Technology for Living

Good morning, everybody. Pretty much the same as yesterday. Tough getting up but I can shake it off without too much fuss. This’ll be day 5.

So, my last couple of microposts on Twitter and such might have been a little confusing to some. I’ve gotten a couple of questions, so I thought I’d answer them with a FAQ-style post.

You’re doing what?!

I’m adapting to a polyphasic sleep schedule. There’s a lot of great information at PureDoxyK’s website (http://www.puredoxyk.com/) and here (http://ohgodthechicken.com/start-up-guide/). Long story short, I’m reducing the amount of sleep I take, and spreading it out a bit over the day.

Why would you do such a thing?

Now THERE’s a question! I’ve been using monophasic (all in one big block) sleep for quite some time. Back when I was at school all day and working all night, I had a scenario where I never had a big block of sleep. For about two days, I was more-or-less stable just taking naps. I called it “grazing” sleep, instead of going for a big meal (monophasic sleep).

Much later, I read Steve Pavlina’s article series on polyphasic sleep. (Too lazy to hunt it down – just check out http://stevepavlina.com) He was using the Uberman schedule, which to me was impractical: 6 naps per day, with no real wiggle room. Not good for anybody with a job or other commitments. I was slightly bummed that I couldn’t try it out, but got on with life.

I’ve been in light levels of sleep deprivation for a while now. Recent events have put me further into sleep-dep. I’ve handled it before, but I was getting tired of it. Trying to sleep all at one go was clearly not working: I wasn’t getting the sleep I needed, nor was I doing all the things I intend to do.

At about this time, I got wind of alternate polyphasic sleep schedules. They don’t give as much time as the Uberman schedule, yet are more flexible and easier to integrate with the outside world. Since the hard part of adjusting to (any!) new sleep schedule is dealing with sleep deprivation during adaptation, I figured I was halfway there. So, I started over the weekend.

Sleep deprivation? That’s dangerous!

Yes, actually. Very. But two big points here: First, I was already experiencing enough sleep-dep that I was falling asleep during normal wakeful time, with Mountain Dew in my system. Over-amping the body isn’t especially good for you either. Secondly, the goal is to get beyond the sleep-dep adjustment phase and be rested and active while you’re awake.

So, you’re going to be tired all the time?

Just the reverse, actually. I’m still in the first week of adjustment, so I can’t stand up and point too much, but the dark circles under my eyes have actually been slowly fading. That doesn’t mean it’s been easy going; it’s a fight to get the body adjusted. Still, once the body figures out how to sleep more efficiently, you can get all the rest you need. This morning my wife and I enjoyed a bit of role reversal: I’ve never been a “morning person”, all the moreso for not getting enough sleep. Today, I was buzzing around the house doing this and that, while she was trying to get her eyes fully open. Still, she’s liking what she’s seeing thus far.

Ok, so what are you doing with the time?

Well, thus far it’s been “working like normal and doing whatever it takes to stay awake the rest of the time” This morning, I reinstalled my wife’s computer (Ok, we had Windows loaded, but nothing else. Taking a bare Windows install to fully updated, customized and comfortable takes a while if you’re not restoring from an image.

I’ve been able to stick to my twice-daily-meditations-plus-other-spiritual-exercises better than I have in a while; it’s easier to find time, and like I said, my sleep dep is actually going DOWN, so it’s easier to stay awake during lay-down guided meditation sessions.

I’ll also be using the time to work on my sites, read books that I’ve been putting off, and thus enjoy life a little more.

How do you have your sleep arranged?

Well, presently I’m using what’s called the “Everyman 2-nap” schedule. I wanted to opt for the 3-nap variant, but the numbers don’t work; couldn’t make it work and still be able to go to sleep the same time as my lovely wife. It may seem silly, but to me it’s psychologically important, so the 3-nap variant is out… at least until the scheduling changes.

So, I take my “core nap” (the longest sleep of the day) from 9PM to 1:30 AM. 4.5 hours. Then, I take my first 20-minute nap at 7:30 or 8:00. I really should be strict about it, but stuff happens. I don’t think a half-hour variance will make that much of a difference. I take my second nap at 2:00. This is handy, as I take my lunch at that time. I subsist on green smoothies (very nutritious!) during the day, so “lunch” itself doesn’t take long. So, I’m freshly rested before work and coming back from lunch. Work is getting a pretty good deal, I’d say.

So, I’m getting just shy of 5 hours of sleep per day, and 19 hours of wakefulness. That’s a little more awake time than I had previously, with the bonus of actually being properly awake during them. Were I not the eternally inquisitive sort, I might worry about getting bored, heh.

(In contrast, the aforementioned Uberman schedule uses six naps evenly spaced, yielding 20 hours of wakefulness. R. Buckminster Fuller (one of my heroes) used a similar plan, 4 naps at 30 min. each. Either way, a bit steep for the likes of me.)

All questions, comments, and other contact are of course welcome. I’m hardly the first or last person with an online presence to comment on switching to a polyphasic schedule

Oh, and a quick postscript: I’ve been off caffeine since starting on Friday, and don’t anticipate needing it. Once the body adapts, I should be all set. Nifty!

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Finding good music for healing can be challenging. Here are a few of my favorites that I use regularly.

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So, I’ve been working on my sixth sense quite a bit recently. One of the things I’ve been doing is the classic exercise of guessing red or black with a deck of cards.

On the face of it, it’s pretty easy. 26 red and 26 black, so you should hit about 50%, right?

So, I practiced. I had varying levels of success, including a couple spikes into the 40s, but usually around the 29-32 range. 29-32 right out of 52 is more than expected, but is it beyond the level of statistical “noise”? Putting on my math geek hat, I decided to investigate.

I won’t bore you with the pen-and-paper route I used; we’ll use one of my new favorite toys: Wolfram Alpha.

Ok, so, each card is an event in a series of 52. The probability of getting any given card right is 50%. The tool to use for this is a “binomial distribution”, and you can take a look here:

http://www50.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=binomial+distribution+n%3D52+p%3D.5

The important number to look at in the results is the “standard deviation”. Simply put, everything inside the standard deviation accounts for 68.2 percent of cases. Here, the standard deviation is (for our purposes) 3.6. This means that on average, I’ll score a little outside the standard deviation of a single run, as 26+3.6=29.6.

I started to sweat a little bit on this, as I seemed pretty close to the standard deviation. However, I remembered my range is 29-32. It is rare for me to score lower.

This has two related factors: First, I’m consistently scoring on the good side of the bell curve, with dips on the downside very rare (happens once in a great while).

Second, and relatedly, we can look at this not as simply a series of 52 events, but as aggregate data. Sorry, I’m geeking out too much; lemme ’splain:

Say you scan a deck of cards twice over the course of a day. Say you get 31 (beyond standard deviation) for the first run, and let’s say 29 (just under standard deviation) for the second run. The thing is with statistical data, the greater the number, the sharper the picture. Let’s crank up the definition of the picture and combine them.

When you increase the sample size, the standard deviation doesn’t increase at the same rate: for 104 cards, the standard deviation isn’t 7.2… it’s 5! Don’t believe me? Check it out:

http://www50.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=binomial+distribution+n%3D104+p%3D.5

So let’s say you do the same the next day. Now, what we have here isn’t a case where we’re a little beyond the standard deviation and a little under, we’re waay over: 60 (number of cards right – 5 (standard deviation) – 52 (the median number of cards) = 3 beyond the standard deviation. Not only are you into the realm of statistical significance, you’re 3/5ths of the way beyond it!

I know, I know, it may seem silly to get into the itty bitty numbers to dredge up a trace of data. But here’s the thing: Numbers don’t lie. I may not be far into the realm of statistical significance, but by the same token, I’m definitely showing that there’s something going on.

Want to stretch your brain a little more? Suppose you keep going, and double it again. Now we’re going from a portable black-and-white TV to a High-definition LCD:

http://www50.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=binomial+distribution+n%3D208+p%3D.5

Assuming that you’re doing about the same all the way through, we’re looking at 120 right out of 208. The median (middle point) is 104, with a standard deviation of 7.2. 120 cards right – 104 median = 16. That’s two standard deviations away from the median. That’s getting into the tail end of the bell curve, and statistically significant by anyone’s standards.

Now, I have to acknowledge the nay-sayers and cynics who will (rightly) say that the last two thirds of my examples are projections, and that this is subject to cherry-picking, as I didn’t include my dips in this example. They have a small point, but they’re also missing the big picture, and that is this: If you’re using this as a means of training your intuition/6th sense, pay attention to the small stuff. It adds up faster than you might think.