Becoming The Uberman – Week 2: "Devolution of The Uberman"

This is an on-going quest for uberness. If you haven't read any of my previous posts, you will have no idea what I'm talking about. Go here to see all the days gone by so far.

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I should note that I find no need to write a blog for each day, as (apart from my slow transformation into a brainless zombie), there really is not much to write about on a daily basis. Instead I will write summary posts covering a few days or perhaps a week at a time. Any objections? No? None?.. Good. Never knew asking questions about predetermined decisions made life so easy. I should do this more often. Right guys? Yeah, I think so too.

A few days back, I could’ve safely said I had almost achieved Uberness, I could sleep instantly upon resting my head for a nap, I frequently encountered REM sleep, I felt at times like I had drunk 10+ cans of Red Bull upon waking, and that my body very much relied on naps as its focal life source. I could tell though that I had yet to achieve perfect Uberness, or to be put technically, true polyphasic adaptation. And I will know when I have achieved this when Uberman becomes near-natural to my body, like waking after 20 minutes during a nap without the need for an army of alarms and no longer being a brain-dead zombie. I was still very much within the adaptation phase though; I was prone to blackouts, I still encountered the Morning Fiend, on occasion I still could not wake without 2+ alarms, and my body would be more than happy to sleep for 48 hours straight if given a chance. This was a couple of days back, but what about now? Allow me to explain.

I had never truly understood the sensitivity of Uberman up until these last few days. I have been heavily occupied the past week or so helping my parents move house, this involved constantly shifting furniture and going for a nice long 9 hour drive across the country. Among the chaos I was often forced to skip or extend naps, this had dangerous repercussions. 

In all honesty I was more curious than oblivious when meddling with my precious naps. I thought it’d be interesting to witness the effects of distorting the sleep-forged chains that now shackle my time in trade for my new found semi-omnipresence. It turns out that the punishment for doing so was rather bad. Very bad.

One of the first effects I noticed was a sudden INSANE increase in sleepiness. And by insane I mean complete-loss-of-all-motor-skills-and-hallucination insane. I made a fool of myself in Asda the other day when trying to select a single box of cereal caused me to knock down an entire shelf of breakfast foods. I estimated around 30+ boxes were sleepily thwarted to the ground by my wavering limbs. I have never experienced such a severe loss in hand-eye coordination before; I simply lost all control of where my hand was in space and what the fuck it was doing. Pretty scary stuff right? It gets worse.

As the hours went by naps were stretched and many prematurely interrupted as the house-moving chaos grew. A few days went past and my napping schedule was in complete disarray, I was attempting to get as much sleep as possible while desperately trying to cling onto Uberness. Some naps were extended to hours and others lasted seconds, I could feel sleep taking over and I never felt more tired in my entire life. However it was then something truly astonishing happened – I became high.

I had read about this phenomenon numerous times but I never really thought much of it. It seems as one eventually approaches a certain level in sleep deprivation the brain goes bonkers, and it loses all sense of control as it finally gives up trying to rest. This ignited the 70’s-hippy-cortex (which is a technical term btw) and as a result I lost all sense of sleepiness. My world felt slow and constantly span. Movements felt like they were mimicking zero-gravity conditions. I saw coloured dots and double rainbows. I laughed myself to tears at almost everything that did or didn’t move. I’m more than certain I could’ve gone for a good two days in that state, like I said I did not feel an ounce bit tired. It was an interesting yet short-lived experience, to say the least. I was soon put to bed out of concern for my well-being.

I woke after a surprisingly short 6 hour nap feeling sleep-deprived again. Soon after the house moving mess was finalized I promptly began evaluating how much I had retarded my progress, and it didn’t look so good. From all the erratic short/long sleep throughout the last few days my body has now forgotten most of what I taught it, and I feel like I’ve rewound back to Day 3/4 as far as progress goes.  This is a major setback, and I am now forced to retrace my steps.

So here I am, hoping I can get back on track within the next couple of days or so, I’m confident I can recover quickly nevertheless. I’ve gained valuable knowledge and discovered that naps are not something I should mess with, at least not whilst I’m adapting anyway. 

I have learned my lesson Uberman. Now, time to recover from my just punishment.We shall meet soon.