The Uberman Series Day 1


So much for sleep, eh? I finally pulled the plug out on the 21st of April, 2020 when I decided to give Uberman one more chance.
"Give it time"
"Have patience"
"Persevere"
"Be disciplined"
The tables will have to turn this time, what say Uberman?
It was 12am, I had not a hint of sleep to drown me under. My routine during the days which followed that one had been owlish to a certain extent. I would sleep by two or three in the morning and get up by ten or half-past ten later. The mornings and afternoons would go into house chores while after the afternoon, I would do some workout and follow it up with a bunch of other things I liked doing. So when I made up my mind, studied the routine I wanted to follow and charted it up, I decided to skip the first nap of the day, which starts at 12am. Here's what the schedule looks like:

Nap 1/4 at 12am/12pm
Nap 2/5 at 4am/4pm
Nap 3/6 at 8am/8pm
And by the time it was 3am, I felt a light nudge mentally to go to bed, as if my brain were reminding me, "Hey, we should sleep now." But as it wasn't very compelling and I was barely feeling fatigued, I continued. I read a book, journaled in my diary, caught up my Quora feed and surfed really random things on the internet. And as is with the brain, when you enthusiastically decide against sleeping, your brain supports you fully for the same. I felt like I had defeated sleep. I thought that I was at the top of the world with the newfound time that I had. When the time for the second nap came, I dove right into it. Though I did not sleep in those 20 minutes, I wasn't even fully conscious. I zoned out to somewhere in between and the moment the alarm gave me a nod, I got up reflexively and in a calculative manner and set up my remote workstation back again for the segment ahead.

This is how life will be, I thought to myself as I envisioned setting up on my bed a workstation during the slots with the help of a little laptop table. My bed would be my remote workstation during the slots and a bed during the naps. I had read many say how the routine distorts the very perception of time as it is no longer a day-night phenomenon. For someone following Uberman, the day is the same as night, all that you do is follow your nap times. And when you do watch the sunrise in the morning, you think to yourself how you'd witnessed it set hours prior. Once or twice in a while seems like no big deal but in the long stretch, the days and night don't seem like well-defined entities with borders, they seem more to blur in an endless cycle. Even after pushing all these thoughts aside, I could still feel the residual excitement of having my perception changed. And yet so, I reminded myself not to get too ahead of myself. The first day is always the easiest, it is like your usual night-out gigs, but you feel more normal and energetic doing this as you don't expect to be sleeping even through the morning. I meditated during the sunrise on my first morning after a long time and followed my normal routine post that, finished my daily chores sooner and freed up even more time.

During the day, whenever I would remember that I hadn't slept, I would be amazed but at the same time would remind myself that it's not a big deal and would shrug it off. I firmly believe that making a big deal out of things which are going fine, screws them up soon. And I had to make this whole experiment the same—not a big deal. I had to pretend to be a master polyphasic sleeper until I would become one. The game hadn't begun yet, but it soon would and it wouldn't be sunshine and rainbows. It is a lesson I learned the last time. The first day feels fantastic and you feel that it is super easy. You go all, "Yeah! Bring it on!" but just the second day brings so much in and it gets so challenging, it doesn't take long for you to be down on your knees. It snaps your confidence in half and pummels you blows left, right and centre. This time though, I know what to expect and I keep myself mentally prepared.

My mantra for the following days is going to be simple,

Nap on time, don't take much time.

This time around, I also plan to work on several more aspects which will determine the success of this experiment. So as and when they show up, I will address them. Meanwhile, enjoy your sleep.

More in The Uberman Series 

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