I need more time, lol!
I keep barely swinging my homework in on time.  I absolutely adore my classes, they are an excuse to draw and since most of the time my excuse is "I have nothing to draw" now I have plenty!  Too much maybe, I spent all of Saturday (and part of Sunday) on my homework and I still had to rush to get it done on Monday.  It's absolutely fun though!
So school is going well.  Work is fun, as always, although I keep finding myself wanting to put things off to the middle of the night and we were discussing a theory about turning off the different sides of your brains so you never had to sleep.  I wonder if that already happens to a certain extent, I am at my peak now at 12-3 am, but I guess it can't be true because I spend all day Saturday and Sunday being creative and such.  The sunlight is motivational too. 
I must start and finish mine and Aya's halloween costumes.  I am making her a new bustle gown and I am hoping to make myself a watteau back 1750s sack gown or robe a la francais.  Could go with a robe a l'anglaise though, I haven't started drafting the pattern so anything is possible.  Any suggestions?
I guess I am going to spend the next few days sewing my butt off!  I have Friday off work for all last minute sewing needs.  I am gonna start with Aya's gown because last year I didn't quite finish her 1840s dress that I made that matched mine.  In fact it's still sitting in my closet about 7/8ths finished. 
Yeah HALLOWEEN!!!

ALRIGHT I've been polyphasic for 4 months now!!  Sorry in advance this one's not very well written!

So of course something people ask a lot is what happens when you are sick!  I'll tell you two scenarios that happened to Aya and I.

Migraine/Food Poisoning
This is a sickness where you are puking or diarrhea for usually about a day.  It's painful, it's debilitating, and it sucks.  Very similar to this is a migraine, on top of puking your guts out, your whole body is racked with tremors, your head splits as if your eyes are gonna burst open, and it just generally sucks as I've already disclosed. 
So what happens to you when you are polyphasic and you get one of these?  Naturally when I start getting a migraine my body gets really tired to try and get me to sleep, since sleep often cures my headaches.  So I decided I'd better do it, by the time I'd puked a few times when I got the migraine I knew I couldn't handle being awake any longer, it was much too painful.
So I slept for about 8 hours.  I woke up every hour or two, but it wasnt until hour 7 or so I started feeling better.  At the end of the 8 or so hours, I was very paranoid that I would be completely thrown off my schedule for the rest of my life, but I felt like a million bucks!  My migraine was gone and I felt so refreshed!
For the next few days I had really super energetic days.  I got low sleep quality in about 2 out of my 6 or so naps, until finally I could fall asleep without fail again. 
In an experiment Claudio Stampi did, after about a month he let the guy sleep as long as he wanted.  He ended up sleeping 8 hours, getting up, feeling refreshed, and absolutely positively going on as if nothing had happened.  This felt a lot like that.  It was very nice, with exceptiont of those few naps, but I had enough energy that they didn't affect me at all. 

Swine Flu
Aya got the swine flu recently.  It was horrible and awful and she had to sleep for 4 days almost straight.  She felt miserable and groggy from sleeping so long, even after her last fever broke. 
After the 4 days, she went back to doing uberman, but she had to readapt slightly because she'd been thrown off so far.  It took less than a week to get back completely on track, falling asleep at every nap and all that.  I'm so glad she's not sick anymore!!  We were cooped up for a week because I didn't want to inadvertently spread the swine flu.  I spent 7 days with her sick person and did not catch the swine flu.  Thank heavens!

Anyhow that concludes my poorly written short essay about getting sick.  I am sorry I post so infrequently, I swear I will get better! 

QoS (no, not one of my favorite movies Quantum of Solace)
Quality of Sleep

Today I'm gonna write a little bit about the quality of your sleep when you nap and the way it effects your energy/mood/etc.  I've been polyphasic for more than three months now, I can sit in a car and drive in the dark for hours at a time without feeling that "bored" or zoning out in any way.  I don't even have to listen to music.  When my alarm goes off,  I pop up, and I stay energetic all the way through to the next nap, which I start feeling within about 10 minutes before the nap.  The only time I get tired is between 11:03 and 11:45 or so, this is just a really slow time for me no matter where I am or what I am doing (even when I'm out dancing!) but once 11:45 hits I have more energy than any of my other phases.  I often forget to take my 2:40 am because I'm so energetic (I am turning nocturnal!)  I most literally and utterly am adapted and used to this polyphasic sleep schedule.  It's permanent in me now (see my article that I'm going to write about getting sick while polyphasic for more info when I write it :P)
So what are the stages of quality of sleep?  When do you start getting the best sleep?  What is the worst kind of sleep you can get away with?  How long will different naps last?  I'm gonna answer all these interesting questions and maybe more, based on my and my twin's experience both.

The Adaptation Phase: What to Expect
When we're talking about quality of sleep or not falling asleep for your naptime, the first thing I think of is the adaptation phase because of how often you don't fall asleep for your naps.  During the first few days of adaptation I did not get sleep during a single nap.  My mind was reeling (probably thinking about how cool this was gonna be once I was adapted) and I could not get my body or brain to shut down long enough to take a nap. 
The most IMPORTANT thing about napping when you are adapting is to not try to make up for it.  If you don't fall asleep during a nap, don't go back to bed or try to take it later, -stick to your schedule!!!  You are teaching your body "Body, you ONLY have this time to go to sleep, take it or leave it."  Yes, you will be deprived of sleep, yes, you will feel like you were run over by a semi truck several times and beaten with a baseball bat afterward, but that is the only way to adapt completely to this schedule.  You are changing this bodily function that is built into you, you are changing your life, not just your diet or your plans, it is going to be a challenge and it's gonna suck.
So the point is, you won't get a very good sleep quality during your first days.  Probably after the fourth day or so you should be falling asleep (maybe not quickly) and you won't start dreaming until about day 5 or 6.  It wasn't until after about day 14-15 that I started falling asleep every nap.  The dreams came and went, but after day 27 or so I dream within a minute of my head hitting the pillow so to speak (I rarely sleep on a pillow ;P)  and I dream consistently as long as I am in a position to get good quality of sleep.  Be patient, it will come to you as long as you stick with it!

What is Quality of Sleep?
Other than being something abbreviated "QoS" because I love the reference to Daniel Craig (*swoon*), Quality of Sleep is simple.  Essentially, it is how much sleep you get during a nap, or how deep that sleep is.  There are a hundred things that can affect this.  Sleeping in a parking lot that has loud music coming from it could affect your quality of sleep, being too excited could affect your quality of sleep, heck even what you eat and when can affect your quality of sleep for the first little while.  Your quality of sleep can determine how soon you get tired between naps.  With perfect sleep quality, you should swing almost precisely 4 hours before getting tired, usually a bit more.  When you don't get your quality sleep, you may only be able to get less than 3 hours.

Things to know about QoS
What essentially happens to your body when you adapt to polyphasic sleeping is that it becomes completely sleep deprived, and from there, it takes naps only long enough to hold you over to the next nap.  This means that you are slowly building up the "energy reserve" using bits and pieces of your current naps, so that you won't have all of the side effects you do off the bat such as eye lag and defocusing.  Once you have been on it long enough, your body has taken enough little bits of your sleep to make up for all of this and one by one these little side effects go away.  But your body will only gain that if it gets good quality of sleep, essentially.
Good sleep quality is when you lay down, you dream (time expansion will occur, this is something that happens to me almost 6 times a day and I am still surprised and fascinated by it!)  and you wake up to your alarm feeling refreshed.  In the beginning, after you've adapted but before you've really lost all your side effects, you will have to find the nap time that is correct for you.  When I sleep more than 25 minutes I will have finished dreaming and when I wake up I am tired and groggy and feel like crap.  I sleep 23 minutes, I wake up near the end of a dream (or sometimes wake myself up because I've been dreaming so long I think I've missed my alarm, only to find it's only been 10 minutes, but that's another story.)  and I feel AWESOME when I wake up (except, as I've pointed out, after my 1040 nap, at 1103, I wake up but I feel rather slow for a while.)
Medium quality of sleep is usually caused by noises or weather.  I sleep in the car a whole lot, and often it will be in a crowded parking lot in which there is a lot of hustle or noise.  This causes me to take up to 10 minutes to fall asleep, but eventually I do, I dream, I wake up not feeling half as refreshed but I feel fine.  This kind of sleep can also happen if it's too hot or too cold to fall asleep.  This sleep will last you about 2.5-3 hours before you start getting tired.  That's not to say you will get so lethargic you'll want to nap again, it just means you will feel icky for a little while, which sucks.
Poor sleep quality has many many causes.  One of the main causes in my house is my little puppy Lupita, or Lupe or Loopy as we like to call.  She loves to whine outside my door if I kick her out, and she loves to find me under the covers and give me sweet kisses while I'm trying to sleep.  In fact, if she's sleeping and I lay down, she will immediately get up.  My dog PooPooButt is the same, the second I lay down, he's there with a toy, even though he could have come and got me while I was up!  So between the two I sometimes miss many naps (next time I should just go sleep in the car :P)
When I was first adapting, I would not be able to fall asleep if I ate around my naps, and I had to start making sure I didn't eat within an hour of my naps.  Nowadays, I can eat whatever and do whatever and I will still fall asleep because my body is so used to this schedule. 
But do not fear!  A mantra I have when I can't fall asleep because of my racing mind is simply that it is ok, you do not need to fall asleep because resting is just fine.  There are times still when I can't fall asleep (I had one yesterday sometime) but don't get up and do stuff like an insomniac.  If you rest, you will gain about 1-2 hours worth of energy, and trust me, it's worth it.  I'm going to talk about physiological effects that happen when you sleep/around sleep when you're polyphasic in my next article and definitely be sure to read it because even though your body doesn't fully go to sleep, it almost always at least gives you one helluva nice rest.  I think of these times as "daydreaming time" when I know I won't fall asleep so I just daydream instead.  Sure, it only lasts an hour or two, but it's better than throwing your whole schedule off just because you didn't get to bed. 

Closing Thoughts
The main thing about quality of sleep is that even if it's bad sleep, any sleep is better than waking when it's time to nap.  Don't fret over a few naps where you didn't fall asleep, they will be made up for within 4 or 5 hours depending on when you take your next nap!  If you have any questions about the effects of quality sleep or non-quality sleep, just let me know to give me something to write about.  I'm sure there's more I wanted to write about that I forgot.
Tune in next time (hah like next month!) for physiological reactions to polyphasic sleep patterns based on how my twin and I feel about our bodies reactions to certain situations that are caused by being polyphasic sleepers.  Maybe the title won't be that long, but then again... maybe it will :P  I am also going to write an article about getting sick while you're polyphasic, sleeping to get over it, and how that affects your schedule.  Thanks for reading!

I cannot believe it, but I keep running out of time in the day.  Yes, out of my 21-22 waking hours, I still cannot find time to do all the things I need/want to do!
Someone tell time to slow down!  I've got more homework to finish by tonight!!!

My Naps

4-430 am
630-650 Optional (take instead of 640)
12-1218 pm
440-503 pm
640-700 Optional (take instead of 630)
1040-1103 pm
240-303 am


I don't take my 630 am one all the time, though I probably should.  Overall, I sleep about 2.23 hours a day, I don't usually take both optional naps.  Still, 2.6 isn't bad on those days I just feel like I need that extra zing.  Overall, I have great energy between naptimes (except sometimes 3-4, that can be a struggle) and it's so freakin' awesome.  That's all!

Here: http://community.livejournal.com/egl_comm_sales/7595944.html

Polyphasic Sleep: Oversleeping and its Causes

I try try try to think of stuff to write here about polyphasic sleeping.  Often I will think of an awesome subject, think of a few paragraphs, then get stumped and really have conveyed no point whatsoever.  I decided that it doesn't matter if there is a point, the point of blogging about my polyphasic life is to let you know what you are in for before, during, and after adaptation.  I am going to talk today about things that cause oversleeping/core naps.  They don't happen often, but I've got a few tips to make it prevented in the first place.
As a little breakdown I have been polyphasically sleeping for two and a half months or so.  I started as an everyman, but a few weeks ago (3 or 4) I turned to uberman (sort of.) Sleeping polyphasically took me 14-17 days to "get used to" and a full 27 days until I was what I consider "adapted."  The difference is, after 14 or 17 days, I was fully on schedule with no problems, I was awake and alert even during my hardest circadian hour, and I had very little battle with my will that I had to do.  Despite all this, I still had some small side effects, like blurry eyes (I am blind in my left eye and it seemed for a while there I was going to have to wear glasses for once because my eyes werent being alotted enough energy to focus correctly.  Actually looking at this computer screen now puts how bad it was into sharp perspective and I am very grateful that I am past that phase.)  I also would get "eye lag" at certain times of day, where you move your eyes, but it takes them a couple milliseconds to actually move, little things like that that were annoying.  I really thought for a while that these were things that were going to continue forever, and I was almost ok with that, until about day 27 when it all went away.
Now in every polyphasic sleepers life, there will come times when they need to move/skip naps or they need to change schedules, or they need to go to an awesome movie premiere. Some times we'll also go out all day and get sunburned, exhausted from hiking or dancing, or whatever it is we were doing.  These things will, in fact, sap your body, and you will wake up 1-3 hours later, your alarm on your desk (from around your bed) and thinking "Wow, I feel great!  What the hell?"  
Since I used to be an everyman, these core naps are not discouraging to me.  My twin on the other hand once claimed that I told her I would wake her up in 30 minutes (we overslept about 3 hours this time, our worst EVER)  and I guess I must have, because when I woke up my alarm was on my desk.  Although I have this vague, muddly recollection of being awake, I certainly don't remember going ot her room or talking to her about waking up.  I also think that, since we had been dancing and such, that had taken a toll and I needed that extra sleep.  This was totally ok with me, but Aya sure was upset that I hadn't woken her up.  I guess you shouldn't make deals with sleepy people.
While this may seem like something awful or something that "isn't right or natural,"  I feel it harkens back to my wild teenager days (just kidding, more like my conservatively jubilant 13 year old days) when I used to stay up til 3 am watching SciFi channel and free form role-playing on mIRC at the Green Dragon Inn.  I recall more than one time where I would talk to Aya, and then she'd have absolutely no recollection of our conversation (such as letting me borrow a brush or use her computer.)  We never thought when this happened that anything was wrong with our health, and since in the WHOLE time I have been polyphasic this has happened only once to me, I do not believe it is a bad thing.  

Sleep Time, Etiquette, and standing your ground.

I have meetings for work once a month or so where all the managers from all of our stores get together and learn about the new campaigns and talk about all the subjects that need talking about.  I do about 95% of the materials for these meetings, and generally about 75% of them have to be finished on the day of the meeting, whether due to changes, late entries, or simply something I have to wait to print.  The day of a manager meeting I'm usually in here about 6 to get a head start, since there is so much work I have to do.  I work non-stop, and don't usually get back from the meetings til at least 6 pm. 
So!  What do you do in a situation like this?  I have three naps during this time period (one is optional).   I sleep at 640, 12noon, and of course, my most important nap, 430.  The 640 was alright, since no one was in yet, I took that nap, but what about 12 and 430?  Here is my experience.
I worked straight through my noon nap.  I had to if I wanted to get everything done.  I honestly didn't feel too bad about it, I had only become reliant on that noon nap in the past week or two, and I didn't feel physically tired because I was moving constantly to get everything done.  I think that if I had just skipped this nap, I would have been a-ok.  When I skip naps (just one) I am usually ok without making it up just by sleeping on time for my next two naps.  I often am tempted to make them up, though, and will sleep sometime before my next scheduled nap, and it usually works out just fine.  The noon nap being optional, I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to make it up.
So I made an executive decision that, since I was pretty tired after I stopped moving, I would sleep in the car on the way to the meeting.  But of course it was almost impossible, the bright light of the sun couldn't be blocked out at all, even with multiple sweater layers.  There was also good conversation going at any given time and what sociable person could resist chatting with her awesome coworkers?  Not this one, that's for sure.  Needless to say, I decided to intend to take my nap at 420 (usually taken 420-430 ish) and just pretend I was in the restroom or something.
This didn't work out because our break was at 350 or so, too early to take my nap, late enough to be close to the time where it would look irresponsible to use the restroom.  Again, this is the way I felt, I am a polite person, I don't like my naps to impede on my work schedule, it's bad enough that I have to take a 12 nap already and am unable to answer the phones for 17 minutes.  So I decided (stupidly) that I would wait and nap in the car on the way back.
Well needless to say, the trip back was almost identical to the trip there. 
After that, I probably got back to my house about 615-630 and clonked into bed for a nap.  After that, I felt really tired, even after taking all my naps!  I didn't oversleep, however, until the next day when it caugth up with me.  It just left me so drained and I was in such a groggy state that I wanted to just lay down all afternoon/evening and even still the next day.  I overslept by 35 minutes the next day. 
So what do you do in a situation like this?  It is rude to leave the meeting, but I highly highly recommend it.  I will not make the same mistake again, if I skip my noon nap I will not put off my 430.  The feeling like you've not slept in a few days is just not worth it. 

Gravity

When I tell someone it's time for my nap, they usually laugh or say "cool" and I walk off and take my nap.  Other people will try to convince me not to, or ask me if I can skip it.  For this reason, I've now used the term "Going to sleep" or "Going to bed" everytime I am taking a nap. 
These naps are not like little frilly nilly naps.  They are the equivalent of a full-nights sleep, as far as refresh and rejuvenation goes.  Whenever I miss a nap, I feel as if I stayed up wayy too late and barely got any sleep as a monophasic would if they babysat til 1 and woke up at 330.  It isn't the worst feeling ever, and it goes away once you get your next nap or so, but people don't seem to understand the gravity of a nap.  When I missed those two naps, I was a walking zombie, every part of my body felt horrible, like it wanted to shut down.  I had a coworker ask "Can't you skip that one?"  She didn't know any better, so I explained to her how it felt when you skipped a nap, I'd never skipped more than one as I ended up doing, and I told her about 430 being my most important nap (followed very closely by 10 o'clock.  Now my schedule is a bit different, Aya and I have discovered that we can change schedules quite easily these days.)  and that it was my hardest to stay up during, etc.  She was very understanding.
Normally, people just don't understand the gravity of the word "nap,"  and they will convince you not to take it/to take it late/etc.  Don't let them.  This is your choice, it is your fault if you do decide to give in, and it will throw you off, no matter what, most especially during the adaptation phase (don't do ittt!)

Oversleep: Excersize (did I spell that right?)

Aya and I get a lot of physical activity.  We hike, dance, walk, jog, run around, and play catch :P  We also do push ups and sit ups and jumping jacks periodically, but those are a total given.  There are times, though, when our wonderful activities have made our schedule much harder.

Hiking:  While hiking itself has never taken a toll on us, the side effects have.  One Sunday (which was an awesome Sunday BTW) we spent the day in the Pine, AZ area and we went to Potato Lake (such a cute and pleasant lake.)  We got delicious salt water taffy, and then came back.  Well, within a few hours, our beautiful porcelain skin (haha :P) was deep, bright red.  We had been sunburned!  This was ok with us, we like getting a little sun and we've been so responsible with our skin that one burn wasn't gonna phase us.  But little did we know...
We took our 10 o clock, as usual, albeit we may have taken it a few minutes early.  And then we didn't wake up.  And we kept sleepin'.  I believe we slept a total of 3 hours, which is about the equivalent of my old core naps I used to take (cool :P)  But of course, we were upset!  Why hadn't we heard our alarms!  Did one of us wake up and not tell the other and then we lost it?
The next day a person on our friends list (on facebook, if you don't have me on there please feel free to add me, my name is Keighsie and I am the only one in the world.)  said that he overslept for some reason!  Or maybe it was the day before, but he had overslept.  Well, looking at his pictures, he'd gone to the beach the day he overslept, and so Aya dropped him a line to ask if he'd been sunburned at all.  It turned out he had.
I guess these little sunburns are a lot more physiologically damaging than I thought!  But, honestly, if you need it, take it, I wouldn't recommend sleeping more than 3 hours as a core in a 24 hour time frame though.  After we had that, we didn't feel in any way detrimented.

Dancing:  Aya and I love dancing, but we notice many times we go out dancing, we will dance non-stop for about 2 hours (I swear that we come back and step on the scale and can see that we've lost 1.5 lbs because we've danced so hard.)  We are bellydancers by learning, and we can break it down on the dance floor.  I'm also very good at breakdancing, and together we are like hip-hop queen cyclones.  At least, we must be with all the attention we get on tha' dance flo'.  
We noticed after these very intensive workouts, that we would end up sleeping a little late.  Sometimes it was 30 minutes nap instead of the 23 we intended, and others it would be 1.5 hours.  So I (I don't know about Aya here.) decided to just ADD in the 1 hour core nap, to keep it consistent and give me more rest than usual.  This means in a day instead of sleeping for 2 hours, I would be getting about 2.7, I already took a 23 minute nap at that time but I changed it to a 1 hour for that one nap.  This has been working out AWESOMELY for me so far.  I totally don't mind the extra hour to get all that good exersize (or whatever, my firefox spell checker isn't working) in.  

Generally, though, we sleep consistently, have no problems waking up.  We get tired within about 10 minutes of any given nap, and we often forget to take our 640 nap until I read the time adn go "OH ITS NAPTIME"  
We are on a
640 am (optional)
12 noon
440 pm
640 pm
1040 pm
240 am
This puts us at about 2.2 hours a day (with optional 640, I didn't take it today personally. I'm writing this instead).  It's really really awesome to have time to do the things you want, to learn the things you want, and to be able to write huge freakin posts like this because you have the time to.  I will never be able to go back to being fully monophasic, I will always have to retain some semblance of polyphase because I can't imagine all this time (which is no longer extra) being taken away from me!  

Anyhow, I gotta go get to work!
Peace!

P.S. This is posted from my livejournal to my facebook, for anyone on my facebook who is wondering what I'm talking about.  My livejournal is on the awesomest list of polyphasic blogs ever so I feel I gotta keep it going to represent.


** Footnote:  When I say "we" I am generally referring to my twin and I.  I have a bad habit of saying "we" and not disclosing that.

I want to write a few articles about interesting things I've found while polyphasically sleeping, but I am on facebook only now (I mean I am a facebook addict) so I just don't use this as much anymore.  I will try to write one today, though. 

Because it's the only year I'll be 23 on the 23rd!

Polyphasic sleeping is a sleeping schedule in which you sleep mostly or completely in naps.  It gives you extra waking hours to do whatever it is you need to do.  Two of the most popular forms of polyphasic sleep are the Uberman, or sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours, and the Everyman, taking a core of 3 or so hours and taking 3 20 minute naps in the day.
My twin Aya is doing Uberman and I do Everyman.  I have been on this schedule for 5 weeks and I have to tell you that I will never go back.  There is nothing more glorious than thinking about having to run errands straight after work without dread, since you can simply do anything else you want anytime.  My everyman schedule gives me 4 waking personal hours a day extra.  I broke it down in my last post about polyphase, but it comes out to almost double the free time that I used to have.
My current schedule has changed a bit from when I started, I sleep from 130-430.  I take 20 minute naps right after I wake up and wake Aya up (this starts the cycle over again and gives me an initial start), 440pm and 10pm.  In the past 3 days I have also added a 10 minute nap at work (you can pretend you are going to the bathroom, no one notices just 10 minutes) but I'm going to do 15 I think, between 12-1 sometime. 
I get up at 430, get ready for work, do whatever, take my 6 o clock, go to work, come home, take my 440, and then the night is free (and young, btw.)  I had a list of things to do, I ran out of paper to write it on.  I have been drawing, sewing, watching movies, knitting, writing, and more.  It is extremely liberating to have all this time.  I go on nightly walks and I have time to work out and I can do anything as late as I please.
I want to give you a breakdown of a few things that happen when you go polyphasic:
1. Your eyes go out of focus
This is probably worse for me, since I am blind in my left eye.  Where now I can see just like normal, it took me about 22 days to get that far.  Your eyes simply will not focus quickly enough, or when you are watching something they will defocus.  This happens mostly when you are tired, but the lack of focus is effective a whole gob of the time.  It has mostly gone away, but I am always thinking about how much I didn't like it.
2. Your skin is "pale white and ice cold, you don't sleep," etc.
Well not everyone is as pale as I am, but your body will get cold.  My internal temperature seems fine, as I don't sit there shivering under covers, but if you touch my cheeks you will find my skin cold to the touch.  I attribute this to blood and energy flow, but it's really rather interesting.  The lady who wrote the book about polyphasic sleeping (I do not recommend it, a lot of what she says is a load of shit and stuff) claims that her skin isn't colder and she's done it for a few years.  I don't know that I believe her.  While it may eventually go away, I am only on 5 weeks after all, I find it hard to believe.
3. Time
I've always had a theory that involves time travel as it is related to your dreams.  In this theory you can speed up time the way that you have a dream that seems like an hour but has only been 15 minutes.  It would probably be a purely cognitive thing, but it seems more and more plausible as now I sleep and dream often, more often than I did before when I would simply sleep, dream, wake.  I sleep dream wake 4 times a day now.  After about 2.5 weeks I started remembering my dreams immensely, I would wake myself up, panicking that my alarm had gone off and I'd missed it.  Nowadays I know that even though my dream seems 3 hours long, I am getting my 20 minutes.
4. Just woke up feeling
I never thought there would be a time in which 20 minutes of sleep would be as refreshing as 8 hours.  I guess I had no imagination.  I'm living it now, though, and I love it.  I've always been a person who felt great when they got up (except when I'm sleep deprived haha.)  I seem to be much happier, I will smile to myself all the time about what I'm thinking of.  Theoretically this could be that just-slept feeling manifesting itself, but I don't know.
5. Eye-lagginess
Eye lagginess isn't the same as focus problems.   Eye laggines is when you move your eyes (such as: glancing at your watch or looking at something that made a sound) and it takes for effing every to do so.  If  you want to change lanes on the road, don't drive.  By the time you look at the other lane it is too late for this lane, plus you have to get your eyes back, all in time for that gap.  Not cool, make someone else drive.
I'm sure there are more than just 5, but I better get on to it.  I logged from day 7-day 21 (at which I was basically acclimated)
6. Zoning out
This is the worst of all symptoms.  You literally snap back and realize you have been out for a small period of time (one second, a few milliseconds, etc) Don't drive and do this please, and be prepared.
Out of my first 7 days I remember a couple only.  Once you are adjusted, you don't get this unless you are late/skip a nap completely.  And it's not a bad price to pay as long as you aren't driving for skipping a nap if you have to.
An overview of the transition:
The first few days went without a hitch.  I wasn't falling asleep during my nap times but my body still had plenty of energy in her reservoir.  Of course by day 4, the not-falling-asleep during my naps caught up with me and I felt miserable.  I also got very sick from my period, as usual, but compounded with having to keep this schedule, I remember feeling pretty awful.  It got better for a time, whenever I didn't have my period induced headaches I didn't feel bad at all, just a bit drowsy.  At day 7 it started going down hill.
Aya and I both checked our logs, even though we were doing different schedules, days 7-9 were the worst for us, and Transformers Premiere set us back a few days.  Out of all this time, I have only slept more than I intended once, and that was when I decided to take a second nap, even though I had already taken one.  Aya woke me up after 20 mintues and we were laughing about it, I can't imagine what I was thinking.  People generally have a couple of days in which they oversleep to some extent.  It's not really bad as long as you don't try to make up for it, just continue with your schedule as if it never happened.  This rule is number one, and is most important when you didn't sleep.  You will be tempted to set your alarm forward if you didn't fall asleep, but the whole point is to deprave your body saying "you only have 20 minutes to fall asleep PERIOD, so make use of it."  If your body doesn't want to, trust me, it will change it's mind in a while.

Day 9 in detail:
This was the worst day for me.  I wasn't on the same schedule I am on now, I was sleeping only until 4 and had many hour in the morning before work to waste.  This isn't good.  I also didn't yet know the "NEVER SIT" rule which applies to your worst times of horrible sleepiness.  I woke up and felt fine for about 30 minutes, and then it started setting in (the tiredness.)  This was a trend that happened starting around day 5 or 6, so I wasn't too worried as I was used to it.  I'd get horribly sleepy for about an hour 20-30 minutes after waking.  On day 9, it was more than that.  After about 1-1.5 hours awake after my core, I experienced the most awful, yet intriguing thing I've ever seen: A microsleep.
Imagine you are cutting out the pattern to some slippers and then suddenly you black out and after one second you open your eyes and you are done cutting.  It is the weirdest thing I think I've ever seen, my brain literally shut down while my motors were still running.  I was very weirded out, it changes your perspective on what the human body is capable of.  It also supposedly is what narcolepsy is, in which case, I have such a great and deep sympathy for those with this condition it's not funny.  I kept myself going even after such a shocking thing by telling myself that even if I was doing it unconciously, at least I got the pattern cut out and I wouldn't have had time to before.  
But it was the breaking point and it didn't happen after that.  I still had severe eye-lag and focus problems for a few days but after that it started getting better and better (but when someone is adjusting, they may not feel it is "better" because just because you have less of it, eye-lag is extremely debilitating if you want to do anything, especially sitting, using your computer, reading, or something of the sort.)  Dozing kind of stinks but a brisk midnight walk will clear it up and take you until about bedtime.
Aya and I did midnight walks rather consistently for the past few weeks, though in the past two days we haven't really needed one (I will prob. take one tonight just for being outside, I love the outdoors so much!)  I think these really helped, our normal body would think we should be in bed when it's that dark and late, but we trained it to think we should be doing some physical excercize.  
I'm sure I will come up with lots of awesome stuff to remember to write about.  I just like being detailed but when I am I run off on tangents and never end up saying what I meant to. 
Overall impression:  It's a freakin' blast!

2.8 pounds of wrinkles, pudges, and pure and utter mischief.

Friday evening brought us to the mall, where we went to find a cute belt for Aya.  After a few stores and a good meal at Garcias, we were walking to another store when we saw a woman with an adorable puppy in her arms. 
"Oh lord what a cutie!" we exclaimed, petting the uncharacteristically social tiny chihuahua excitedly.
"Oh she's for sale," the lady replied.  Orly?  Probably like at least 700, the going rate for teacup chihuahuas here are around 1k.  
"How much?" we asked curiously. 
"Two hundred-fifty," she replied.
Oh
ok
lets do it!

Later
"What kind of food does she eat?"  
"Oh all kinds of food, human food, all different kinds."
"No, I mean, what kind of kibble?"
"Oh I don't know."
"Do you own her parents?"
"Oh well her mother got out when we left the gate open and her father is not around anymore,"  (could be vice versa, at this point we were like WTF GET THIS DOG AWAY FROM THIS LADY!)  So, despite perhaps condoning slightly the breeding of this poor poor soul, we went to an ATM and purchased her, a decision we made based on the fact that THEY LEFT THE GODDAMN GATE OPEN WTF.  SHE EATS HUMAN FOOD AND WTF DUDE.  I would just be so guilty leaving her to those conditions.  
Thus the acquisition of the poor Lupita Jeniffer Rosa De La Riva Gonzalez Lopez Hu (a.k.a. Lupe)
Needless to say this joyous hilarious and adorable parcel made her way to our home, where she and PooPooButt hit it off, Jenny became used to her in a night, and we are still working on the cat.  When she came home she really didn't know what kibble was, or those dog food meats which we got her in case.  Now she does hahahaha!
She's great at getting into things, causing trouble, giving you guilt trips for putting her in the kennel for two hours while you are away so as to not let her get into those things I discussed earlier.  She is great at finding things you never knew were neaer your floor and chewing them and attempting to ingest them.  She's extremely good at finding ways to do things.  If she can't get onto the chair she will go around and find something to boost her up.  She is keenly intelligent.  She doesn't shake unless she's super super super overwhelmed, and it's not the usual neurotic chihuahua shake.  We are working on potty training.  She is good at telling me when she has to go pee, but when I stick her on the pad, she'll sometimes walk away before she goes.  She goes on the pad when it is too hot to go outside, even though she was an outdoor dog all her life before this.
One thing I do have to say though :  Thank god I'm polyphasic!  It makes a huge difference to have a puppy that YOU wear out instead of one that keeps you up at night.  The sleep is going well, though the night before last I woke up 20 minutes after I went to bed for my core from a weird ass dream, and it took a bit to recover from that.  My dreams are more lucid now, I woke myself up from the one I was referring to.  I used to lucid dream 100% of the time, but I couldn't tell you why, it was for a little over a year when I was 18-19.  I don't know when it stopped but I remember thinking it sucked.  We'll see where that goes.

I dont know if I mentioned either that I was accepted at Academy of Art University so I'm going to go there (online for now, half time)  OH GOD LUPE STOLE MY CHAPSTICK SHE IS TRYING TO CHEW IT UP 
YEAHH I am so excited about ACA it was my childhood dream to go there.  Now I have the time and stuff for it.

Shameless plug for my oekaki!!
         




What other people have said about "The Oekaki Spot" (Keighsie's Oekaki):



"Aya: hang on a sec

So the Pimsleur series were on sale for 6 dollars each basic course (10 lessons) so I bought Italian, French, German, Hindi (I have done up to lesson 3 or 4 on Hindi in the past but not past that.)

I am on lesson 22 (or I may be doing 23 tomorrow) of Mandarin.  After one full set (30 lessons) you are considered basic fluency.  It's awesome I know so much of what they are saying on dramas and in music now (well I don't know love song Mandarin yet but I'm working on it haha)

Pimsleur is the best method I've ever seen/heard/etc to learn spoken language.  I have always been understood by people when I've spoken Mandarin in the past, even though I didn't know it was romanized Pu tong hua (I thought it was Po tong hua) but apparently my pronunciation is right on because people always say "ni shuo de hen hao!"  (I think I romanized that right but, again, they don't teach you any written language.)

Pimsleur teaches you stuff, and then goes back and pulls it out of your short term memory.  Short term to long term memory retention is usually after about 2 minutes, and these are 30 minute lessons, so it pulls these things from your memory all lesson (brings up previous lessons too of course) and this way it never gets lost in your short term.  It's fabulous and I have only had to retake one Mandarin course (that is lesson 21) because they started giving me commands in Mandarin and I wanted to make sure I understood them.  They say if you know about 85% of the final conversation, you are ready for the next lesson, which I have found to be true.  I love this program and I would vouch for it for anyone at any time learning a spoken language.

Anyhow now yo capisco unpo l'italiano (I think I am romanizing that right.)  and my coworker speaks Italian so I can practice on her Hahahaha askin her if she speaks English Hahahha MuaHahaHhaHa.  Oh I love languages.

Sunday was my two week anniversary polyphasically(sp?) sleeping (It is 15 days now)
I can proudly say I have fully adjusted,  I get tired only around my nap time, I haven't had eye-lag in two full days (though just wait it's probably gonna come back tomorrow and I'm gonna take away everything I said) I am awake in the mornings, and overall great!
I am so happy!  I made a linen top, the mockup regency bodice, painted, drew, watched movies, knit lots, read read read, read some more, cut out patterns, browsed the web, played the sims 3, played rock band 2, hiking, tons of hiking, lots of browsing, bookstore trips, mall trips, walking trips, and just a whole crapload of other stuff.

Some pics from the weekend (I was making a big post with all the pics but too lazy.  Got distracted by a movie :P)











 There are so many more but I will spare you for now.  I might make a post later though.
Fact is, Arizona is the most diverse, beautiful place in the world.  We have everything you could want within 5 hours.  This particular place, Tonto Natural Bridge State Park is only 2 hours from my home in the desert.  2 hours on the most beautiful road ever, too btw.

To do list!

Oh shoot I forgot to call Crystal!  I will call right after work!

Finish my linen top
Make my room slippers for my house
Cut out mock up of my Regency dress
Karaoke tonight or Rock Band 2?  This is a hard decision, Karaoke I get to hang out with my friend and get out of the house, but Rock Band 2 is much funner and I can karaoke on there and I dont have to leave the house so I can wear pajamas.  Hahahaha.
Read one more chapter of the book I'm reading

That's just for tonight...
BTW I got a 94% two different times on two different songs on medium settings so I am rockin!!!!  My next step:  HARD :P

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

I love you my LJ friends!!!<3<3<3

Which reminds me I need to change my icon!

Today is my ninth day of poly-phasic sleeping.  I have to say, I have energy ALL day and ALL night, except of course right when I wake up from my core nap, at which point I think I experience microsleeps while I walk around and do things.  It's like this FATIGUE and LETHARGY and it kinda sucks!
But the fact is, I cut out some slippers, and then I realized I had cut out the slippers.  As in, I didn't consciously do it because I was so tired, but at least I did it. 
So that is the part I'm still working on.
Otherwise:
I feel great!!!!
I have this AWESOME mood which may or may not have to do with the sleeping but has been more consistent since then.  This could be because I get all the time to sew and paint that I want, as opposed to before when I would get to a certain point and just be upset that I hadn't done anything productive in so long.  It also could be because I believe that I feel less pain, as in I accidentally poked myself with pins while sewing, as usual, and it wasn't as acute a pain, it just felt like something happened and then felt like something changed, then a dull pain sensation, and that was it!  
Around 3 I get tired for my 440 nap since I take from 4 am all the way to the 440 pm awake.  I could try napping in between, I'm thinking about it.  The lethargy in the morning puts into perspective how mild this feeling of tiredness is around 3, like someones telling me to go to sleep as opposed to my body sleeping even while I try not to let it.
So I am sure one of these days it will go BAM and I will be adjusted, but til then an hour of tiredness in which I can work for all that productivity is so worth it :P  I will of course try and figure out a way to thwart my morning fatigue but I would stick with it anyways, honestly.

We shall see!!!  Also I made this cute linen top I just gotta put the waistband on it and tack down the bias straps and then I shall be finished!  Took me longer to decide how long I wanted the straps than anything else.  It's still a bit low but I think it will be great!!