'polyphasic sleep' - MIT Biggest challenge

I really feel that this could need some revision and proof-reading,
and it's cut down violently to the word limit.
I am very grateful for everybody who will help me out here.

Tell us about the most significant challenge you've faced or something important that didn't go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?(*) (200-250 words)

An internal flame started to burn when I first read about polyphasic sleep. By sleeping several times a day, you can reduce your daily sleep to four hours. This idea contradicts common sense and mainstream science, and sounds plain crazy. This impossibility was the source of my motivation.

My first two attempts were distressing failures. Naively, I believed that willpower would suffice for the hard adaptation period. However, I had often trouble to fall asleep or to get out of bed, resulting in sleep deprivation and self-reproaches. Both times flu ended the experiment miserably.

Because it is common to fail several times, I could accept failing once, but after the second failure I was very upset with myself.
Realizing that preparation was necessary, I decided to try one last time.
The following two weeks were like an uninterrupted fight with both Klitschko brothers, you really want to fall down but, if you do, you will not stand up again. I won this fight by increasing my self-discipline through watching inspirational videos, using "Lose yourself" as my alarm and taking cold showers only. I downloaded sleep-meditations, started sleeping on the floor and adopted a get-up-routine. After a month polyphasic sleep was as natural to me as breathing.

Afterwards I learned speed-reading and experimented with lucid dreaming, which is the ability to control your dreams while you sleep.
These experiences allowed me to get a glimpse of the amazingly endless human potential, and they filled me with passion to explore the human mind.

This is awkward.


I'm not sure that the committee will understand what this is. I would replace the song with something more know, such as "Eye of the Tiger". (I really like Eminem too.)

The content of the essay is extremely cool and novel, and I like that.

On a side note, props to be able to lucid dream.

Yeah, I have thought about the lose yourself thing. Of course it would be possible to just ask the admission office "Do you guys know Eminem", but the office is closed now. Thanks for your feedback.

Yeah the last shift of focus is maybe not my greatest achievement.
What I tried to say:
Polyphasic sleep opened my eyes to the vast opportunites and new challenges you can find in the world if you look for them
Therefore I did speed reading and lucid dreaming.
If you have any tips on how to phras this correctly, and without many words (the essay is just long enough),
please let me know.

This is what I think -- honestly, while I too am very interested in topics like these, trying to paraphrase these abstract ideas into such a small essay is a Herculean task. I would strongly suggest to focus on strictly the after effects of polyphasic sleep. With the little room you have at the end, listing out two other practices (very expansive ideas at that) that you branched to really thins your paper. In fact, I would recommend that you cut a little of the process of learning polyphasic sleep and put more how this affected you. After all, the EFFECTS on yourself and your REVELATIONS are the most important aspects of the paper.

Thank you very much, I will try this approach and see what looks better.

The process itself is interesting yes but is not nearly as important as how it affects you and it especially loses effect when you stray from the main point of polyphasic sleep

An expansion over the last paragraph would just round up the essay :))

Challenge MIT

A total new version

Polyphasic sleep is the concept of reducing your daily sleep to four or even two hours by sleeping several times a day. It only takes a strict schedule and a hard adaptation period of four weeks. However, I just could not get through this period. Besides sleep-deprivation my biggest problem was that I often did not have enough motivation to get out of bed.

After two failed attempts that both ended with flu it seemed that I just did not have willpower for this endeavor.
Before accepting my inadequacy I decided to try one final time with more structure.
I started sleeping on the floor, taking cold showers only to improve my self-discipline and denied myself any food if I overslept.
Most importantly however, I knew that if I would fail again I would lose all self-respect.
After two weeks I started to feel less sleepy, and after four weeks I felt the triumph of succeeding.
I had transcended traditional sleep.
This venture has infuriated me with the power of the mind. Using my new found time I have learned speed-reading, which enables me to read texts two times faster, and experimented with lucid dreaming, which is the learnable ability to control your dreams actively, an entire new state of being.

These experiences have convinced me that the human mind is capable of much more than we imagine. But it is getting late now: Time to take my saxophone to the park and play in the romantic atmosphere of the sleepless.

I would appreciate any feedback,
especially on the last sentence: Is it clear that I am mentioning the saxophone to demonstrate what I do with my new found time?

I like your personal tone. However, I think you can add some quotes to make it even better!

Also, you can add some more details about how the experiment intrigued you and how it will help you at MIT!

Hey, I remember reading the first draft of that essay, I must say it has improve by a lot. The ideas are clearer and the language is great.


This clause doesn't fit.

Read my JHU essay?