One of the unexpected side-effects I noticed while doing Uberman polyphasic sleep in my various failed attempts way back in 2009 or so was an unpleasant sensation of being unmoored in time: with a lot of little naps wrapping around the clock, there were no clear ‘start’ or ‘end’ times, just one day sliding into another. (I get a similar feeling, at a much lower level, when I travel in the Midwest.) The chronic tiredness and mental dullness from the polyphasic sleep didn’t help either.
I get a similar feeling, at a much lower level, when I travel in the Midwest.
What about traveling in the Midwest gives you this feeling? Is it the travel? Is it the Midwest itself? Is it that you’re in a non-urban part of the Midwest, but you’re used to the hustle and bustle of a city?
I don’t know where gwern went in the Midwest, but in northern parts of the country (like Minnesota, or Seattle) the extreme shortness of the days in winter can produce that effect. When you wake up when it’s dark, spend all day indoors, and the sun has set before you leave work, you can get the same feeling of days blending into one another, because you never notice the sun rise or set.
Oh yeah, I think I get something similar when my sleep schedule gets very out of whack, or for some reason when I moved into my new house in January, though it went back to normal with time. (Potentially relevant features there: bedroom didn’t seem very separated from common areas, at first was sleeping on a pile of yoga mats instead of a bed, didn’t get out much.)
One of the unexpected side-effects I noticed while doing Uberman polyphasic sleep in my various failed attempts way back in 2009 or so was an unpleasant sensation of being unmoored in time: with a lot of little naps wrapping around the clock, there were no clear ‘start’ or ‘end’ times, just one day sliding into another. (I get a similar feeling, at a much lower level, when I travel in the Midwest.) The chronic tiredness and mental dullness from the polyphasic sleep didn’t help either.
What about traveling in the Midwest gives you this feeling? Is it the travel? Is it the Midwest itself? Is it that you’re in a non-urban part of the Midwest, but you’re used to the hustle and bustle of a city?
I don’t know where gwern went in the Midwest, but in northern parts of the country (like Minnesota, or Seattle) the extreme shortness of the days in winter can produce that effect. When you wake up when it’s dark, spend all day indoors, and the sun has set before you leave work, you can get the same feeling of days blending into one another, because you never notice the sun rise or set.
Oh yeah, I think I get something similar when my sleep schedule gets very out of whack, or for some reason when I moved into my new house in January, though it went back to normal with time. (Potentially relevant features there: bedroom didn’t seem very separated from common areas, at first was sleeping on a pile of yoga mats instead of a bed, didn’t get out much.)