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Last night I got really engaged in working on my blog. I decided to skip the first two hours of my four hour morning class because I wanted to wrap up the work that I had put into my blog from the night before and because I feared that I would fall asleep in class.
I showed up for the final two hours of class feeling happy and rested. I was able to make it through the two hours of class without wanting to doze off. The most annoying thing was that I experienced a lingering sense of restlessness and uneasiness as the class came to an end. I ended up watching the clock for the last half hour of class, wishing that class would end.
After lunch, I took my 12:30pm nap. When I woke up I was in a complete stupor, I had never felt so lethargic and uneasy. My body kept telling me that I wanted to rest on the bed. It was a struggle of epic proportions. After a while, I gave in an ended up sleeping for about 2 hours.
When I woke up I was extremely frustrated and irritated. I tried to rant a bit to my friends about my obstacles with Dymaxion sleeping, but I didn't feel like I was thinking logically. I was essentially incoherent. After all this, I knew that I had a serious problem and that I needed to make a significant revision to my sleeping plan.
With the energy and peace of mind that I accrued from my long nap, I started to brainstorm ways that I could improve my sleeping status quo. I continued to research Dymaxion Sleeping, and I continued to see reports of Dymaxion sleepers who had failed. In the beginning the difficulty and challenge that Dymaxion Sleeping posed made it an infinitely more enticing option than say the more successful and popular Uberman method. I think that the placebo effect is the most important mental phenomenon that can enable an individual to succeed with polyphasic sleeping. As i said, before I started Dymaxion Sleeping I was enticed by the daunting challenge that it posed. In other words, the fact that I wanted to succeed at Dymaxion Sleeping enabled me to coast through the preliminary stages of the schedule with ease.
As I continued reading about Dymaxion Sleeper's perils and failed attempts, the placebo effect began to have a reverse effect on my thought process -- I started getting discouraged because it felt as If I was venturing into uncharted waters.
While I do admit that a successful Uberman Sleeper doesn't gain quite as much of my respect as a successful Dymaxion Sleeper does, I can accept doing the more mainstream method if it will give me greatly improved results. At least with the Uberman Method, I know that I can succeed because others have had so much success with it.
One caveat that I didn't really like about the Dymaxion schedule is that I was too frequently away from my bed. I only got to get in bed an lie down four times every twenty-four hours for a very short time. As a result, I spent long hours of the day wishing I could just lie down and relax for a while.
With six naps a day, I am in and out of bed much more frequently. Furthermore, I saw many polyphasic sleepers write that Dymaxion sleeping is more convenient and flexible because the waking periods are longer. I think the longer waking periods makes Dymaxion sleeping quite inflexible and stressful. I am always completely exhausted by the time the nap came around. Spending multiple 6 hour waking periods back to back to back.... without an absolute perfect nap is extremely challenging.
I am really looking forward to using the Uberman Sleep Schedule. I plan to give myself flexibility by moving naps around and by missing naps then making them up later. I will talk more about these strategies later. Fear not, for I have not given up. I have simply identified certain challenges and adjusted accordingly. I have been switched to Uberman for about 12 hour now, and I really feel confident that this is going to be a smashing success for me.
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