#113 on the list done. Celebrated with a dumpling lunch in Ashfield (love those soup filled dumplings at Taste of Shanghai!) and board games with some Moore College peeps this evening.
I think there’s a place for celebrating things in multiples of ten rather than 365. It’s more metric… more ‘now’ 
You can calculate many strange and interesting things (such as your 10000th day alive) at wolfram|alpha…
At day 4 I consider that i’ve “tried” polyphasic sleep for the purposes of the entry on the list. I had a near perfect day in terms of the nap/sleep schedule (finally got the 1.5hours right) but I don’t think it’s really going to work for me! I’ve decided to tap out at this point anyway even though I feel i could have gone further. general reflections, blow by blow and conclusions below:
Reflections:
I don’t think I could say i’ve tried it long enough to decide if it’s bogus for sure… however I spent some of my extra awake hours last night reading blogs of others who have tried this and noticed that many of them “accidentally” overslept every now and then, usually about 1-2 weeks apart. My hunch is that you can get by with this level of sleep dep for a while but eventually your body vetoes and demands a continuous block.
Also I’m less certain about this “straight to REM” thing being the way your body survives…the more i read the less it seems plausible.
Blow-by-blow:
I managed to have the correct number and length of naps today but couldn’t take the 6pm one on time because of a visit to the local taphouse. enjoyable premium beer, but not so enjoyable by the time i got home (at around 8). The tiredness and urge to sleep was extreme! Grabbed a few dumplings which jodie had out for dinner then napped immediately. Felt extremely crusty 20mins later after waking up.
Again the run up to 11pm nap was tough, but the 11:30-3 period was not too bad. I can stay awake without having to do an engaging activity but I notice the tired hazy feeling. If i’m engaged I don’t notice that feeling. I don’t think I could have read calvin during this period 
I got the core sleep right – woke up after 1.5 hours but had to sleep on the couch (downstairs) and place the alarm away from me. This basically was the deal breaker. I realised why I wasn’t getting up at this time for the last two nights. Very much in zombie mode so it seemed clear that if i wanted to keep it up I would not be able to sleep in bed anymore. That didn’t sound great to me…that and when i woke up from 1.5hrs on the couch my knee was painfully locked into place.
Conclusions
It was an interesting experiment, but I can’t see how it could work for my schedule and marriage…that coupled with my suspicion that many of the claims made by advocates of polyphasic are a little bit bogus or self deluding has led me to stop at day 4. I’m happy to have tried it but happier to be drinking coffee right now, not worrying about the next nap and looking forward to a long nights sleep in bed with my wife.
So here is the sleep schedule i’ve been working with:
20 min naps at 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 11pm
“Core sleep” at 3-4:30.
The 6 to 11pm stretch has been the hardest to stay awake. Have been resorting to pacing around the house aimlessly – any sort of sitting activity and my eyelids turn to lead…
It might sound strange but the most frustrating thing is that both nights i’ve been doing this i’ve overslept for my core sleep. Have laid down at 3 then missed my alarm somehow then woken up again at 7. Jodie said that she woke with the alarm, saw me turn it off then roll back over but i have no recollection of it at all! I’m not sure how i’m going to deal with this as I seem to be turning the alarm off without waking properly.
Am only feeling moderately tired at the moment despite getting just under 11hrs in the last 48…
Currently in day 2 of adapting to polyphasic sleep.
I first heard about “polyphasic sleep” via a post at bathgates.net …it sounded fascinating so I added it to the list.
The idea is that you can replace the usual one big period of sleep with multiple shorter naps. During naps you’re getting straight to the essential REM sleep phase and not wasting time on the non-essential stuff.
I haven’t opted for uberman, instead i’m targeting one peg down – 2.8 hours of sleep per 24hrs. Apparently after I’ve adapted to this new (and kinda whacky) sleep routine I won’t feel sleep deprived, achy, have a throbbing head or any of the other side effects i’m feeling right now.
The throbbing head may have something to do with the need to drop caffeine cold turkey since there is only 4 hours between naps in the morning! argh!
I’ll keep you posted on my progress…please forgive any hints of psychosis or delerium over the next little while!!
We flew back into Sydney at around 9 on new years eve after having a very enjoyable stay in Adelaide with fam+friends for Christmas.
didn’t make any new years resolutions but did remove the ridiculous attempt at list item #20 “grow an orthodox priest style beard”.
included a late submission for movember also: (list #20, #123 done!)
I should have known to add “appease wife by removing orthodox priest style beard”. We’ll I’ve done it now (added it to the list, not removed the beard).
It’s getting there…1 or two more months i reckon!!
Well the brew is brewed and in my completely biased opinion…it tastes great!
A Sam, Nick G, Nick R and myself made the trek down to ‘the beer shed’ – a microbrewery type set up where you can brew your own. They gave us a stainless steel cauldron, a recipe, ingredients and a timer.
Soon enough that was done and ready for fermentation…
…4 weeks later, back to bottle and enjoy our very own “Rusty Nails Porter”
Just got back from seeing Ben Folds at the opera house. Great concert!! Surprisingly large number of other Moore dudes in the cheap seats too. Number 75 on the list done.
Also, Sydney really does have a beautiful harbour!
Have been enjoying plenty of coffee thus far these holidays…giving me good opportunity to work on #76 on the list.
I’m reasonably happy with these two attempts – good enough to cross another one off the list anyway.
Behold:
