Due to my collection of genetic peculiarities, I’ve undergone quite a number of tests and studies throughout my life. However last night during the “Quantified Self” meetup, I global_178140052[1] realized I’ve never actually looked into my sleeping patterns and stages. Given my truly weird lifelong sleeping habits, I think it might be interesting to do so.
For as long as I remember, I’ve slept an average of 4 hours per cycle. As a child perhaps I would stay in bed longer, but the 4 hours were all the sleep I needed, and it’s still the same. I can force myself into sleeping more, that actually can at times work, but it will result in something like what people usually experience when they don’t get enough sleep. There have also been times when I’ve gone for a number of days with much less than that, or no sleep what-so-ever. And then I sleep for a much longer time, and all is well. The little sleep that I get is quite enough, and I’ve basically never had a problem with being tired, sleepy or out of energy during the day. None of this has ever had a negative effect on my health, mental sharpness and so on. The few hours that I sleep are usually deep, unbroken, and apparently quite fulfilling! [Some years ago there was a study about this, titled “The Sleepless Elite“. Didn’t offer much in terms of answers though…]
The other odd bit is the way I dream. I’ve heard in many occasions, including last night at the QS event, about people attempting to induce lucid dreams. There’s been quite a good deal of speculations about the positive or negative results of doing that. The thing about me, is that I don’t have anything other than fully lucid dreams! I dream quite a lot, I tend to remember my dreams clearly, and in my 29 years, I have never had a dream that wasn’t lucid. I’ve been trying to figure this one out, talking to psychologists, neurologists, and you name it…. so far I’ve not come any closer to knowing why.
So with all this, it was very interesting for me to look at the sleep charts created by “Zeo Sleep Manager“. The device detects and records your REM, Light and Deep sleeping stages [among other features…]. This is something I’ve never tried, and I do wonder, with my little “situation”, how my chart would look like. Perhaps I should give it a try.
More on the QS meetup, it was also interesting to see Last.fm presented as a self tracking tool. I just realized that I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now… I listen to humongous amounts of music on daily basis, and I can’t really tell you what kind of music “I like”. Depending on my mood and state of mind, I could be listening to just about anything. What I’m listening to is a reflection of my psychological patterns, and for many years now, my close friends and I have been looking at my Last.fm charts to get an idea of “how I’ve been doing”! So yes, haha, Last.fm is in fact the perfect self tracking/study tool! =)
And that’s about all I have to say for now….