###Captain’s log: Day 13 Monday, Feb 21tst, 5:38am

Today I’ll be expounding upon my adventures in Polyphasic sleeping. You may be wondering…what happened to days 5 through 12? Well they came and went, and now I’m at day 13. Deal with it.

I’ve grown accustomed to sleeping on the couch at Betaspring a few times throughout the day and night. I’m in the habit of returning to my house to fix a meal to pack up and hold me over for the next day or so, grab a shower, change clothes, hit up the yoga class up the street. But for the most part, I’ve been at Betaspring (which is a 24 hour accessible co-working / startup hangout space).

I never can seem to get all my naps in or fall asleep the appropriate amount of times as requested by the Uberman schedule, especially when there’s people chatting and walking around circa the 1pm or 5pm nap. Still, I find it helpful to schedule a 30-40 minute “try to nap or at least calm the mind and relax” period every 4 to 5 hours. The body naturally makes up for missed naps and sleep by sneaking in an additional hour or two once a day, or maybe 2 to 3 hours every 2nd or 3rd day of Uberman.

I welcome the “errors” (oversleeping) in the uberman schedule, as they leave me refreshed and energized beyond what I usually feel. Will that push back my adaptation? Probably. Am I adapted now? I don’t think so. I still feel groggy for at least one cycle of awake time between naps. Usually it’s around 2am - 5am. I am getting better at jumping up from a partial or wasted attempt at a nap and powering through to the next one. I realize this schedule is not forgiving. If the workday requires attention from 8am until 6pm, then that’s what will have to happen. A day like that will be accompanied with a solid 3 hour sleep likely later in the evening. In the end, it seems to balance itself out. I’ve even found myself waking up without an alarm before a 30-40 min nap is scheduled to be over. Ok that happened once. Other times if I turn off the alarm and go back to sleep, I awake within a reasonable amount of time (another hour or so) without an alarm (that’s happened ~ 6 times). What I thought would happen if I turn of the alarm, is I would enter a 10 hour zombie slumber that puts me back to ground zero in the polyphasic adaptation. But that hasn’t happened yet. In the past 13 days, I haven’t slept for more than 3 1/2 hours consecutively. Pretty cool!

I’m not really sticking to the strict Uberman schedule. I am also not changing over to the Everyman (3-4 hour core sleep and a few naps throughout the day). I am calling my cycle the Dannyman - it’s what my body / mind tells me to do while striving for Uberman. Maybe I’ll oversleep for an hour a day. Maybe a 30 minute nap will stretch itself into 3 hours every 2-3 days. I’m not going to be too strict with it. The important thing is to feel good and not beat yourself up over it.

Is it getting easier? Yes. In fact, it never was that difficult for me. If your job / relationship / responsibilities allow it, this shouldn’t be that difficult to try out for a little while.

I’m starting a new job in a week and a half, and I mentioned to the CEO during one of our meetings that I’m trying this ridiculous sleep schedule. They have a long couch in a quiet room. I will make it my awkward resting period during the workday. Can the Dannyman survive a change in employment / lifestyle? That will be the real test (in multiple ways).

So what am I doing with all my extra time? This is what invigorates me to keep the cycle going: there’s an extra 3-4 hours to do whatever you want.

I’ve been reading about twice as much as normal. I’ve been exercising about the same amount: a combined ~ 40 minute bikeride each day, a yoga session every 3rd day or so (I will get that back to every day, hopefully). I’ve been eating about the same amount, but have more time to spread the food out around the clock: smaller portions and more meals. Usually something small between each awake period, and something medium once or twice a day.

I’ve been keeping up with writing, some on this blog, some one Year Without Plastic.

I’ve started a $5 startup journal and am working on a few business ideas a little bit each day: one is MatchGogo, an open ended survey creation and matching tool that uses the OK Cupid algorithm to match your desired responses with those responses coming in. Another is Home Compare Tool, an organizational tool for people looking to buy a home. Allows distance calculations, list based comparisons, and sharing of properties someone is looking at buying.

Another idea I’m working on is building a chocolate loving community (hey, why not?) appropriately called Chocolate For Dinner on Facebook and Eat More Chocolate on Twitter. The goal there is find delicious images, awesome recipes, humorous and thought provoking blurbs, thoughts, facts about Chocolate, and one day maybe I’ll monetize the group with awesome t-shirts or chocolate product ads. Who doesn’t want a chocolate themed t=shirt or chocolate related ads appearing every now and then? I for one think that every t-shirt and ad should depict something awesome / funny / tempting about chocolate.

This schedule is perfect for attending hackathons. It gives you the ability to seemingly stay awake during long stretches of time. While everyone else turns into a zombie, I will be normally going about in my usual routine.

Also perfect for travelling across the world. No more jet lag! Unfortunately I’ve yet to try this out, but will be taking a cross country trip next week. A 3 hour time difference wouldn’t affect me normally anyways, though. I need to test it by travelling to Australia or something.

Also great for solo trips sailing around the world, covert spy missions, and running your own 24 hour cafe / diner.

I also have time to keep up with Bundio, with my freelancing work, help out MusicTown with their new website (will be ready in a few weeks), and respond to emails lightning fast very early in the morning. Needless to say, I feel like one of those 35 year old CEO types that wakes up at 4am to hit the gym before crushing it at work, and finally blogging about their fast paced lifestyle that only they can maintain. It’s a good feeling! But seriously, everyone should try polyphasic sleeping. Take back the night. Take back the pre-dawn hours. Take back every hour during the day because you definitely won’t be sleeping through any of it. And then write a blog about it, and we can cross reference each other and exchange emails and texts at 4am. Please. Just try it…please…I am so lonely….