I started attempting uberman at 12/13/2010; that is, two days short of a month ago. I was dreaming during naps pretty quickly, but was routinely oversleeping. I would go about 10 cycles (i.e. 40 hours) of 20 minute naps (not managing to fall asleep for the first one, most of the time) then would sleep through any alarms I set for 8 hours. I was able to push back the 8 hour crash for a day through concerted effort, but never went more than 72 hours without sleeping for more than an hour.
On the 6th, I declared the experiment a failure and switched to attempting Everyman. That has been going much better- I’ve still noticed some oversleeping, but it’ll be an extra hour or two tacked on to my core rather than blowing the schedule like it was with the Uberman.
Advice: Get this alarm clock. The vibrator isn’t as strong as I would like, but the physical sensation is a pretty strong incentive to get up. Condition yourself to get up with your alarm- with the caveat that my conditioning stopped working after enough cycles. Have dance music set up as your alarm / have a dance party with your friend at the start of every cycle. Hang out with your friend continuously- I noticed that human interaction was good at making me more awake (but obviously has limits).
I expected a failure point to be my insomnia, but that wasn’t a big issue. Staying awake also wasn’t that terrible (but, again, I was regularly crashing, so I probably didn’t reach the lowest point). Waking up was the problem for me, and you should take it seriously.
My plan is to attempt Uberman again in the summer with two helpers (day shift / night shift), whose job is to make sure I get up when I need to get up and stay awake when I need to stay awake. Trying this with a friend, you’ll have some help, since both of you will need to fail at the same time for the two of you to fail. But it strikes me as strongly likely that that will happen.
Overall, my impression is mixed. I certainly had a number of interesting experiences attempting to transition, and I may stick with Everyman long-term, but it’s not clear to me that polyphasic works much better than monophasic. I had a lot of dead time where I was too fatigued to do anything besides watch television (something I stopped doing years ago), and so despite spending more time awake I got less done this break. If I had succeeded at transitioning, it would have been worth it, so I’m not complaining too much.
The thing that worries me the most is that I didn’t seem to be able to nap unless really tired. That may be particular to my sedentary lifestyle; when sleeping monophasically, it takes me 30-40 minutes to fall asleep. I’m not sure how to interpret this, because it makes me think that I was in terrible sleep debt all the time but failed to notice after good naps for a few hours, before the demon reared its head again; that doesn’t compare favorably to monophasic, where I had the feeling that I had a giant sleep surplus all the time, such that I had to bore myself to sleep.
But I also have evidence that my mind was working well the periods where I thought it was, rather than that just being an illusion / too tired to notice that I was tired. I was reading quite a bit (when I was awake enough to focus my eyes on the page) and incorporating / remembering what I read. I was coding quite a bit and it was working well (again, when I had the energy).
I’m single, live alone, and have a weekly social outlet- so I didn’t have much social life for this to disrupt. My friends were perfectly understanding about my need to nap, and so I didn’t have any issues on that end.
I’ve made several stabs at uberman. I once made it 9 days, and thought I was on the downslope, but got cocky and screwed it up.
After setting up a really loud alarm on the computer that I had to get up to turn off, the main problem was lack of willpower. At a certain point I would just stop caring enough to continue.
The changes in the way you sleep are quite real and tangible, though. I had 20 minute naps where I would dream bizarre states of mind, where I would feel like I was going insane, only to wake up completely sane and refreshed, as though I had slept eight hours.
In the end I came to the same conclusion as you, that to do this I needed two helpers working in shifts. I tried to recruit some people, but nothing panned out. Do you have specific people lined up? Where do you live?
I’m also single, live alone, and have a weekly social outlet. Very similar experience overall.
Oh, another thing I found helpful was a little device that goes on your ear, which beeps at you if your head tilts forward.
I had 20 minute naps where I would dream bizarre states of mind, where I would feel like I was going insane, only to wake up completely sane and refreshed, as though I had slept eight hours.
My dreams so far have been odd/boring. A number of times I got the impression I was having some sort of REM daydream. The first one that was unambiguously a dream that I could recall was, oddly enough, a nightmare about falling asleep. I also had a dream with no visual input, which I think has been repeated a couple of times.
The naps I wake up from where I was definitely dreaming tend to take 7-10 minutes from lying down to getting up, which is sort of worrisome, since 6 of those means at most an hour of REM. I’m not sure whether the right response is more naps or trying to lengthen the naps.
I tried to recruit some people, but nothing panned out. Do you have specific people lined up? Where do you live?
I have friends I expect I can get to help. Worst comes to worst, I’m considering the possibility of hiring day laborers, but I anticipate quality control issues that make me reluctant to take that approach. I’m living in Austin.
Oh, another thing I found helpful was a little device that goes on your ear, which beeps at you if your head tilts forward.
Enough to get the heart pumping but not enough to fatigue me. I do expect that if I had a more physically demanding life it would be easier to fall asleep. I’m not sure I get any time savings by moving in that direction, though, and doing something like listening to binaural beats or taking melatonin seems more efficient.
I started attempting uberman at 12/13/2010; that is, two days short of a month ago. I was dreaming during naps pretty quickly, but was routinely oversleeping. I would go about 10 cycles (i.e. 40 hours) of 20 minute naps (not managing to fall asleep for the first one, most of the time) then would sleep through any alarms I set for 8 hours. I was able to push back the 8 hour crash for a day through concerted effort, but never went more than 72 hours without sleeping for more than an hour.
On the 6th, I declared the experiment a failure and switched to attempting Everyman. That has been going much better- I’ve still noticed some oversleeping, but it’ll be an extra hour or two tacked on to my core rather than blowing the schedule like it was with the Uberman.
Advice: Get this alarm clock. The vibrator isn’t as strong as I would like, but the physical sensation is a pretty strong incentive to get up. Condition yourself to get up with your alarm- with the caveat that my conditioning stopped working after enough cycles. Have dance music set up as your alarm / have a dance party with your friend at the start of every cycle. Hang out with your friend continuously- I noticed that human interaction was good at making me more awake (but obviously has limits).
I expected a failure point to be my insomnia, but that wasn’t a big issue. Staying awake also wasn’t that terrible (but, again, I was regularly crashing, so I probably didn’t reach the lowest point). Waking up was the problem for me, and you should take it seriously.
My plan is to attempt Uberman again in the summer with two helpers (day shift / night shift), whose job is to make sure I get up when I need to get up and stay awake when I need to stay awake. Trying this with a friend, you’ll have some help, since both of you will need to fail at the same time for the two of you to fail. But it strikes me as strongly likely that that will happen.
Overall, my impression is mixed. I certainly had a number of interesting experiences attempting to transition, and I may stick with Everyman long-term, but it’s not clear to me that polyphasic works much better than monophasic. I had a lot of dead time where I was too fatigued to do anything besides watch television (something I stopped doing years ago), and so despite spending more time awake I got less done this break. If I had succeeded at transitioning, it would have been worth it, so I’m not complaining too much.
The thing that worries me the most is that I didn’t seem to be able to nap unless really tired. That may be particular to my sedentary lifestyle; when sleeping monophasically, it takes me 30-40 minutes to fall asleep. I’m not sure how to interpret this, because it makes me think that I was in terrible sleep debt all the time but failed to notice after good naps for a few hours, before the demon reared its head again; that doesn’t compare favorably to monophasic, where I had the feeling that I had a giant sleep surplus all the time, such that I had to bore myself to sleep.
But I also have evidence that my mind was working well the periods where I thought it was, rather than that just being an illusion / too tired to notice that I was tired. I was reading quite a bit (when I was awake enough to focus my eyes on the page) and incorporating / remembering what I read. I was coding quite a bit and it was working well (again, when I had the energy).
I’m single, live alone, and have a weekly social outlet- so I didn’t have much social life for this to disrupt. My friends were perfectly understanding about my need to nap, and so I didn’t have any issues on that end.
I’ve made several stabs at uberman. I once made it 9 days, and thought I was on the downslope, but got cocky and screwed it up.
After setting up a really loud alarm on the computer that I had to get up to turn off, the main problem was lack of willpower. At a certain point I would just stop caring enough to continue.
The changes in the way you sleep are quite real and tangible, though. I had 20 minute naps where I would dream bizarre states of mind, where I would feel like I was going insane, only to wake up completely sane and refreshed, as though I had slept eight hours.
In the end I came to the same conclusion as you, that to do this I needed two helpers working in shifts. I tried to recruit some people, but nothing panned out. Do you have specific people lined up? Where do you live?
I’m also single, live alone, and have a weekly social outlet. Very similar experience overall.
Oh, another thing I found helpful was a little device that goes on your ear, which beeps at you if your head tilts forward.
My dreams so far have been odd/boring. A number of times I got the impression I was having some sort of REM daydream. The first one that was unambiguously a dream that I could recall was, oddly enough, a nightmare about falling asleep. I also had a dream with no visual input, which I think has been repeated a couple of times.
The naps I wake up from where I was definitely dreaming tend to take 7-10 minutes from lying down to getting up, which is sort of worrisome, since 6 of those means at most an hour of REM. I’m not sure whether the right response is more naps or trying to lengthen the naps.
I have friends I expect I can get to help. Worst comes to worst, I’m considering the possibility of hiring day laborers, but I anticipate quality control issues that make me reluctant to take that approach. I’m living in Austin.
Did you make it or buy it somewhere?
I believe I bought it from amazon. It’s for people driving long distances.
Do you get enough exercise? (not that 30-40 minutes is so long, but it’s a big high)
Enough to get the heart pumping but not enough to fatigue me. I do expect that if I had a more physically demanding life it would be easier to fall asleep. I’m not sure I get any time savings by moving in that direction, though, and doing something like listening to binaural beats or taking melatonin seems more efficient.