Uberman Ho!

Um ... OK, maybe that's not such a great blog title after all. On a second reading, it makes me think of a blinged-out inner-city hooker with a tattered Penguin edition of Thus Spake Zarathustra tucked into her purse.

What I mean is: I'm going to try transitioning to an Uberman sleep schedule (20-25 minute naps, 6 times in every 24-hour period) over the next 4-5 weeks. Yesterday I announced this intention on the Google group for Polyphasic sleep, where I'm a moderator, and where I also preach oh-so-sagely while practicing not at all.

My goals? I'm working on a big, long software project of my own, and I'd like more time. I'd like more time for a lot of things, but that's the biggie. On Uberman, if I can do it (think positive, Michael) I can get maybe 6 hours more waketime per day. Maybe more like 8, when you consider that I usually stumble around sleepily for a couple hours every day after waking. (If I told you how much I sleep these days, I'd blush so hard it would pop zits, if I had any zits.)

More time is the main goal, but I'd also like to get back to lucid dreaming, experimenting with how an uberman schedule might increase the frequency to one LD a day or more. I have some anecdotal evidence that uberman does help have lucid dreams more often, though the quality is reportedly low.

Yesterday I announced my intentions on the Polyphasic list. Today I had one cup of coffee (actually, one can of coffee -- from a vending machine), and several cups of cocoa. I napped about two hours this evening, after unusually intense ryokan chores -- we expect 11 guests to arrive tomorrow and we're less than half-prepared. After that, it's 9 days of slack, because our guests are usually pretty low-maintenance types. I can start seriously cutting the caffeine.

I had planned to quit smoking only after all the caffeine withdrawal symptons subsided, then start uberman after the nicotine withdrawal symptons were gone. But that could take up to five weeks. Tonight's crash made me think I could combine the two. Reasoning: When I go off caffeine, I sleep a lot, for about a week, with the first three days being the worst. When I quit smoking, I feel serious temptation for about a week, peaking on the third day. Well, when I'm sleeping, I'm not smoking. Nor will I feel the need, right? And being sleepy can be nicely calming -- I smoke a lot just because I'm one of those jittery types you'd rather didn't have a right to keep and bear arms. (Relax: I live in Japan, where I don't). AND I've got this longish slack period coming up with few demands on my time. If I do both at once, it could cut weeks off my start date for Uberman.

Tomorrow: one more cup (can) of coffee, plus cocoa, and my usual cigarette breaks, to get me through the last intense workday for a while. Then I'll start halving my caffeine intake every day, maybe chew some nicotine gum for a day just to remind me of what it's like to not smoke. After that, well -- I hope I can still manage to type on Wednesday.