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I haven now successfully completed my first weekend of Dymaxion Sleeping! I began on Friday night with a 30 minute nap at 12:30am instead of my usual 4 hours of sleeping at night.

Over the weekend I slept for a total 6 hours. Saturday afternoon I failed to set my alarm correctly which resulted in a one hour oversleep after the 6:30 pm napping checkpoint. On Sunday, I got over-confident around 3:30pm. I decided that I needed to relax, so I watched a movie on the bed. The next thing I knew, it was 4:30pm and I was waking up from an hour-long nap.

This leads me to an interesting paradox that I have been mulling over since I started. There seems to be somewhat of a struggle (at least in the adaptation stage) between the body and the mind of a Dymaxion sleeper. A Dymaxion sleeper does not sleep nearly as many hours as a normal sleeper.

In stages 1-4 of a ordinary monophasic sleeping process, breathing slows and muscles becomes extraordinarily relaxed. While many argue that REM sleep (we can call REM sleep stage 5 sleep) is the most critical stage, the majority of monophasic sleeping session is spent in stages 1-4 (non-REM sleep).

Since polyphasic sleepers accrue so much less of stage 1-4 sleep, they must use a significant portion of their additional waking hours to put their body in a restful and relaxed state.

Unfortunately, polyphasic sleepers are exceptionally susceptible to dozing off during the adaptation process. Furthermore, the more relaxed one is, the more likely he or she is to nod off and disrupt his adaptation progress.

I strongly suspect that this struggle becomes obscure as polyphasic sleepers leave the adaptation stage and become accustomed to their new sleeping schedules.

For the second consecutive day around 4:40am (as soon as I saw any trace of the sky becoming lighter), I went to the central courtyard here on Peiking University's gorgeous campus to read. This ritual made the 12:30pm to 6:30am waking period much more manageable. I previously suspected that I would be the least productive and most prone to falling asleep during this late night/early morning period.

I am confident that taking an early morning sunrise walk would greatly help all polyphasic sleepers (especially those who are struggling with their adaptation stages). This habit utilizes two valuable strategies that increase alertness and energy. The first strategy is taking walks. A short walk helps wrest or pull the body out of the monotonous haze of the long, quiet, dark wee hours of the night. A walk increases blood flow and circulation, necessitates an increase in oxygen intake, and speeds up the heart rate.

The second strategy is using the sunlight to enable the circadian clock to energize the body. Psychological studies have shown that, ceteris paribas, an individual in a well-lit room will feel more awake and alert than he or she would in a dark room. When light is present, the circadian clock tells the body to be more lively and attentive, whereas when light is void, the circadian clock signals to the body that it can relax and power off a bit more.

I was very sleepy between about 7 and 10am. I tried to stay in the comfort of my dorm room and read, watch movies, and study some Chinese. I quickly discovered that I needed a more active, and perhaps more social social, method of passing the daytime hours. I decided to go study by the lake.

Being around so many people and conversing on the lakeside helped increase my focus and my energy level. It helped so much in fact that I ended up taking my 12:30 nap about twenty minutes late and having so much energy that I couldn't fall asleep for another 10 minutes.

At 3:30pm, I reduplicated and this time exaggerated my previous mistake of lounging around the dorm partaking in passive, relaxing activities. This resulted in my second mis-sleep.

I have read that sleeping outside of the designated nap times can have disastrous effects and slow the adaptation process. When I awoke at 4:30pm, I was very frustrated. Furthermore, I had to find a way to get rid of all my energy so that I could fall asleep again at 6:30pm.

I decided to go for a run. Based on my abysmal running ability from the previous day (Saturday), I expected to only run for about 5 or 10 minutes at a snail's pace again. However much to my delight, I experienced perhaps the largest surge of energy and strength that I have ever received in my life. I ran at about 75-80 percent of my sprinting capacity for around 20-25 minutes. I didn't want to push my limit since other polyphasic sleepers have recommended an abeyance of intensive exercise during the adaptation period. I feel that I could have ran at this elevated pace for 45 or so minutes had I pushed myself to the breaking point.

After the 20-25 minutes of running I did however decide to engage in some light upper-body exercises. Again, I felt incredible physical strength, mental dexterity, and cardiovascular endurance. I cranked out some of the easiest pull-up sets that I have ever done in my life. I took care of back to back to back sets of 35 extreme-decline push ups with a workmanlike fashion.

I suspect that the extra-nap gave my body an super-surge of energy. On Saturday, my body obviously felt sleep-deprived as I struggled to lift my legs off the ground. My frustration with oversleeping and the added energy enabled me to exercise at a high level. This can only bode well for the future. As my body becomes more and more accustomed to the amount of time slept and the type of sleeping patterns that are occurring, I will surely experience this type of mental and physical energy and strength on a more consistent basis.

Time to nap again. Things are only getting better. I feel great. More to come soon.

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