will sleep six hours; it’s so reliable that I often don’t even set an alarm if that happens. And if I got no naps, I’m going to sleep a minimum of seven hours, often longer — how long seems to depend on how stable my schedule was in the days prior to missing all my naps. If it was very stable at 2 or 3 naps a day for several days, I’ll usually only sleep 7 hours; more if things have been wonky longer.
So, I’m still definitely polyphasic, but on what schedule, would you say? This is almost like some bastardized hybrid between polyphasic and free-running sleep; it’s Free Everyman, where the various nap-to-core arrangements come into play as needed. It’s been going on this way for, oh, about a month now, and there doesn’t seem to be any major problems with it yet … I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone as a schedule to adopt — for one thing, I couldn’t even remotely keep doing what I’m doing if it wasn’t for the now-ingrained reflex to nap at certain times of the day — but as a post-schedule or method of staying polyphasic "under fire", it seems to be working nicely. For which I’m very, very glad!
And now, if you don’t mind, naptime. ;)
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Hey, sounds like you’re on the freakishly crazy type of schedule I am as well! I officially dub it the Crazyman’s schedule! Typically I’m seeing 3-4 of my weekdays get somewhere between 3-4.5 hr sleep, and on those days I catch a bus around 1.5 hr after I get up and take a snooze while going to work (don’t ask me how it works so close, but it has…somewhat) I catch a nap during lunch, (6 hr later) and one 4 hr later heading home on the bus. After that I typically have a 8-9 hour block of free crazy space during which I don’t have time for a nap regularly, and I know from experience if I’m not on a solid schedule and I lay down for an evening nap I have a tendency to wake up…in the morning *shudder* groggy and about to die.
One or two days a week I normally will get 6-7.5 hours of sleep (alarm or not)
Funny fact:
Yesterday (Sunday) would have normally been a sleep 7.5ish hr day, no naps, but I was drafted into the dropping-off-at-airport squd and happened to stay up late as well, so I got my nice 3 hours, resigning myself to be groggy all day, decided to get a nap before the rest of my crazy day commenced, crashed for 1.5 hr (2 hr after getting up) and upon getting up, I felt great. I had no naps all day, and I didn’t start feeling the slightest bit sleepy until 2300 that night. I wonder if there is any potential for this, I know I had some good sleep quality during that time, I had some crazy and vivid dreams.
Any thoughts about that? I think I need to experiment…have a good one!
I’ve been on the crazyman as well! Since the wonderful addition of a girlfriend to my life and all sorts of social activities, my schedule has been completely variable for the last 7 months. I usually manage to get 2-3 naps each day and it all generally works. Sometimes I sleep 7-8 hours, other times 3 hours works just fine. I was afraid getting out of a regular rhythm would wreak havoc on how I felt, but it hasn’t at all.
I agree though that this isn’t something for someone starting out to try. I’ve been on everyman for over two years.
- mark
OMG! So there are other people doing this — that’s amazing! I didn’t think it was a new expression of polyphasic sleep at all, so much as a weird sustained chaos on my part (to be fair, I seem to be exceptionally good at sustaining chaos) … but you guys have both nailed it, and it’s fascinating that both of you have been doing everyman for a while, too.
Also, <3 the term “Crazyman”. We’re SO keeping that!
Here’s a question for you, though — do you think that, given years of Everyman, Crazyman was inevitable, or just convenient? Do you think you COULD have stuck with Everyman (or Uberman or something) if you really wanted to? I think I could have, had Life not interfered, but I’m often wrong about my capacity to maintain order (see above!)
Thanks!
Awesome, I’ve coined a new term!
No, I don’t believe Crazyman is inevitable, I would believe it to be a result of hectic lifestyles putting pressure on an otherwise sound schedule. I personally don’t have a lot of time overall on a solid everyman schedule, in fact I spent more time regularly on a Dymaxion schedule if I believe correctly. (which, by the way, was never fully adapted)
I still would like to change my schedule around enough that I would be able to fit a nice Everyman, or even Uberman schedule, but have yet to see that happen. I would love to get rid of the morning sleepies that I tend to get more often than not, what I believe to be a result of an imperfect schedule as well as potentially lighter naps. If I could fit another nap or put one somewhere else this might go away. This I do know: I often grog in the morning, but after that I tend to work fairly well the rest of the day, get tired in the evening, but most importantly, I survive, I thrive, and I operate on much less sleep than most people I know without sleep deprivation.
I think occasional trips on the crazyman train are inevitable, life will just do that to you every now and again. I can easily imagine a future time where I’ll settle back into a consistent everyman schedule.
What I can’t imagine is ever going back to monophasic in the absence of illness. I love the extra wee hours even if they are occasional, and it’s reassuring to know that I can do everyman or even uberman in a pinch. And now naps feel so good that going a whole day without at least two seems like a deprivation.
I hear ya. I’ve now gone three days with perfect 4-a.m. mornings and getting a lot done, and I *almost* want to write a new “look, I’m Everyman again!” post, but geez, I’m sensing that the Everyman/Crazyman distinction is more like the ebb and flow of the tides (or the onset and subsiding of a schizophrenic’s psychotic episodes) than a thing to “be on” one way or the other. (Well, Everyman can be a firm schedule obviously, but when it’s not, it’s just not!)
Anyway, yeah, I feel great, and I’m with you that going all day without a nap now is like, “Huh? You want me to what?” …I function SO MUCH BETTER with at least one short break!