Oversleeping
Zielony
10th attempt I've made at uberman over the past 3 years. The same
thing always happens, I end up oversleeping once or twice a day by 1-4
hours. This gets worse and worse until I finally realize I'm not
making progress and give up, usually because I've run out of time
(tests in school). I really wish I could convince one of my friends
to try uberman with me. It would be so much easier to adapt. Failing
is really frustrating.
The way I usually oversleep:
- Wake up half asleep, turn all alarms off, lay back down. Wake up 2
hours later and don't remember anything.
Ways to prevent oversleeping (doing most of these):
- Have someone wake you up
- Have multiple alarm clocks (ipod, itunes playlist)
- Keep alarm clocks far away from bed.
- Move alarm clocks regularly so that they are harder to find
- Sleep with lights on
- Sleep on the floor (no mattress)
- Practice getting up immediately once alarm goes off
- Write notes for myself taped to my alarm clock (ex. "If you lie down
again you will oversleep", "alarm is set for correct time, get up
now".)
- "Clean up" bed. (I sleep with a blanket and pillow on the floor,
after my naps, I fold up the blanket and set it and the pillow on top
of something)
New ideas (untested):
- Wake up calls
- Sleep outside (its cold in minnesota)
- Sleep in a sauna (200 degrees), is this dangerous? My parents have a
sauna in their basement. I've fallen asleep in it before and just
wake up really uncomfortable after 10-20 minutes.
- Drink a cup of coffee immediately before taking nap
- Drink ~2 gallons of water a day, so that I have to get up and pee
every hour. Is this dangerous?
Does anyone have any other ideas? I'm getting desperate.
Daniel Smith
Also do not recommend the caffeine nap; it could screw up your next nap. But maybe worth trying once. Caffeine has a half-life of about five hours (in an average human), so you definitely won't be able to do it several naps in a row.
You could try setting your alarms for a few minutes less or more, in hopes of awaking at a better point in your sleep cycle.
It is physically possible to kill yourself by drinking too much water, but it's difficult. Not sure if it's physically possible to drink two gallons of water in a day. You should google this. Drinking a less extreme but still large amount of water is a good idea, though-- I found myself needing a lot more water on Everyman, and I've seen others here say the same.
One thing you might consider is your diet; I find that carbs make me very sleepy (they turn to sugar and cause your body to make insulin, which tells your body to be sleepy and store fat). I switched to a paleolithic/very low carb diet and I feel much better all around, not just because it seems I need less sleep that way. Wheat seems to be especially bad to me. Anyway, you might consider experimenting.
Try taking your naps sitting up. Use no covers, dress warmly. (I have started using covers and eye shades now that I'm more or less adapted, but didn't need them while adapting. Sleep on your back on a tennis ball. I don't know. My rule is you can't turn off the alarm until you're standing. If I can obey it, I don't have problems. Unless I get overconfident and sit down to read at the wrong time...
Hope this helps and that your message didn't experience the moderation delay some have. Good luck and keep us posted.
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Aya Hu
"Oversleeping". Are you drinking caffeine? Are you drinking alchohol?
Are you doing any form of drug?
It could simply be a case of the winter. In that case, why not embrace
the oversleep, and set your 'core nap' for whatever time is
convenient. Then, start setting an alarm in the middle, and keep
setting it, until one day, you wake up. Needing to pee will not wake
you up during adaptation.
The general rule of thumb is 50-70% of your body weight in water.
Don't sleep outside or in a sauna, it won't help when your body wants
that sleep. Cut out nasty toxins like caffeine. Don't drink caffeine
before a nap, it will mess you up. I would suggest embracing the 3
hour nap, and continuing to set an alarm until one day you just pop up
from it.
Having a friend may seem awesome, and has a few benefits, but waking
eachother up is not one. How many times my twin and I got in a big row
because one of us was blaming the other for not waking one of us up.
It led to us finally saying "YOU are responsible for YOU." Most
polyphasic companions go through the same at one point.
Don't get desperate, start addressing what is going on. Ask why you
are truly going polyphasic. Embrace what your body is telling you if
you don't have the will to shun it.
cavendi...@gmail.com
consistent
with your body's circadian rhythm. In a best case uberman transition,
you need
to do two things:
(1) adapt from monophasic to polyphasic
(2) adapt from ~8 hours of sleep a day to ~2 hours of sleep a day.
If you don't schedule your naps very carefully, you're adding a third
thing:
(3) shift your circadian rhythm. (think moderate jet lag)
This is, IMHO, the reason most uberman attempts fail. Most people, in
planning a schedule, do so around work or school or other waking
commitments, and simply assume their body will figure things out.
Some people get lucky, some people manage to struggle through it.
Most people end up oversleeping a lot and give up.
My suggestion would be to either change your polyphasic schedule, or
adjust your circadian clock before attempting to transition to
polyphasic. I realize this advice is next to useless, since finding
the right timing for naps is not simple.
On a largely unrelated note, I notice from your email address that
you're at UW. I was in Madison when I was polyphasic, and have fond
memories of doing my grocery shopping at Woodmans at 2:00 or 3:00 in
the morning.
Cavendish
Oki
be awesome if you could find one. Ideally (as you say) you would have
a friend that you did it with, but PolyP is still very very rare so
finding one is easier said than done. Maybe we could start some sort
of buddy system here so people could volunteer to help guide newbs one-
on-one, give wake-up calls, etc. One of the best things about having
a buddy isn't just the wake-up help (don't get me wrong - that's
awesome too), but is giving judgement over to someone else who's
judgement isn't being influenced by personal severe sleep
deprivation.
As for sleeping in 'uncomfortable' situations - there has been a lot
of discussion of that here before. I've done it myself. It works to
an extent (not the sauna though. Don't do that. Just don't go
there.), but I've started to realize that if you have to resort to
punishing yourself for all your natural tendencies then you're
basically fighting with yourself all the time, which isn't a
productive way to live. I think you're better off troubleshooting and
training yourself more. Try the 'feet hit the floor' method and
practice it. Set your alarm for 1 minute and lay down. When the
alarm goes off put your feet on the floor and stand right up! See how
fast you can do it. Repeat over and over again. When you sleep
through your alarm your body is being trained to ignore it. When you
do this exercise you are training yourself to respond to it.
Also, maybe you need more than 6 naps a day (see my posts on Fast
Adaption).
Oki
Zielony
for the quick responses.
What I think happens when I oversleep is I'll wake up, stand up, walk
over to my alarm, turn it off, come up with some nonsensical reason
for why I should go lie back down, and then immediately fall asleep
after lying down. I don't remember this later though. I'm not
drinking caffeine, am trying to drink as little alcohol as possible
and have no weird psychological problems. I have no commitments right
now, so my naps right now are all exactly 4 hours apart, but I'm
exhausted from 7 am - noon, so I'll try napping every 2 hours then
instead. If I'm really tired before a nap and there's no one
available to wake me up I'll try sleeping while sitting or drinking
half a cup of coffee right before. I've been meaning to start a low
carb diet for a while. So I think i'll start today. I won't try any
goofy sleep outside ideas haha. Thanks for the suggestions.
Charlotte Ellett
Edward Anderson
<cavendi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> (3) shift your circadian rhythm. (think moderate jet lag)
> This is, IMHO, the reason most uberman attempts fail. Most people, in
> planning a schedule, do so around work or school or other waking
> commitments, and simply assume their body will figure things out.
> Some people get lucky, some people manage to struggle through it.
> Most people end up oversleeping a lot and give up.
>
> My suggestion would be to either change your polyphasic schedule, or
> adjust your circadian clock before attempting to transition to
> polyphasic. I realize this advice is next to useless, since finding
> the right timing for naps is not simple.
To shift my circadian rhythm before polyphasing, I napped at my chosen
times for 2 weeks before taking out my 8 hour core sleep at night.
That ended up meaning that I had to stay up until 1:30am instead of
12am that I would usually go to bed at. Staying up till 1:30 every day
was tough! Just like adjusting to jet lag is tough. After a week or so
though, my circadian rhythm shifted to match my new 1:30 nap schedule.
That meant 1 less thing my body would have to adjust to when I took
out my core and started napping at night. I really think it helped -
my adapting period hasn't been as zombie-like as many others'. I would
recommend this to anyone to ease the adaptation process.
Edward Anderson
this is the best thing you could ever do to prevent problems. Having
someone else that staggers naps by 30min with you makes nullifies all
of the things that cause you to oversleep or accidentally fall asleep.
We've made it through a week with almost zero problems. If you've
read Ubersleep, you'll note that this is also how Puredoxyk was able
to pull it off.
Given that you can't always find someone to who is willing, you can
achieve the same benefit by getting a pool of people who will let you
hang out with them while you're adapting, who will help make sure that
you don't oversleep, etc. This was my original plan. I had many
friends lined up who were willing to help me out with this adventure.
For example, late night gamer friends were more than willing to hang
out earlier in the night. My little brother had been getting up at
5:00 every morning to do before-school activities, and was willing to
be up with me at that time of the day during break with me. It takes
time to line all this up, but I believe that having people with you is
the only feasible method to successfully adapting to uberman for most
of us.
Nobody was really interested in doing uberman with me, so I went with
the plan I just mentioned. While I was the guys I'd hang out with, I'd
tell them more about it. One guy was really curious and wanted to at
least learn more about polyphasic. I gave him my copy of the Ubersleep
book to read, and pointed him at Steve Pavlina's blog. He has been an
insomniac for ages, so when he found out that Puredoxyk's sleep issues
were solved via living as an uberman, I could hardly stop him from
joining me. We've been doing this together for about a week now, and
we've saved each other from sleeping probably 20 times already. haha.
I can't imagine doing it any other way.
On a separate note, have you tried Placebo's polynap tracks for
sleeping and waking up to? They've been really helpful to me for
oversleeping when my partner isn't around. Usually I wake up at the
beginning of the wakeup sequence, but at times I've gotten half way
through all the really loud and bizarre sounds, which finally woke me
up in the way a repetitive alarm or random iTunes song never could.
The 18 minute one works best for me waking up refreshed.
http://placebo.serv.co.za/?page_id=7
Edward
blog: http://nilbus.trypolyphasic.com/
Edward Anderson
> Having a friend may seem awesome, and has a few benefits, but waking
> eachother up is not one. How many times my twin and I got in a big row
> because one of us was blaming the other for not waking one of us up.
> It led to us finally saying "YOU are responsible for YOU." Most
> polyphasic companions go through the same at one point.
What you said is true about responsibility. Only you can be ultimately
responsible for keeping yourself on schedule.
The only problem is that there are two yous - your conscious and
subconscious. When sleep deprived, you are often oblivious to the fact
that you're screwing up. You don't realize you're sleeping in. You
don't realize that you shut off your alarm and went to bed. You don't
realize you're micro-sleeping while trying to get work done, except
when you look at a clock and realize hours just went by in what you
thought was 2 minutes. And you wake up later and realize Crap! WTF
just happened? Why am I so stupid to have slept in again? Having a
friend with you can help you bring out your conscious self, rather
than letting the subconscious take control and put you to sleep.
Edward
Zielony
alarm". You can't be completely dependent on someone else. My ex-
girlfriend said she'd probably do this with me if I got back together
with her. Maybe... haha. I like the idea of getting people to agree
to hang out with you all the time. I've been sort of doing this,
since my dad gets up for work at 6, my mom is there in the mornings
and my brothers are up until 3am. I'm going to start using the
placebo sleep track again. I used it all the time two years ago, when
I first started trying this. Charlotte, I think your ramble is full
of good advice, but I'm going to go a few more weeks before I accept
the fact that uberman isn't necessarily possible for me.
At this point I'm not so much trying uberman for the extra free time.
I'm just curious as to what it would feel like to get over the first
week of zombie-ism. Also, after trying to adapt for a month, all my
friends and family have found out about my "ridiculous" sleep
schedule. They all think it's impossible and think I'm being
retarded. Obviously, I want to prove them wrong. Finally, I love how
staying up all night feels and the just whole concept in general.
Aya Hu
What you say is absolutely true, but on multiple occasions I spoke to
my unconscious twin, believing she was conscious, came back to her 5
minutes later, and she was asleep. Long story short, both her and I
woke each other up and both her and I at times did not remember the
other waking us up, even when both her and I had overseen each one go
to the computer, or get up and walk around to make sure the sleeper
was fully awake. We would come in 10 minutes later and said person
would be asleep again, and after waking up a second time, would not
remember getting up and going to the computer or walking around.
This happened only a few times, but one time I yelled at her for not
waking me up after sleeping for three hours, she said she DID and I
even went to my computer so she thought I was safe and awake, but I
had no recollection. It also makes you a little snappy (Can be very
snappy depending on the person) so acknowledging the snappiness is due
to the adapting and sleep deprivation is imperative.
These were during the hardest days at the 'lowest' hours, as most of
the day are 'peak' hours, and the lower hours are farther in between.
But they happen, and it's just a word of caution if anyone ever enters
into this with someone else. It can be very beneficial, you can also
do things together that no one else can because no one else is awake.
All of our friends get tired and exhausted but we continue rolling and
rolling.. so we can continue to be out while everyone else retires.
It's pretty neat in that sense.
Aya
On Dec 27, 4:52 am, Edward Anderson <nil...@gmail.com> wrote:
Keighsie Hu
Actually having someone is only advantageous in the times that your
body would naturally wake anyways. As in, if you are a zombie who
goes to the alarm and turns it off and walks back into bed with no
recollection, then having a partner may not be an advantage to you (as
Aya described I woke her up many times, forced her out of bed, she
would get on her computer, yell at me for being "too loud" and then
I'd leave, come back in ten minutes and she'd be asleep with no
recollection of yelling at me at all! Hahaha)
One thing I did find incredibly helpful, though, was having someone to
talk to on the phone after my nap that had my circadian cycle in it.
So if I was getting really tired at midnight, I kept talking to my
friend at midnight, and conversation is stimulating of course, so it
really helped change it. Also, you can change your circadian cycle
while you are adapting, I think of it as part of the adaptation phase,
as in part of the 30 days of adaptation that you -will- go through if
you want to turn polyphasic.
After a few weeks Aya and I would change a nap time here and there if
it was giving us problems. Also, after about 2-3 weeks you can
experiment with nap minutes. I set my alarm for precisely 22
minutes. If I set it for 23 I wake up after my dream has ended
completely groggy. If I do it for more, who knows what, and if I do
it for less I get torn from my sleep just too early (although this
morning I was reaching for a delicious coconut sugar cookie in my
dream and then the alarm went off!! I hate it when that happens!!!)
:P
Edward Anderson
can do to snap someone out of that weird zombie state where the person
is moving but not really conscious.
The guy I'm doing this with right now has been sleeping on the couch
for 4 hours now. I try to wake him, and he just goes back. I've pretty
much given up on him for now. He has some crazy idea that he came up
with in his sleep about how if he sets his alarm for every 10 minutes,
he can lie down all night and make it like he was up the whole time. I
think his mind is tricking him into thinking he's lying there awake,
even though he passes out every time he hits the couch and sleeps
through his 10 minute alarm every other time. :-/ What do I do with
this guy? He wants to polyphase, but he won't do what it takes to stay
awake. It may just take letting him fail for him to realize that he
needs to do things differently.
Edward
HalfABrain
deprived, that make it seem OK to get the sleep you so badly want!
Later in the day when he's in his right mind, he'll probably wonder
what the heck he was thinking.
I think the most effective thing I did when adapting was to devise a
detailed tracking system to track my progress. There's something
powerful about making hard decisions in advance, especially when your
brain is going to be fuzzy and your will power is going to be
impeded. When you're in the middle of zombie mode and you want sleep
so badly it hurts, it helps to realize that you knew it was going to
be this bad and you already planned what you were going to do. Start
checking off things on the check list. Stand up. Check. Turn off
alarm. Check. Make my bed. Check. Record how long that nap was and
if I dreamed anything. Check. Evaluate how I feel and record that.
Check. At this point the check list is going to be different
depending on time of day. Sometimes at 4 in the morning for me it was
just "Put on my snowboarding outfit and go for a walk outside. And
stay out there for 3 and a half hours." The point was that I made the
checklist yesterday at 2 in the afternoon when my mind was clear
(well, almost clear) and my will power wasn't impaired and I could
actually make rational decisions and I could remember why I was doing
things to myself that HURT. At 4 in the morning, all I knew was that
I wanted to check things off my check list because that's what I was
supposed to do. And that if I DIDN'T check these things off, it would
hurt worse. And longer.
There were a couple of times that I talked myself into changing the
schedule and taking an extra nap. I can rationalize really well when
my brain is fuzzy and I hurt. But the next afternoon when I was
analyzing my progress and making the checklist for the next night, I
was angry at myself for screwing up. Then I could write on the next
checklist "Don't come in early. You will regret it. YOU ARE STRONGER
THAN THAT." And then I would be.
Make as many of your decisions as possible during lucid hours.
Zombies are really good at following orders, but really bad at making
good decisions.
On Dec 28, 7:13 am, Edward Anderson <nil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I think in a large way you're right. There's only so much you
> can do to snap someone out of that weird zombie state where the person
> is moving but not really conscious.
>
> The guy I'm doing this with right now has been sleeping on the couch
> for 4 hours now. I try to wake him, and he just goes back. I've pretty
> much given up on him for now. He has some crazy idea that he came up
> with in his sleep about how if he sets his alarm for every 10 minutes,
> he can lie down all night and make it like he was up the whole time. I
> think his mind is tricking him into thinking he's lying there awake,
> even though he passes out every time he hits the couch and sleeps
> through his 10 minute alarm every other time. :-/ What do I do with
> this guy? He wants to polyphase, but he won't do what it takes to stay
> awake. It may just take letting him fail for him to realize that he
> needs to do things differently.
>
> Edward
>
Aya Hu
jerry1962
and he'll come to 100% wide-awake Beta consciousness. Here's how:
My brother and I were charged with getting our two young cousins up
for school. Nothing we tried worked. It was a real war, let me tell
you.
Then I came up with the idea of breaking an ammonia inhalant under
their nose. He did the dirty work.
They jumped out of that bed so fast, like a speeding rocket, that we
both cracked up laughing. It produced a violent awakening.
After a couple of times, all their subconscious minds had to do was to
sense us coming into the bedroom, and they woke up; a 100% cure.
I dare you to try it. He WILL wake up; I promise you.
On Dec 28, 6:13 am, Edward Anderson <nil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I think in a large way you're right. There's only so much you
> can do to snap someone out of that weird zombie state where the person
> is moving but not really conscious.
>
> The guy I'm doing this with right now has been sleeping on the couch
> for 4 hours now. I try to wake him, and he just goes back. I've pretty
> much given up on him for now. He has some crazy idea that he came up
> with in his sleep about how if he sets his alarm for every 10 minutes,
> he can lie down all night and make it like he was up the whole time. I
> think his mind is tricking him into thinking he's lying there awake,
> even though he passes out every time he hits the couch and sleeps
> through his 10 minute alarm every other time. :-/ What do I do with
> this guy? He wants to polyphase, but he won't do what it takes to stay
> awake. It may just take letting him fail for him to realize that he
> needs to do things differently.
>
> Edward
>
jerry1962
don't want to use the inhalants, just dab a cotton ball with ammonia.
The awakening is violent and immediate.
Edward Anderson
Ian Turner
substance. On contact with mucous membranes, such as the nasal cavity or
lungs, it quickly reacts into ammonium hydroxide, which destroys cell walls,
causing immediate cell death. Although ammonia has a distinctive smell, one of
the effects of ammonia inhalation is to lose the ability to smell ammonia.
I'd suggest not using this technique, but if you must then do so using diluted
ammonia, use it sparingly and never on children.
Another possibility might be denatonium, which is harmless but unbearably
bitter. It is typically included in rubbing alcohol, so one option might be to
dilute the alcohol down to a less toxic threshold (say 20% alcohol by volume).
If you do this, of course, make sure it is actually denatured with denatonium
and not something toxic like methanol.
Cheers,
--Ian
jerry1962
second, and I really do mean a split second. The "victim" shoots up
out of bed like a rocket! It's hilarious to watch.
It must also be remembered that if this use of ammonia was truly
dangerous, those ammonia inhalants would not be in every First Aid
kit.
To be fair, I don't think it's wise to overuse this technique. I don't
think this is possible, anyway. The subconscious mind learns very
quickly (two or three days) that this stuff means "get yo' ass up!"