Biphasic: Day 23

I began reading last night around 1am. Normally I can read all the way up to my sleep time, but last night I started to feel my eyes weigh down even before 2am. So I decided to go to bed a little early and see what would happen, my logic being that I've already established this pattern, so I should now start listening to my body. I was in bed and ready for sleep a little after 2am, and I probably fell asleep anywhere from 2:15-2:30am. Upon awaking this morning, I felt amazing. My alarm went off and I stood up, stretched a moment, then took my puppy outside. I just felt awake and "there". I felt connected to my body, which sometimes is not the case in the early morning.

This morning's good feeling could have come from a variety of explanations. I'll present two of my ideas. One, it is possible -though I'm not sure how probable- that hunger is what kept me awake. I went to bed rather hungry last night, not wanting to eat before I slept and put strain on my body during rest. That hunger was deep set by the time I woke up, and perhaps the drive to eat was stronger than the drive to sleep. The other and probably more accurate explanation is that my cycle is not 90 minutes like I anticipated. If, for example, I gained an extra half hour of sleep last night at two cycles, that could mean my cycle is instead 105 minutes. If my cycle were longer, then attempting to sleep in 90 minutes cycles would consistently have me waking in the middle of my REM stage. That is not what I want to be doing.

I'll experiment with sleep lengths and see if adding an extra 15 minutes seems to provide consistent results in terms of wakefulness. I should have figured out my cycle prior to beginning the biphasic experiment, but I honestly was not aware of the cycle theory. Though it may cause another hiccup in my progress, I may fall asleep without an alarm and try to calculate my cycle length from natural awakening. The problem is, however, that I don't think my body will be waking anywhere around 6am if not forced to...