Day 3

I elected to spend the wee hours this morning working on a good Linux configuration for my laptop. All was uneventful (but productive) until I took my 3:00 a.m. nap. This nap only lasted about 15 minutes, because I woke up from an intense dream in which I was driving a car increasingly faster while become increasingly uncoordinated and losing control. It is the first dream I've remembered since day 1.

I considered having a dream to be progress, since the goal of the experiment is to experience restorative REM sleep in 30-minute bouts throughout the day. However, I sat down to study a few notes for a quiz later in the morning, and suddenly felt exhausted. My eyes were involuntarily closing, and I elected to take an additional nap. This nap ended up being sleep, and I woke up 35 minutes before my class.

I wonder whether getting REM sleep during the 3:00 a.m. nap, or the nap being only 15 minutes, or both, contributed to my sudden exhaustion. Supposedly, I should be feeling more rested when I get REM sleep in my naps, but my body may not have liked being awakened from the only REM sleep it has had in days.

I was a little frustrated to be making apparent regress right after I'd seemingly made progress, but it wasn't for too long (between three and four hours), and it may have been necessary in order for me to perform basic functions today.

I feel fairly dumb and tired at 9 a.m. this morning, but I have heard that Day 3 can be one of the worst, so I remain optimistic. Even though I've been very tired lately, it has been great having hours of extra, guilt-free time to do things like listen to music and conduct research on the things that interest me.

I had a hectic day completing my last press run of the month, and had to go to work shortly after I left the lab, so my nap times were at about 11:45 a.m., 2:30 p.m., 5:15 p.m., and 11:45 p.m. today. The 2:30 nap was the only nap that made me groggy. The 11:45 nap was interesting because, when I awakened 30 minutes later, I felt like I had slept for much more than that time.

I don't feel nearly as groggy and dumb as I did yesterday. Unfortunately, I don't know if this is because I am adapting to the schedule or because I overslept this morning. Time will tell.