OK, two days, and I suddenly oversleep… I think my whole body is tired by the idea of knowingly getting so tired, and just gives up. I have decided to go biphasic for a while, and try polyphasic again when my life is more polyphasic friendly.

After all of my attempts at polyphasic sleep, I’ve gained quite a bit of experience regarding how to avoid oversleeping. In this post, I’ll share some of the methods I’ve tried, and a few ideas for new ones.

The Methods That Just Work

Have a friend wake you up. This is, in my experience, the ultimate way to go. The reasons for this are many:

• You will wake up.
• You are probably going to be like a zombie for 5–10 minutes.
• You might feel more motivated.

Note that a friend can keep you awake too, which is an added bonus.

Methods That Might Work:

Putting on several alarms. This also comes with added bonuses:

• You might wake up someone else to come and wake you up.
• You won’t want that second/third/etc. alarm to go off.

I did well when I used one regular alarm and one incredibly loud one. The reason was that the loud one would wake up the whole house. (It never got the chance.)

Sleep in a chair (NOT in a couch!). This one is quite good. I never overslept in a chair. The drawback was that the zombie me would walk over to the couch once the alarm shut up. Better than sleeping in a bed, though.

Methods That Haven’t Been Tested Yet:

Have some fruit waiting for you. I think this one sounds promising. Eating passes the time, and the sugar in fruit should kick you awake – great for passing the zombie state. I think grapes would work well, as well as (peeled) oranges – easy to eat, and full of carbs.

Put an alarm under a box. I kinda tried this out, but I never got to test it in a zombie state. I think the logic required to turn off the alarm should force you to become more awake. At least you’d pass the time a little.

Have someone call you right after you’ve woken up. It can be irritating to talk to a zombie, or to talk as a zombie. You should be forced awake, nonetheless.

I think the best would be a combination of all of the above. That’s what I plan on trying.

Please submit your own suggestions! They shouldn’t be too complex, considering the state of tiredness associated with a polyphasic attempt.

OK, I’ve ended the experiment for now. It was a pain in the ass to go to school and stay awake in those classes, I failed virtually every night because of some stupid mistake, and I ended up doing a horrible history test (at least I think so – I’ve yet to see the results).

Tonight, I decided to play it safe and go to sleep at 3:40, so I would wake up with Joar. I went to sleep in a chair – and woke up in the couch around 5:30, with the cell phone (which I’d hidden behind an exercise bike) lying on the table, and both my alarms on the computer turned off.

So – where was Joar? I checked his room, and he was asleep. He’d forgotten to set the alarm. He even asked why I hadn’t woken him up! This made my motivation disappear. When I try again in the easter holiday, I’ll make a checklist to make sure I take care of things like these.

Today, I’ve been sleeping like this for two weeks. I had a the worst night ever tonight – great timing. I’ve decided to stick to polyphasic if I don’t fail this week-end. If I do fail, I’ll try again in the next holidays.

Night (am):

I checked the sound, put on three alarms, and went to sleep in the usual chair. When I woke up in the couch (!) three hours later, and noticed my computer was muted. This is the last time (in quite some time, at least) I go to sleep just after midnight. I’ll wait until 3:40am, so Joar will wake up with me.

Morning:

As if the night wasn’t bad enough, I slept for about an hour after Joar went to Vatland. >.< The next time I feel that tired, I will go out and over to grandma’s. She’s up pretty early, and drives me to the bus anyway.

At the bus, I was way too demotivated to stay awake, so I slept for at least ten minutes. For the first time ever, I managed to (unconsciously) fall asleep in the aula at school:

slept for ~10 min, and woke up just in time for class. The others should have woken me up, though.

A note on my clothes, by the way: I am a pacifist, so why do I wear a military uniform? Five reasons:

1. I like the colours.
2. My clothes don’t make me who I am.
3. They’re comfortable.
4. They’re used and cheap.
5. Why not?

Day:

Nothing to note, other than the fact that I slept in both buses on the way home, too.

Evening:

Nothing to note, but I’ve eaten the same kind of meal as yesterday.

I’m going to try a (dangerous) reward tactic instead of the failed punishment. I’m going to allow myself to have rice and beans – ONCE! Rice (brown) and beans are an addiction of mine, and I have impressed myself in staying away from them in the past – that was the hardest part of going raw. Now I’ll use it as a tactic to keep me going for five consecutive nights and days, and then allow myself to taste it again.

Night (am):

I wrote the wrong file path, and thus didn’t wake up. :( Now I’ve made an alias. It’s tested and works. Why didn’t I do that before?

Morning:

I slept ~5 min. at the “wake” bus, but it wasn’t continually, so I don’t know if it even matters.

Day:

I had nothing to do, and I was all alone, so I slept for ~5–10 min. in the study area at school. Sleeping at school sucks because it’s so uncomfortable. As usually I slept wonderfully at both buses.

Evening:

I had my best raw meal ever! Mashed avocado, salad, and mushrooms with olive oil and salt, everything mixed well together.

I’m going to try a (dangerous) reward tactic instead of the failed punishment. I’m going to allow myself to have rice and beans - ONCE! Rice (brown) and beans are an addiction of mine, and I have impressed myself in staying away from them in the past - that was the hardest part of going raw. Now I’ll use it as a tactic to keep me going for five consecutive nights and days, and then allow myself to taste it again.

Night (am):

I wrote the wrong file path, and thus didn’t wake up. :( Now I’ve made an alias. It’s tested and and works. Why didn’t I do that before?

Morning:

I slept for ~5 min. at the “wake” bus, but it wasn’t continually, so I don’t know if it even matters.

Day:

I had nothing to do, and I was all alone, so I slept for ~5-10 min. in the study area at school. Sleeping at school sucks because it’s so uncomfortable. As usual, I slept wonderfully on both buses.

Evening:

I had my best raw meal ever! Mashed avocado, salad, and mushroom with olive oil and salt, everything mixed well together.

Night (am):

As mentioned, I fell asleep, but woke up after only two hours. The rest of the night went great, as I had Rosine to talk to and Joar woke up at 4.

Morning:

I ate some fruit on the bus, so I stayed awake today as well. I slept very heavily on the second bus.

Day:

During the first period, Norwegian, I felt very tired for a while, but it passed. I slept heavily on the bus home.

Evening:

All is well. :) When I’m alone, I’ll sit on the stool, but for now, the couch will do.

Morning:

Today I’m happy Joar was there for me! I was so tired this morning, I wouldn’t stand a chance alone. I managed to stay awake at the first bus by playing with the “mkdir” and “rmdir”. I slept at the other one, as planned.

Day:

At school, I tried to sleep during study period, but it lasted five minutes at most. I had an uncomfortable position.

Night:

Everything went fine until between 1 and 2 am. I slept for ~2 hours. :(

I’ve been without connection to the Internet for a few days. Sorry I couldn’t update – it happened so suddenly. It will probably be more stable by today or tomorrow.

Saturday, day 9:

I overslept because I didn’t push the enter button properly. The super alarm doesn’t work without enter. If you’re wondering, the alarm looked like this this: [sleep 25m ; age]. Note that “age” is an alias for opening Age of Empires II. My new alarm looks like this: [sleep 25 ; vlc "~/Skrivebord/Teen_Titans_(Japanese).mp3"]. I’ll make an alias as soon as I decide which song to use, though. I think I’ll go with the very loud song “Valhall Awaits Me”, by Amon Amarth.

My brother has agreed to wake up at four to keep me awake. :D He usually gets up at 4:30, at weekdays, but he’ll do it this weekend too.

Nothing more to report, except that I lost a bet with Kent Jonny and now owe him a cake for oversleeping. That was the last time I forgot the enter button.

Sunday, day 10:

Today went great – no oversleeping! If Joar keeps me awake every day, this’ll be a piece of cake. :) I slept on most allowed occasions from 4:00-12:00, and now I feel great. Super Smash Bros. Melee before sunrise really got me going.

Tonight I ate a huge party meal – avocado, mushrooms, lettuce, olive oil, and salt. I think I ate a little too much, because I felt kind of stuffed. This didn’t help in keeping me awake, and neither did the fact that mom put back the chair that I moved because it made me fall asleep. I did oversleep for ~2.5 hours – which made me miss the (rare) sunrise! :( And this evening, there were clouds blocking the sun, so I couldn’t gaze.

I’ll start writing logs when something interesting happens, and update my posts. Around midnight (00:00 GMT +1) I will name the posts “Polyphasic/Powiull Sleep – Day x”, for the sake of neat and tidy archives.

(This was posted late because I overslept.)

Today I’ve been sleeping like this for a week. I think I’m adjusting, but time will tell. Today I’ve tried to sleep twice without succeeding – I guess I’m not tired enough. Good.

After reading different polyphasic sleep logs, I have decided that future updates will be written at the moments, rather than in summary. This will result in more accurate results, as my memory is less than perfect during the night.

Also, my cousin Kent Jonny has been up with me for most of the night, and even kept me awake a little. I’m making him stop calling me ‘Victor’ by referring to him as ‘Bjarne’ when he does. The same goes for my brother, whom I call ‘Stompa’.