With the amount of times I’ve overslept, I can’t really say how far along in this process I am anymore, except that I ultimately started just over a week ago (going on my 12th day).  Yesterday I overslept twice.  Once I fell asleep with the wife (she wasn’t feeling well, so I curled up with her and got too comfortable) – that was a roughly 4 hour oversleep.  Then, the next morning I woke and was so groggy that I cancelled my TKD class and took a few more naps.  Unfortunately it was almost another 4  hours (on and off) before I was up and moving again.  A shower reinvigorated me, and from then on I was wide awake.

So, I still have a hump to get over, and it looks like it’s not going to be easy, but I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, and I’ve steeled my resolve.  To me, this is more than curiosity or getting more free time.  It’s also a challenge of willpower.

I’m still surprised that I’m not more tired (but maybe with all this oversleeping, I really shouldn’t be).  Though, I’ve had times between certain naps where I couldn’t hold my eyes open or walk a straight line, it wasn’t so much because my body was tired as it was that I never fully regained control over it after waking.

I know that doesn’t make a ton of sense, so let me explain.

What I think is happening is that I’m hitting my REM sleep, but waking up right in the middle of it.  That leaves my brain all addled and confused, and wanting to get back to sleep to finish the cycle.  Physically, I feel great.  But my brain is a bit slow at the controls, and I continually nod off.  This only usually happens just before, or just after, my 5:30am nap.  This has been the most difficult one, and really the only major challenge as far as the sleeping goes.

Today was probably the first day that actually felt the way I had expected my days to be when I first thought of the idea of working from home overseas.  I spread my work out into small chunks over the entire day, and was able to get chores done, relax and play some games, cook a good dinner, study some Polish and get out of the house and walk around a bit.  The only thing I didn’t do is go explore the city some more, but that takes a significantly longer time, and I haven’t quite optimized my schedule to allow that yet.

Other than a few spans of extreme sleepiness, I haven’t really noticed any ill-effects.  Though I do feel that if I don’t get up and do something active with a certain amount of frequency, I will start to notice joint troubles.  My neck is already a little sore from spending so much time on the computer.

The most difficult part of this whole transition has been the fact that I can’t curl up and sleep with my wife.  Well, I can, but only 30 minutes or less, and I have to worry about my alarm interrupting her already spotty sleep.  I also can’t curl up and take random naps.  At least, not yet.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to eventually, but sometimes, when I’m feeling a bit lazy, and that blanket is looking awefully inviting, I just wish I could curl up and doze off for a few hours.  Especially when the dog is asleep on my lap.  That’s like a sleeping pill! 

I’ll try to check in every few days or so to report on how it’s going.