Sleeping Outside the Box » Sleep

28 Hour Day

Atom[antic] — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:59:35 +0000

I’m working on a new sleep schedule. It won’t work this quarter–but maybe in the Autumn. Then again, winter is the best time to explore sleep changes…

Here’s the idea: http://antic.ShadowPuppet.net/28-hour-day

Where to Meet Your Friends

Atom[antic] — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:31:00 +0000

My friendships have been relegated to my dreams. I worked late last night, sleeping only to see my friends.

“Thanks for the book.”
“oh, yeah, glad you like it.”

Then we have a discussion on personal education philosophy and practices.
Sometimes, lately, I’m not sure if I had a conversation with a friend or if all happened in a dream.

“Didn’t we go to their house last week and play cards or something…?”
“No, it’s been a while.”

Optimistically, at least I remember having good times.

Sleepy Brainstorming

Atom[antic] — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:31:13 +0000

I used to lie awake, in bed, thinking about time travel, cause and effect, logical fallacies, the history of the universe, the microcosmic dust and the macrocosmic crust–anything unknown that needed a good hypothesis.

Now, I lie there thinking about innanities, filling out forms, paying bills, the state of the economy, work, work and more work. All these worries and obsessions, so human, are so restrictive.

I just can’t find it in me at the moment to become creative about beurocracy. This makes it difficult to sleep.

I used to start dreaming to fall asleep, starting with something abstract and twisting it until it was even more difficult to articulate. Soon, all would be a haze of dream and random thought stream.

I need this again.

Neo-Tokyo Towers

Atom[antic] — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:22:26 +0000

I’m up in a skyscraper that scrapes the ionosphere. It’s mostly under construction on the bottom of the tower but it’s all finished and full of people up top. There are escalators everywhere and I’m running down them. My Heely skate shoes come in handy as I round the corner and glide down one of the special wheelchair ramp escalators. It’s totally flat but it moves me faster than I can run. When I hit the bottom of the ramp I grab hold of a metal bar encircling the next escalator and I jump up through the opening that separates the pedestrian walkway from the pedestrian freeway. Now I’m flying. My feet tap every fiftieth step on the electric stairway, just enough to keep my momentum but the angle of descent is enough for me to nearly free-fall down dozens of floors.
Although I’m going fast, I know they are not far behind me, Yakuza, gokudō, but not bōryokudan–this group isn’t violent by nature. I think they just want to question me, why, I don’t know but I’m running anyway. It’s not that I mind answering questions, I just like to answer questions with all my fingers intact at the end of the conversation.
In almost no time at all, I’m nearing the underdeveloped part of the tower. The are no longer any escalators and I must take one of the large elevators they use to cart equipment. It also carries a lot of people on sometimes, like tonight, where countless tuxedo and gown clad citizens celebrate on the roof, gazing at the less distant stars, getting drunk off of the high altitude.
For a second, I worry that they may have someone stationed in the lift. Luckily, they had flown in and landed on the roof. They must not have had anyone come from the ground, yet. The elevator takes me all the way down to the basement level, my ears popping all the way. In the lowest level of the building, there are even more people than on the roof. They are getting ready for a Cirque performance of some kind.
I grab a seat, trying to be inconspicuous. The show starts and immediately I am unimpressed. They have giraffe unicycle magicians catching fine pieces of cloth, which are being projected out of thin air, but I can see a black gloved hand throwing them from behind an even blacker drapery. The contortionists are weak and the jugglers falter.

50 Tips from NOED

Atom[antic] — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:26:38 +0000

The Nursing Online Education Database just posted a list of 50 sleeping tips. It’s a nice list with some really great things to try if you want to experiment with your sleep in subtle ways.

Keeping in mind that I am not a nurse nor a doctor, I still have some comments based on my own sleep experiences. I find it necessary to comment because very little scientific research has actually been done on sleep. Personal experiences add a necessary supplement to the modicum of information out there.

#5. Don’t go to bed with a full stomach
When attempting to get an 8 hour night of continuous sleep, I think this is one of the most important factors of having a both a restful night of sleep and an easy awakening without feeling groggy. Food digestion slows with the rest of your body functions at night and if you have food in your stomach at all, it will sit there for as long as you do. I have always felt groggy and unrested, regardless of how much sleep I get, in times that I have eaten before bed. I have been in the habit lately of actually staying up later (and getting less hours of sleep) just to insure that I rid my body of all food before going to sleep. It has paid off remarkably.

#14. Never go to bed hungry
I have to disagree slightly with this one. While, in my experience, going to bed starving or even with a blatant hunger is not a good idea, being right on the verge of getting hungry and leaning on the side of hunger has been quite a good experience for me.
When I was working dinner shifts in the restaurant industry, going to school during the day, I was on a fairly strict schedule. I ate dinner a little after 5pm and had a small snack (and plenty of water) during my shift. My work shift was great exercise–resulting in plenty of sweat and sore muscles throughout the week. I was always incredibly tired when I got off work between 12:30-1am. I went to bed a little hungry at about 2am and I would always wake up at about 8am or 9am, jumping out of bed with energy and feeling very ready to start the day (stopping at the kitchen before the shower). For breakfast, I always had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (every day for over 9 months). Being allergic to milk gives me fun alternatives to the normal American breakfast cereal morning.
I was on that schedule for about 9 months, sleeping 6-7 hours a night consistently. I remember feeling more alert, better rested and happier than I have on any other sleeping regiment–even than the year I spent working graveyard, sleeping a consistent 10 hours a night, in which I had the best, longest, most vivid dreams that I could ever remember and even experienced my first lucid dreams.

#25. Take Melatonin
I tried Melatonin once and aside from vivid dreams and feeling well rested in the morning, it wasn’t a great experience (read Melatonin or LCD).
Last November, Science Daily published an article called < a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071115164438.htm">Hormone of Darkness: Melatonin Could Hurt Memory Formation At Night, which announces new sleep studies on zebra fish (grain of salt: they are not mammals, which may be important).
Now, there are other articles and research studies on mice (mammals) that show the opposite–that Melatonin actually may improve learning.
I decided to try Melatonin after reading the very detailed Melatonin Wikpedia article, which convinced me that it was worth trying and I may try it again since I still have a bottle of 2 stage release tablets.
Talk About Sleep has a great article on correct use of Melaton
I recommend to anyone wanting to experiment with it, to read all of the links within this post :)