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sleep experiment week 1
Wed 20 April 2005 - Day 0
I stumbled across the page that started this crazy plan off. It was at one of Robin's (my work colleague) home cinema nights - I was browsing using his projector system's internet connection when he showed me some links that he'd been reading about sleep. I decided to start my plan that night. I had been messing around trying to make a music video the night before and had slept very little. I hoped that this would be a good start!Thu 23 April 2005 - Day 1
I planned to have two three-hour sleep sessions, with an hour awake in the middle. All went quite well, although I shouldn't have stayed in bed for the hour awake - I was listening to a Doctor Who audio play and kept nodding of for small intervals. I think this was alright, seeing as I'm planning to go in gradually.I woke up ready to work at 8am. I didn't feel any more tired than the day before. I attempted thirty minutes sleep in my car at lunch time and I was surprised that I did actually manage about ten minutes of light dozing. I got home at around 6pm and attempted another half hour, but failed. I went straight to the gym and did some weights. I even managed to run a personal best of running a mile in six minutes and five seconds on the running machine! I hope this experiment doesn't ruin my gym work.
Fri 24 April 2005 - Day 2
The final components for my guitar stomp box plan arrived yesteday, so I planned to work on this in the early hours of this morning. I had two sessions of two and a half hour sleeps and a couple of hour's working on the stomp box in the middle. The sleeps went well, but I never got the box working! There's always tomorrow night...
Again, I arrived at work feeling the same as the last two days. I became noticeably slower mentally as it approached lunch time. I managed about fifteen minutes before a lorry reversing woke me up! Maybe I need to get some ear plugs.
I had a good twenty five minute's sleep before the gym today and the gym work was quite average once more. I couldn't be bothered with the running though. I don't do that everyday, so this is fine.
It's now 22:30. I've typed up a new section for my website - the one that you're reading now! Once I've have made a quick things to do list, I will go for a two and a half hour sleep, get up and do stuff, and then go for another two and a half - exactly the same as last night. I think I can probably sustain this level. This is around six hours sleep per day.
I'm going to Bournemouth tomorrow and I'm not quite sure what is going to happen to my sleep. But hey, it's an adventure!
Sat 25 April 2005 - Day 3
02:11am: I just got up. I'm surprised at how easily I'm managing to get up, because it normally takes me a matter of hours between recovering consciousness and actually venturing outside my bed. Feeling fairly decent, as if I slept for a far longer duration than just two and a half hours.06:00am: Went to bed for my second two and a half hour nap, quite pleased as I finally managed to get a 'fuzz' sound out of the circuitry that I've been messing around with.
I spent twenty minutes not managing to get to sleep, and woke up without an alarm at 08:00am. I then went back to sleep until my alarm went off at 08:30am. I felt pretty crap as I was getting up, but now that I've moved around a bit and had another go at playing through my fuzz circuitry, I feel much better. I have a strange craving for a huge dirty fry up, so I'm going to hunt one done as soon as I've finished this update!
12:30pm: Attempted a half-hour sleep and then drove the two hours to Bournemouth, feeling good and alert. As soon as I arrived, I went to the snooker club with Alex. As the games went on, it was obvious that my brain was becoming sluggish. Alex's new fad is table football but he only knows one place in the whole of the world that has a table. He wanted us to go straight there after pool. I insisted on my going back to my mum's house to have a sleep and said I'd get back to his house at 8:00pm, ready to go out.
I arrived at my house at 6:30pm. I saw that my mum and little sister were watching TV - Graham Norton's dance show. Oh my god. Doctor Who was on in thirty minutes and I had completely forgotten!
I shortened my alarm to wake me up at 6:55pm, but I couldn't sleep because I was too excited! I watched Doctor Who and thought it was one of the weaker episodes. My mum and little sister were watching in a different room. My mum came and said to me half way through, 'if I throw vinegar on you the next time you fart, will you explode?' Hmmm.
At the end, when the Dalek appeared in the 'next week' section. I heard gasps of surprise from the other room. It looks like next week is going to rock! I went and had a quick bath, came back downstairs and saw that they had switched to BBC THREE for Confidential. Woah.
I asked them if they were all Doctor Who fans now, and nobody said a thing, staring at the TV set. It was kind of a weird feeling.
Anyway, I went out and played table football with Alex. It was a lot of fun and we beat everybody that we played. I must be a natural!
We went to a rock club called The Villa. I don't know if it was my sleep deprived state or just the place itself, but none of the music made me feel like dancing. My feet felt very heavy.
Sun 26 April 2005 - Day 4
I got home at 1:00am. I had only had two pints and a couple of bottles of beer the whole night. Since I had missed my late evening nap, I set myself to have three hours.Oh dear. I just got up and it's 10:30am. Bugger. Back to the drawing board.