Jorg's Brain Log

It’s been an interesting two days with regards to my sleep experiment. While I feel I’m pretty adapted already, I noticed a few things.

The first real challenge in the experiment, besides starting with it, was the fact that we went to a party on Friday evening. So it would be very early in the morning before I would get home. This was not in line with my 2 to 5am core sleep I did.

My last nap on Friday evening was at 21:50 and I slept for 18 minutes before waking up by myself before the alarm went off. Now I was ready to go and have some fun.

To keep the experiment running and not to mess too much with too many variables at the same time I decided to not take any alcohol, just some sugar drinks like cola.

Day 6 – Saturday

At around 2:30am I started to notice a first sign of decreased attention span and some tiredness. That was in line what was expected because I normally have this all time after around 4,5 hours after napping I find myself getting tired again. And of course the fact that I normally would have my core sleep around this time made me expect it even more.

At 3:00 am it was enough for me. I went downhill very fast from here on. Couldn’t follow conversations anymore and was going into zombie modus fast. Time to go back home. I already noticed a difference while driving our car back, less concentration.

At 3:30 am I was ready to get my core sleep. I put my alarm on 6:30 and I fell a sleep. It felt like I slept immediately after putting down my phone. I was still pretty tired when the alarm went off at 6:30, but got out of bed anyway. Clearly I was in zombie modus and very deep. Getting my core sleep this late was not good.

I decided to take another 1,5 hour sleep cycle at set the alarm clock to 8am. The first time I was going off the schedule, but at least it was voluntarily. Fun thing was that I felt a sleep again, but this time I woke up by myself at around 7:45, 15 minutes before my alarm went off.

This time no zombie modus but very active! Did a lot of writing in the morning. At 11:05 it was nap time again. This time I again woke up by myself after 17 minutes. Now every time I take a nap I dream and come into my REM sleep.

Nap time at 16:40 brought the same thing. Waking up after 18 minutes. Wow, amazing to experience that you can feel so refreshed after such a short nap. Normally I take 30 minutes for naps. I set the alarm 30 minutes ahead before I get into bed and I start reading. After 10 minutes of reading I put the book away and close my eyes. Normally it takes me around 2 to 5 minutes to fall asleep. And now I’m waking up 2-3 minutes before my alarm goes off. That means my actual nap times are between 12 to 14 minutes.

In the evening another nap that goes as the previous naps. Feeling good!

Day 7 – Sunday

While I don’t have too much trouble staying up until 2am before going to bed, my head is almost exploding. I’ve got a big headache, maybe because of the cold I have.

It’s time for my core sleep. Pretty confident about the 3 hours that come I go to sleep. Doesn’t take much time again. I even don’t read a book or watch a film.

5am, it’s time to get up. My head hurts like crazy. This doesn’t feel right. While I don’t have a problem standing up, the headache is just too much. After 10 minutes of walking around, it’s getting worse and worse. I decide that I don’t feel right and go back to bed, without setting the alarm.

In the end I get out of bed at 11am. That’s 6 hours later. Yes, I did some sleeping during these hours. But here it comes: The interesting part is that I woke up everytime after a sleep cycle was over. That’s after every 70 to 90 minutes. I’m then wide awake. Read for about 5-10 minutes and then close my eyes again and so repeat the cycle.

It’s very strange to be so consious about my sleeping and the different stages. It’s also strange to experience so many different dreams and fall asleep within a few minutes after closing my eyes.

Conclusion after a week

For sure this sleep cycle gives a lot of free time. So much free time even I am not on a hurry anymore with my time. For myself I’m going to continue with this cycle in the coming week, but the thing I really want to improve is the fact that I don’t want zombie moments anymore. Where I first experienced these moments during the late hours, this now more or less have shifted to the morning.

Maybe this is because of the fact I don’t have a real planning for my new type of day anymore. I’m not in a hurry anymore in the morning. I know what to do more or less, but I didn’t set deadlines to finish stuff before 9am or something like that.

For tomorrow I’m going to change a few things. First of all, I’m going to write down my to-do list for the day to come before my core sleep. This so that I know what I’m going to in the 4 different moments of the day.

Second of all I think I’m going to put my sporting moment in the morning. I think that will kick-start my day even more. So let’s see how it goes.