It’s 5:30 and I’m still not in bed. I just tried, realized I wasn’t tired at all, and got back up. Probably I’ll end up going to bed circa 7:00 and waking up around 2:00 pm, maybe with a nap during the day. Pretty twisted, yes?
I’m gonna go do dishes now.
I have coffee on…
The most amazing thing is this isn’t a coffee high. I sampled some of the hippy-dippy tea that’s been sitting in the back of my pantry for a while. Whoops, looks like it’s not all herbal. 
You should see how I can get. I stayed up for an entire day the other day just because I wasnt tired (I yawned, but I didn’t feel tired). I did pay for it later, fell asleep at 5 pm and slept til 10 am yesterday morning (missed chat and all that). I’ve been known to go to bed around 8 or even 9 am sometimes. I’m just odd. And not having a job or school to keep me on a schedule has made my sleep hours vary all over the place. Right now it’s 5:14 am where I am. I am going to go to bed soon though.
I don’t think I could ever stand having a messed-up sleep schedule…I get disconcerted enough when I have a cold and am up until 2:00 because of the headache and runny nose. I can never go more than 18 hours without falling asleep…
Y’all oughtta work a swing shift. Talk about a screwed up sleep schedule.
Just because you don’t sleep convential hours doesn’t mean you have a screwed up sleep schedule. It’s society and culture that says we sleep at night and work during the day as a general rule, and that’s what’s normal. Don’t give in to it.
Sleeping has only one requirement: Sleep when you’re tired. I was in the AF, stationed at Brooks AFB. Brooks is mainly a medical base that does different experiments. I voluteered for a series of sleep experiments. I was kept in a windowless room with reading materials and some things I was allowed to bring from my dorm room. I was not allowed to watch TV or listen to a radio, because they did not want me knowing what day or time it was. I was free to draw, write, read, or play video games (no antenna on the TV, so I couldn’t watch shows.)
At various times when I was awake, someone would come to the door and have me do some tests.
Aside from checking my heart and medical things, they gave me school tests to do. Some basic math, some algebra, geometry, reading tests to see how much I could remember after reading a paragraph or two, etc.
After the experiment was over, and I had completely lost track of time (I thought I’d been in there for a month, tuened out to only be one week) I was told how I did. At first, when my body tried to conform to the up all day, sleep at night dogma, I didn’t perform as well on the quizzes. After about a day and a half, I started sleeping at my own intervals, (which were roughly awake for 4 hours, sleep for 90 minutes) and they noticed a stark improvement in my time of completion on the tests, memorization skills, and a drop in my blood pressure.
So don’t worry if your sleep habits don’t conform to everyone else’s. If I remember right, DaVinci did his best work at odd hours and Mozart liked to compose around 3am.
No its not. I sleep like that a lot myself. Unfortunately everyone else thinks me fucked up and until I came here and realized there are other people like me I thought I was just really screwed up.
The really sad thing is I have to get my body to conform cuz I need to go to school. sighs and its so tough for me to do that.
Shit, I don’t even have a sleep schedule.
I begin work at 3am, so I usually get up at 2, then leave the house at 2:30. But sometimes, I just don’t feel tired, so there have been times where I just stayed up. Sometimes, for as much as 30 hours.
There’s no right time to sleep. Soon we won’t need any at all. Until then, there’s Charlie Rose interviews to lull us.
I do that all the time…2 times last week and last night I was in bed around 12:30 I think and just woke up about 15 minutes ago…keep in mind I am in the mountain time zone.
There are usually two times when I am up all night like that, both involve the computer.
Main one is when working on graphics, I can focus better at night. The other one is the chat room. Occasionally it’s not out of trying to sleep, I just can’t so I end up reading, getting on the computer try reading again etc…
Sleep is like a little death for me. I fight it until it comes, then stay in its happy embrace as long as I can.
I think I live in a 26 or 28 hour world. I’ll stay up until midnight one night, sleep till noon. Next day, I’m up till 2, sleep till two. Next night, I’m up till 4, sleep till 4. Start over. Repeat ad infinitum.
Brat, I’d LOVE to do a study like that. I LOVE the idea of only sleeping when I’m tired.
During I-week, I’ll stay up until 5 or so, go have breakfast somewhere, come home at about 6:30, fall asleep around 7, sleep till 8:30 or so, then nap from about 3 till 6 or 7. I LOVE I-week because I can sleep when and only when I need or want to.
My body goes into hibernation mode sometimes, and I sleep for 12-16 hours a shot, more, if people let me. After about three weeks of this, I’ll pull five or six hour sleep nights for a month or so, then I’m back to 12 or 16 hour sleeps.
I wish I had a job where I made my own hours, and a school of the same. I’d be in heaven, not having to fit into this fucking so called ‘normal’ schedule. My mom always tells me I’m only a night person because I want to be. DAMMIT, mom. I’m a night person because thats WHO I AM. Trust me, if I could do the 12-8/8-12 life everyone THINKS we should have, I’d be in heaven.
–Tim
I’m exactly the same way, Homer. I go to work around 4:30 pm, and after a month or so of no school, I have to start setting the alarm to get there on time.
Can anyone back me on a vague memory? It was either a comedian or a website talking about how night people have been discriminated against in the business world. Now that I think of it, I think it was a comedian. Anyway, it went on to propose starting a new business run by night people. “So, Jones, you got here at 4:30 am today, huh? Well, that’s great. Hope you’re still alert for our 11 pm meeting tonight.” I would work for that company even if I was in charge of cleaning the urinals with (insert your own idea here).
I’m exactly the same way, Homer. I go to work around 4:30 pm, and after a month or so of no school, I have to start setting the alarm to get there on time.
Can anyone back me on a vague memory? It was either a comedian or a website talking about how night people have been discriminated against in the business world. Now that I think of it, I think it was a comedian. Anyway, it went on to propose starting a new business run by night people. “So, Jones, you got here at 4:30 am today, huh? Well, that’s great. Hope you’re still alert for our 11 pm meeting tonight.” I would work for that company even if I was in charge of cleaning the urinals with (insert your own idea here).
More reports from the wrong side of the meridian:
I went out and got laid tonight (lovely fellow - glad I got his number) so I was up until four o’clock anyway. Then around six or so I realized I had to get in touch with my mom so I can find out about going to the dentist. (I think I have gingivitis. So let’s see - I’m intentionally going to the dentist, but due to something I got from eating too much candy. Am I an adult, or not?) Of course, they’re leaving for Italy today, so I figure I better catch them early in the morning… and if I go to bed now it’ll be afternoon by the time I get up, and they may already have left. So I did dishes and had coffee… now I’m waiting for seven-thirty to roll around so I can call them guilt-free. Then I’ll go out and buy eggs and make this dessert I know to use up the carob chips that are sitting in my pantry, and I’ll finish the dishes and laundry. (For some reason, I cannot bring myself to do either dishes or folding when normal people are awake.)
Then I have to go to my old work and get my last paycheque, scream when I find out it’s not gonna be big enough to cover next month’s rent, investigate prostitution as a viable career option until my fat translating cheque comes in… wait a minute. Sorry. No. Then I have to see if they’ve got my end-of-work slip so I can go to the unemployment office and ask them about unemployment vis-à-vis freelance work. (I’m hoping the answer will be “You are eligible for benefits since you haven’t got a real job, but we’ll deduct whatever you make freelancing.” That way I’m covered in case of a dry spell, but I’m not double-dipping. I don’t want to double-dip.)
Then - around ten or eleven in the morning - go to bed. Zzzz. Oh, hello, world. Happy evening.
Either I’m fucked up or the rest of the world is, and I’ve had enough coffee by now to be leaning towards option number two.
I love coffee. I really do. In fact, my emotional attachment to coffee is what convinced me that smoking probably wouldn’t be the best addiction to pick up. Because I LOVE coffee.
Then my doctor informed me that it was possible that I had a pre-ulserous condition, and gave me a laundry list of stuff to eliminate from my diet. Guess what was on that list? CAFFEINE. I almost laughed at my doctor. However, I decided to give it a week. No soda, no chocolate, no caffeinated coffee.
The damnest thing happened. Not only did the severe pains in my stomach stop, but I slept! I’d go to bed around 10 or 11, and sleep until 6, and actually get up! No physically pulling my eye-lids open, no literally rolling out of bed. Nothing. It was great. I later learned that as much as 2 cups of coffee a day can effect your sleep schedual. And I was drinking a LOT of soda, and coffee.
I now limit myself to one caffeinated beverage (unless it’s a jack and coke… I figure the booze somehow balences the caffeine) and am the most rested I’ve ever been. On weekends I DO things instead of waste them catching up on sleep.
I say try it, Matt. Cut out caffeine. Although I NEVER would have done it unless I was in pain, it totally was a great move on my part. Good luck!
Swiddles: Thanks for the tip. Sleeping like a vampire doesn’t actually bother me… just weirds me out a little and gives me Nightbirds pretensions. Besides, I’m supporting peasant farmers in Mexico by drinking fair trade. But if I get sick of the zombie thing, I’ll give it a shot.
In reply to your original question, yes, it is.
How do I know this? Because mine is, too. Except I still get up at seven or eight. Which leaves me with five or six hours of sleep, max. And I have to dope myself to get that much.
I suppose that leaves me with more time to learn French. Except I waste it here.