Steel Willpower

I haven’t been posting because I was experimenting with more fringe sleep schedules, and they didn’t really work out. So, I’m readjusting now, hopefully just in time for school. And I know you already know the details on that, so I haven’t posted anything in hopes of not boring you too much. However, I feel like today I did something that shows just how extraordinarilly flexible SPAMAYL is, and just how far you can push it:

Yesterday was the set date for a LAN party with a bunch of friends (that really nerdy thing where everyone brings computers and you hook them up and play games and stuff). And tradition at our LAN parties is “ABSOLUTELY NO SLEEPING ALOUD!”. I even got a message the day before from one of them to make sure of this. The problem is, these things usually last way more then 12 hours, and even on monophasic they can be a test of endurance.

So, the day hit, and I tried to prep a little by taking extra naps, but it was difficult because I was adjusting and my body didn’t quite understand that I wanted to save some sleep. I get to the LAN with a massive bottle of caffeine and start trying to wait it out. I last for as long as I think I can naturally, which ended up being pretty long something like 5 or 6 hours. After that I busted out the litre Coca Cola which added another 3 to 4 hours. Then I discovered my friend had caffeine pills on him, so I had one of those and that kept me up for the rest of the time. During this I also had some erands to run and ended up biking for about an hour.

After the total of about 16 hours, I knew I was going to have a MASSIVE crash from all that caffeine. However, even though I’m still adjusting, I was able to regain all the sleep I needed and feel good after 5 naps in 4 hours using SPAMAYL. I think that this is just RIDICULOUS. On monophasic I’d have had to have slept for like 12 hours to recover from that.

Then again, this isn’t to say it was EASY to recover from that much abuse. I was thrust right into zombie mode at least 3 times between naps and I had fight the massive urge to ignore my alarms. But, in conclusion, I’m pretty proud of myself and EXTREMELY impressed by the ridiculous flexibility of SPAMAYL.

P.S. I know it sounds like I had to use a lot of caffeine to do this, it is only because I was still adjusting. I have been able to push myself naturally to stay up for around 12 hours naturally (no caffeine) after being adjusted. And I wasn’t even adapted yet!

Wow! That was the quickest and most painless adjustment ever.
It is only the second day (technically third now) and my sleep has already balanced out to 7 naps per day! I have no idea how that works exactly, but it totally did. Maybe I didn’t screw myself over as much as I thought from my freerunning experiment, or maybe I’m wrong and I’m going to eat my own words in a day or two, but either way I’m feeling great right now. My body is demanding naps when it needs them, and I’m feeling absolutely great between.

One thing that was weird that I noticed was a massive change in emotion that ocurred too. When I tried freerunning sleep my emotions kinda trainwrecked. Nothing too serious, just that I noticed I was getting angry alot easier and I kinda felt bi-polar. Now that I’m back on polyphasic I feel great, better then usual; I’m always happy and laughing at random things even when something SHOULD be getting me down. So there you have it, polyphasic sleep has another benefit! Mood enhancment!

I completly credit my sucess to my new alarm clock. I got one of those jobs with the two physical bells on the top. They are loud as all hell, but it is perfect. This is a majour benefit for two reasons: It allows me to place the alarm further away without fear of sleeping through it while commanding me to get up and turn it off, and also because it scares the shit out of me when it goes off. That second point might seem like a negitive at first, but when you think about it it’s actually a massive positive. By scareing me awake it gives me a crazy adrenaline rush for a minute or two, just when I need it, which allows me to actually stay awake and think (semi)clearly about staying awake for at least the next 20 minutes.

In conclusion, SteelSovereignty is rockin SPAMAYL once again

So, in the last 14 hours I’ve slept 11. I’m pretty sure this was a bad idea now
To be fair, I have been doing this without an alarm, as my old one kinda crapped out. I will be buying a new (better) one in a few hours.
The first thing I thought (and actually said) upon waking from my first chunk of sleep was, “Oh jeeze, Polyphasic sleep is SO much better… I feel like a retard right now”. And I did man, I felt like my brain was slowing down. I also ached everywhere from being stiff. I had completley forgotten what sleeping for so long felt like. And just as I was barely starting to recover a few hours later, my body wanted to go to sleep again. So, as I was trying to stay true to my plan, I did; and I experienced the exact same thing all over again.

From these results I can make a pretty strong hypothesis that sleep is like a drug and, if left uncontrolled, my body will try to get as much as it possibly can; even to its own detriment.

In conclusion, screw this. I’m going back to SPAMAYL.

No, I’m not taking one month off of polyphasing, what do you think I am? Weak? No no, one month to experiment. And here’s what I’m going to do:

Freerunning sleep.

After feeling that I had succefully adjusted to SPAMAYL, I found myself still being extremly bored with all the free time I had. I had switched to polyphasic sleeping specifically for University (turning easy mode on ) but University is still 1 month away! So instead of being bored that whole time, I decided to experiment a little.

Now, I’m obviously not going to be able to seperate myself from the world and light and dark cues and all that nonsense that the wikipedia page will tell you about free-running sleep. As well, I’m sure I will be afected by other things, like having a job, that will disrupt my awake/asleep times. However, I will try my best to give my body an honest chance to decide for itself when it wants to be asleep and to get up.

I will be following a few rules to help me study my sleep:
-Sleep only when I’m tired, if I Think it will take me longer then 10 mins to go to sleep, then I won’t sleep
-In the spirit of Polyphasic sleeping, I will be setting an alarm to go off 20 mins after laying down.
-If I’m still tired when my alarm goes off I am allowed to start it again and immediatly take another 20 mins.
-I will be sleeping in a hammock. (hopefully this will help with lightness of sleep and comfort)
-I WILL be working out. (I’ve put it off FAR too long with SPAMAYL, I just can’t stand not lifting heavy things for any longer)
-I will write down every time that I fall asleep and every time that I awake.

Seeing as there are no right or wrong times, I won’t feel ashamed to publicize them at all and you know they will be 100% truthful (not that I have lied or anything up to this point). What I am wondering is if the community is interested in my log of sleep/awake times? I will be keeping the record for my own interests, I was just wondering if you guys were interested. I don’t want to fill up the front page unnecissarily.

Oh, by the way, this week whent pretty great. Aside from a little experimentation that knocked me out of routine, everything whent smoothly as planned. I’ve learned a few things that will hopefully help me pick SPAMAYL back up in one months time.

INTERESTED!?

So, a few of you requested a summary of my days still. I’m very happy to supply this(you KNOW I have enough time for it). However, I’m not sure a day-by-day summary would really be that interesting, and would probably flood up the main page. So instead I’ll do weekly summaries and I’ll highlight all the important parts!

So first of all, rate of adaptation. This was a fucking awesome week for adaptation! I went from sleeping a total of roughly 5 hours (give or take) on last Sunday and dropped it slowly to 3 hours yesterday (Thursday). It felt great, I felt great. I wasn’t tired AT ALL (except for immediately before naps). I was learning more and more how to preemptive nap before a long event as well. It started to feel second nature to me.

Unfortunately today (Friday) I had a bit of a mishap. It was a technical failure, nothing I had much control over, which just makes me feel terrible. The cord connecting my speaker (the alarm) to the computer disconnected somehow; Therefore, the alarm never even went off. So I overslept about 6 hours D: . But after Thursday being so fucking great, I’m motivated now more then ever! I feel as excited as I was before I got started.

In remedy to this situation I will take a few steps. First of all I’m setting up a new fuckin alarm system where I wont risk accidentally pulling the cord. I’ll likely use my MP3 player with the speakers now, set it in a part of the room I don’t traverse much and never have to disconnect it. And as for dealing with naps, I’m just going to carry on like nothing happened. I won’t try and sleep deprive myself, that is never good. Hopefully my body took it as a short vacation and doesn’t expect another.

As a side note to all of this. I was actually starting to notice that sleeping this way was having minor effects on my mental state. From what I can tell they were pretty much all positive. I felt way more laid back, chill, and it showed. I never found myself rushing an activity, and I could tell my friends thought of me as a little cooler (Polyphasic. MAKES YOU COOLER). On the other hand, I was noticing a recurring headache every once in a while. I’m willing to either chock this up to adjustment (therefore it will go away with adaptation) or the fact that it has been storming here pretty much everyday for the past week.

All in all this is pretty upsetting to me. I had gone a week (really almost 2 now) without an oversleep. And I was feeling so great. But I WILL NOT let it get me down too much. I have this thing down now.

Seeing as a day by day log of my adjustment would probably be ridiculously boring at this point, I’ve decided that instead I will post tips and tricks for adapting to polyphasic sleeping, sometimes specifically regarding SPAMAYL.

To start I have 2 tips for you:
The first has more to do with polyphasic sleeping in general. Keep busy. Always have something to do when you wake up from a nap. Sometimes an oversleep is pretty much unavoidable, you turn the alarm off and before you know it you’re passed out again; it’s something you really don’t have any control over sometimes. However, if you have something to do when you wake up, especially if someone is counting on you (like a job), it will give you that little extra motivation to start going. In my opinion 90% of oversleeps can be fixed this way. This tip correlates greatly with having a reason for choosing to polyphase, and polyphasing with someone else. Having a reason to start polyphasing generally will give you those tasks you need to wake up, and doing this with a friend will give you someone to disappoint if you screw up (and therefore: negative reinforcement).

The second tip pretty much only concerns SPAMAYL. Sleeping too frequently can be just as devastating as sleeping too far apart. If you sleep to frequently and try to pull off a 20-20-20 (20 mins between naps) or something in that range it can be just as likely to cause an oversleep as sleeping too far apart. In fact, it may even be worse. When you wake up the chemicals your body uses to keep you unconscious are still pumpin’ through your veins, and (at least for me) it takes around 20 minutes for them to clear out and to feel semi-regular again. When you try and take a nap before these chemicals leave your system the brain has a difficult time determining whether you just took 2 naps or 1 really restless one. When you do this you are actually training your brain to go back to sleep after it wakes up from your 20 min naps. This will compound over time and you will create a large chance to oversleep. A way to fix this is to wait at least a half hour, ideally an hour, after waking from a nap to decide if you really want to take another nap right now. This tip corresponds to the first one in that if you have something to do upon waking it will take your mind off of how tired you are for a long enough time for your body to regulate those chemicals.

For those who missed the comment on my last post, I decided that E1.5 was a far inferior schedule to SPAMAYL (at least in my case) and switched back. By this time, however long it had been, I have re-adjusted to SPAMAYL.

However, that isn’t really the point of this update. What is the point? well today I had a pretty awesome Q&A session with a new member by the name of “sincerelycrazy” about some concerns he had regarding SPAMAYL and I decided to paraphrase and archive it for posterity. So! With no further adieu:

I’m not claiming to be an expert or anything, just trying to provide my perspective from the experiences I’ve had and the research I’ve done.

Pure Doxyk, while under Uberman, said it was terrible when she missed a nap, and that it’d take a full day to recover. Even monophasic sleeping is said to be most effective when people have a very strict schedule regarding their sleeping patterns by going to sleep and waking up at the exact same time everyday.

Yes, this is 100% true, it IS terrible when you miss a nap. However, I believe you have missed some critical information on SPAMAYL, we are not missing naps, we are adding naps. If you look into the research that the people did on monophasic sleepers you will find that research shows that they recommend only to fall asleep when you are tired, and the only designated time (that shouldn’t be tampered with) is wake up time. Using SPAMAYL we are incorporating these devices while using some clever work-arounds. We ARE in-fact sleeping when we are tired, that is essentially the core idea of SPAMAYL. And as for the waking time, that is a strict set time because it allows the body to decide how much time it needs to sleep (and therefore make the person tired when they are that far away from there wake up time). Using SPAMAYL we set the sleeping time to exactly 20 minutes in this way the body decides (instead of how long the sleep should be) when it needs 20 minutes of sleep. In theory, these are both the bodies way of self-regulating sleeping time. Not having a schedule is what is shunned because then the body will NEVER know how long it will sleep for.

I guess I’m interested to see how Rasmus/Steel Sovereignty are progressing. Honestly, how rested and clearheaded do you guys feel during your waking hours? They say that after being adjusted to Uberman for several months, you feel a sort of “euphoria.” Do you guys ever feel that?

I feel that I have adjusted once again. I’m running perfectly fine on around 10 naps per day, and eventually this number will go down (keep in mind this is 3 hours and 20 mins, whereas on monophasic I usually get 10 hours). During the day I feel great, perfectly functional! I work a job that has unpredictable hours and this has never been a problem with SPAMAYL. During the night/early morning I do still feel a little groggy, but it’s nothing unbearable and should go away after the full month of adjusting.
As far as euphoria goes, I would have to say that I have sort of experienced it, although I would call it more of a high than anything. Generally after around 10-20mins of waking from a really good nap my head kinda feels like it is clearer and a little like I’m high from weed. I also tend to find that I make the best decisions around this time, and I make them easier as well.

Do either of you try purposely to schedule it that way?

No sir! I let the naps land where they want to (whenever I can at least). In fact, I have found that I’m different to Rasmus in this regard. I really like to party and stay out late with friends and have frequently made myself stay up for 9 hours at a time at night (typically 7 – 4 or something) and my SPAMAYL schedule has actually started adapting around this naturally. I tend to take most of my naps Early in the morning (5AM – 11AM) and slightly more then average in the afternoon (5PM-7PM).
(also again, you will need more than 6 naps on this schedule, a small price to pay for the flexibility.)

Steve Pavlina adapted to Uberman, and then after his adaptation period, he was able to become more flexible with his sleep times, catching naps before and after events and whatnot. However, adapting in an irregular manner seems slightly implausible.

How so? wouldn’t it seem more natural to let the body decide when IT wants to sleep rather than forcing it into a potentially un-fulfilling schedule? And as far as flexibility goes, that is what SPAMAYL is all about. If you’re worried that you will be tired during an event, then you actually do the exact same thing and take a preemptive nap (or 2) before said event.

In regards to his post about possibly trying uberman first and then switching to SPAMAYL to try it out:
I think you would be going about that the hard way. Adapting to SPAMAYL first is FAR easier (at least in my opinion). If you really wanted to you could take 1 nap every hour for the 24 hours and you’d get your average 8 hours of sleep, doing so however would give you FAR more sleep then you’d ever need. After that you can gradually widdle the time down and have very little sleep dep to show for it. whereas on Uberman you are instantly cutting yourself down to 2 hours and your body will hate you for it for a very long time. ( I know from Dymaxion)

I guess my doubts about SPAMAYL stem from not forcing your brain to rewire, but instead giving into what your body wants.

First let me say that SPAMAYL, like all other forms of polyphasic sleeping DOES involve sleep depriviation and is by no means EASY to adapt to. No matter how you look at it, in the end you are inevitably reducing the amount of sleep you get to drastic lows. And, while I can’t fully explain why this helps so much, the difference between SPAMAYL and Uberman is the frequency at which the body gets “practice” with these 20 minute naps. I believe Luke was experiencing the same revelation in his last post when he said, “It has been mentioned that the body needs practice before it can learn to nap well. On Uberman, we only give ourselves 6 practice runs a day. On dymaxion, only 4. With SPAMAYL, we give ourselves 10-15+ practice runs a day (and without having the nap-or-die pressure that comes with other schedules).”

If you don’t mind me asking, SteelSovereignty, how exactly do you know that you’ve adapted? I’m not doubting you at all, I was just curious as to what criteria you gave yourself to determine that your adaptation period has ended.

I’m not so sure that I have adapted yet actually. There is a slight difference in the phrases “adapting” and “adjusting”. I read the difference somewhere else on this board; allow me to paraphrase: Adjusting comes first, it happens when your body finally gets used to the naps and starts utilizing them to there potential. Indicators of adjustment are remembering dreams upon waking, and generally feeling pretty great after naps. Adapting usually comes a month later (ish) and occurs when you become so used to polyphasing that you feel more comfortable doing it than doing monophasic. General indicators of adaptation is the lack of need for an alarm (except maybe in “just in case” situations). In conclusion, I believe I have adjusted as I find I have satisfied the criteria (dreams and feeling good). I apologize if I have mixed up the words in any of my previous posts, they are tricky little buggers.
(Lack of adaptation is what is stopping me from getting, say, 8 naps per day)

As a side note, I am also using polyphasic sleeping for University. I feel that all that extra time will be like turning on cheat mode for studying.

I hope I’ve covered all of your concerns in this ridiculously long post, and I thank you for getting me to use my brain muscle more than I usually would. Thank you for your kind words as well

P.S.: Don’t be afraid to ask about anything, I can be pretty confusing at times. I love answering these questions.

Hey, Just wanted to let you guys know, I wrote a huge blog post about this and a post in the forum, but it looks like a site error a few hours later deleted it all. Here is a substitute because I’m to lazy to do the full version again.

I was 100% successful with adapting to SPAMAYL, I was completely adjusted a few days ago and it was good. I felt pretty great and was averaging around 9-10 naps per day (remarkable for me because monophasically I tend towards 10 hours per night). So yes, this schedule is good, and I recommend it to everyone interested (or not interested for that matter).

On the other hand, I feel like changing it up again. I guess I’m just weird and like torturing myself or something. So I’m switching to Everyman 1.5 (with 4 naps). In my opinion roughly the same amount of sleep and a little less flexibility sacrificed for a little more ease of adjustment. I don’t think I’ll post with as much frequency or detail about this one, there is more information out there about this schedule. How interested are you guys in me updating about this?

Hey, just a quick update on my progress with SPAMAYL.

I really like this schedule, it seems to work perfectly for a very busy and unpredictable schedule that wants to be polyphasic. The reason that I haven’t updated in a little while is because I’ve been partying and hanging out with friends NON-STOP. It’s actually quite amazing. Some of my friends prefer daylight, and others prefer night time, and on SPAMAYL I can accommodate both without taking a break in between.

I noticed something interesting as well. If you have been up for a little longer then you probably should have been (say 8-10 hours) and you’ve missed a few too many naps, you can put a 1.5 hour core in there at the end to make up for it. However if your like me, you may not really have any say in how long that core is as your body “comas” (sleeps through anything including very obnoxious alarms) for that 1.5 hours.

However, despite how awesome this has been, I kinda pushed it too far. I missed too many naps in a row and tried to push the sleep into 2 1.5 hour cores. My body didn’t really appreciate that and decided to make up for it by “comaing” for about 8 hours straight. Altogether though, I don’t consider this a failure at all, now I know my limits and how far I should push myself before it becomes a problem.

I shouldn’t have too much of a problem snapping back into SPAMAYL. Despite my last paragraph my body is getting pretty used to sleeping 20 mins at a time.

In a previous post I hinted at a “secret weapon” that I was planning on using, and I wasn’t lying! To be fair, before I start this post I should say that “while I HAVE used this in the past, it has never been in this context”. I’ve never used it for polyphasic sleeping before.

My secret weapon is SPIKE! SPIKE is a supplement manufactured by a company called Biotest. SPIKE is designed as a supplement to be used in Bodybuilding to increase the “mind-muscle connection” and to boost the Central Nervous System. You can also buy SPIKE in an energy drink format, however it is much more expensive and contains modified ingredients.

I bought SPIKE about a year ago to try it out, since it just sounded too awesome. And I’d have to say it WAS just too awesome. basically, in layman’s terms, SPIKE gives you tons of energy but it also makes you ridiculously focused. An interesting side-effect (maybe it was intended, I don’t know) was that for the 6 hours it takes effect I never feel tired (!) . I tested this theory during an all night nerd session called a LAN party, I took a SPIKE at midnight and felt amazing all night, no tiredness at all (this is heavily contrasted to how tired I feel normally during an all nighter). One other note I would like to make is that I find SPIKE has very little or no crash at all.

So I’m sure you can see how this could be extremely beneficial to Polyphasic sleeping. To me, most of adaptation is fairly bearable except for a window of about 4-6 hours around 3:00 AM. I’ve never tried this in context with Polyphasic sleeping before, but from my past experiences with SPIKE I feel pretty confident that I can just pop a SPIKE at around 1:00 or 2:00 when I can feel a bad night coming and enjoy an easy night without suffering.

People who are observant and studious will have noticed that SPIKE contains caffeine, and many people have noted that caffeine during an adaptation period is a “big no-no”. However, in my past experiences with SPIKE I have felt quite the opposite, if I ever needed to pass out on SPIKE I’ve had no trouble doing so. This MAY be related to the fact that I never have a problem falling asleep pretty much ever though, so you may have different experiences.

If I have now convinced you to try SPIKE please know that I am no scientist and none of my claims can be substantiated. As well, a lot of my friends have tried SPIKE and we have found that it is more effective for some (like me) than it is for others (some have found it completely ineffective). On the other hand, I have taken some time to research the main ingredients in SPIKE and most of them act a lot like a vitamin, something that fills a deficiency that the body naturally has. The one ingredient that you may be interested in is “yohimbine HCL”, this adds the “dietary supplement” part to SPIKE and makes it work differently for females than it does for males. SPIKE also says you may not want to take it if you are under 18 (likely due to the yohimbine), however I feel this is just cautionary, I (perhaps somewhat haphazardly) have been taking it since 17 and have had no adverse effects.

In conclusion, me and my friends fucking love SPIKE, and I will be incorporating it into my polyphasic schedule, I’ll inform you of the results.

One other thing I would like to share is a small update in my sleeping “setup”. Earlier in this essay I noted that most of the adaptation was bearable aside from that 4-6 hour period, but it also becomes extremely difficult immediately after waking from naps. This is caused by being interrupted in deep sleep cycles.

In my logs I’ve reported my naps frequently being splintered into several 10 or 15 minute periods, and I believe that this may be because my natural rhythm does not like to be 20 minutes in length. This is supported by the fact that I was able to adjust to Dymaxion which most people find difficult because they feel 30 minute naps are inconsistent with their sleeping rhythm.

I plan on fixing this by following an alarm system similar to what this guy is describing (he even mentions polyphasic sleeping briefly). However, instead of 2 alarm clocks, I plan on incorporating the slight differences in a new sleeping mp3. I will make the minimum time to wake up around 15 minutes, and the max around 30.

In (real) conclusion, after those first 5 days I feel I have been able to pin-point my weaknesses, and after some light research I will now be able to improve on them to create a much easier and bearable adaptation period.