Day 2

Today has been overall very successful. Last night Maggie and I accomplished many things including: writing our novels, playing DDR, watching Legend of the Seeker (awesome show based on Sword of Truth series), taking a refresher SCUBA course, showering, and creating this blog. The day went very well overall. I felt normal energy levels and mental acuity for the most part. I expect this to decline temporarily for the next few days. 

The main problem I encountered was not being able to fall asleep in that 30 min window. I have trouble getting to sleep quickly normally, but I had hoped my sleep deprivation would have made this moot. However, I haven't really been that tired today and have found napping difficult and sometimes frustrating. Sleeping in the Astrophysics building was also difficult as it involves lying on a bed in one of the bathrooms, which invariably people will use throughout your nap. I was unable to sleep at all at 12pm, 3pm, or 9pm today. 

The lack of sleep is starting to show, however. I was reading about a 64 year old man in Vietnam, Thai Ngoc, who hasn't been able to sleep at all (not even for a nap!) for over 33 years after a bad fever. He has remained in excellent health despite this. Unbelievable. My main loopy moment for the day started around 30 min ago when I had the thought process, that he must have some crazy genetics that is allowing him to even live, let alone healthily, on no sleep. I envied this physiological adaptation and surmised on how I could invoke time travel to change my parents and thus my genes. Needless to say, it wasn't a very coherent few sentences to Maggie's great delight.

Though I am too tired to check for more sources to verify the veracity of this tale, here is the article: http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=12673

Polyphasic sleeping may be impossible by oneself without extreme, superhuman, "Steve Pavlian" discipline. Maggie had to wake me up one nap since my phone was mistakenly set to a tone rather than vibrate which was useless to me since I was wearing ear plugs. Furthermore, I believe I would have succumbed the the pressures of oversleeping by now. I had a distinct feeling of "what on Earth are you doing? Are you crazy?" as I was waking up from a nap at our office. The moral support of someone else to get over the adjustment period is vital to one's resolve.

In our research of other people's experiences, grapes seem to be the food craving most often experienced. Maggie read that are supposed to help with sleep deprivation. We decided to preempt this craving and went to the grocery store from 10pm to 11:30pm to buy fresh fruit for smoothies and many, many grapes.  

- Daily Summary -

Health: So far so good. Not even the sore throat I usually get with little sleep.

Energy Level: Amazingly good considering. I was groggy after my 6am and 12am naps today.

Daily Functioning: Nearly same as normal. Though breaking up the day in 2.5 hour chunks can be unproductive if you aren't careful.

Academic Performance: Still was able to meet with my advisor and accomplish things. Phew. Thankfully she knows about this experiment.

Social Performance: Trying to make dinner plans with a friend is proving difficult. She is only available straddling my unflinchingly rigid nap times. 

Maggie's Thoughts:

I felt the day was relatively comfortable; 2.5 hour periods aren't that hard to get through and I only felt a slight overall tiredness throughout the day. Napping at the CfA is an interested experience -I feel funny walking through the halls carrying my blanket and pillowcase. We discovered a rival for the most private bed location - the cafeteria cart lady. She usurped our bed during the 3pm nap time, forcing us both to nap in the less private washrooms where women come in and out and pretty often. I am not sure how we can get around this since I heard she is often found in the nursing room (napping?) when not at her post. Unfortunately the cart closes at 2:30pm so it seems likely that she will beat us to the 3pm nap on a regular basis.  

In addition to the cafeteria lady, the MBTA also seems to be out to get us. A 20 minute bus delay caused us to be late for our 6pm nap. I was about ready to nod off on the bus.

Despite this, I am little surprised as how difficult it is to fall asleep during naptimes (even in my 9pm nap this evening when I was quite tired and it was dark outside). I only achieved actual sleep in about 50% of my  naptimes but I think I am getting closer to reaching the coveted instant REM cycle. 

I think that I can attribute some of this success to my experiment with binaural beats. Binaural beats are created by the brain when it hears a mixture of two tones at slightly different frequencies. This can be achieved by playing a different tone in each ear with stereo-headphones. There is some 'evidence' that listening to binaural beats can encourage the brain to enter the state of mind whose brainwave frequency corresponds to the beat frequency. In particular 'theta' (4-7 Hz) waves correspond to REM sleep and 'delta' (<4hz)>

So far I can't say it has necessarily been working but I did notice that during one of my 'naps' at the CfA (during which I never actually fell asleep) I started to have more vivid imaginings in the theta wave portion of the cycle and even feel slight loss of bodily awareness around the delta wave portion. I am going to try improving the playlist by including a more gradual transition from the higher frequency beta and alpha waves which are normal for active cognition and pre-sleep relaxation. Hopefully this will help me fall asleep faster. 

Sarah noticed I am starting to lose mental acuity while at the grocery store. I stared unresponsively at the receipt quite some time while she asked if she could have my backpack to put the food in several times. In my defense I was handed a 10 foot long paper chain full of mysterious coupons - hard enough to figure out with a proper night's sleep. 

I did have a terrible time trying to submit some observation files today (it took me 4 tries to get one file right) but I don't know if that was because of lack of sleep or just me being distracted.

-Daily Summary-

Health: Pretty good. A little sniffly but my allergies were already acting up.

Energy Level: Minor overall feeling of tiredness except following afternoon naps when I was much more energized. Energy level degradation preceding and following evening and night naps.

Daily Functioning: Feel as though I am living nap to nap (2.5 hours is a bit short to accomplish things). Mental responses slowing down after 9pm, a little dazed. 

Academic Performance: Keep making stupid mistakes (might not be from sleep deprivation though) also low productivity due to only 3 hours actual spent working. 

Social Performance: No serious issues yet but anticipating problems with plans over the coming days.