Polyphasic Sleep

[Rob]

Yesterday, all went well. I kept to the schedule. The strange "Persistence of Memory" effect happened again in the morning, though not for as long as it lasted the day before. At the start of the day I felt like I could drop off at any moment, this feeling persisted but fell in strength as the day progressed.

This morning, I feel well. My eyes didn't melt and I don't feel that tired. I don't feel better than ever, i feel like I've not had a good nights sleep in several days and I'm only just starting to make up for it. Maybe I'm over the worst of it. I'd like to think that but I don't think I've been doing this long enough for that to happen yet. Also, the hellish symptoms of sleep deprivation I've read about haven't happened.

We'll see.

[Rob]

16th of October: Everything felt relatively normal. I woke up in the morning at 4am feeling exactly as I would have felt three weeks ago waking up at 9. I didn't feel sleep deprived and didn't experience warped vision. I had a 5 hour lecture block from 9am to 2pm. I lasted the duration without fatigue.
I find I start to get tired as though its late at night from an hour and a half before I'm due to go to bed. I expect this time to shorten to around 30 minutes as the experiment progresses. I'm not having any trouble waking up from the naps.

17th of October: I had a dream today in the 8:30am nap. It was one of the most bizarre things I have ever experienced. I believe I'm going to struggle to find the words to describe this, but here goes.
<speculation>There exists this voice in my head, which I have every reason to assume you all do too but as I've never experienced having your brains I'll never know. This voice acts as a sort of filter for thoughts going through my brain. I think this is the front end to the concious component of the brain. I believe an apt name for this voice is my reason.</speculation> Typically when I dream my reason is silent. It will kick in from time to time. It's usually invoked at the end of a dream where some external phenomenon to my self is trying to wake me up. When reason does get involved, it usually concludes that I'm dreaming and this revelation will usually wake me up. I suspect people who have lots of lucid dreams have their reason kick in much more often and much sooner than the end of the dream.

I went to bed at 8:30 this morning. I lay there for a few minutes just thinking to myself and generally relaxing before falling to sleep. However, when I did fall asleep I entered a dream state immediately. My reason did not have time to turn off. I was becoming more aware of an increasingly vivid world coming into view in my imagination while simultaneously becoming more oblivious to stimulus coming from the real world. All the while I kept asking myself, "am I still awake?"
Eventually enough of the real world had vanished enough for the answer to become: "No!"
This was the first time I have ever seen and remembered a dream come together. It isn't as an abrupt process as I had thought, objects seem to appear stead-ally and in increasing detail as time progresses. It was also the first time my reason was able to operate in a dream without it making me wake up after only a few minutes, meaning this was my longest lucid dream to date.

The dream is a good sign that my brain is finally getting REM sleep in the nap sessions. I shouldn't have to contend with sleep deprivation any more. I'm looking forward to more experiences like the above. It really was very pleasant.

The rest of the day was average with few changes over the previous day. I only had the one dream, I'm hoping this increases with time. If it does I should start feeling even more refreshed and awake during the waking periods than I do now. Seeing as I feel quite normal now I may end up developing super human abilities before I'm done.