Happy April Fools’ Day! You are reading an article written for our April Fools’ edition of the newspaper, The Deceiver. This is a work of satire.
“Oh, can I get into the 8 a.m. section of that?” freshman Xavier Austead was heard asking at his orientation this past summer. The recent high school graduate and current UMBC student, reportedly self-described as “excited” and “super ready, since I’m already used to getting up early for high school,” at the time, is now assisting in breakthrough sleep studies research for the North Atlantic Partnership for Sleep.
On his LinkedIn page, Austead describes his internship at NAPS as “highly informative about the benefits of polyphasic sleep.” “I’m X. Austead, and I look forward to NAPS every day,” he praises the company in a Glassdoor review.
His specific research project focuses on something he’s termed “extrasomnia,” which Austead says is of personal significance to him.
“My sleep habits could well be described as ‘extrasomniac’. It’s the concept that returning to a state of unconsciousness, especially immediately after being awakened, offers the sleeper the highest quality of rest,” Austead explains. When his alarm clock goes off at 6 a.m. each day with the label “gym time,” Austead says he will frequently press the snooze button upward of a dozen times.
“I haven’t been to the gym in like four months — I’m practicing extrasomnia,” claims Austead, “And my preliminary research indicates that that’s a lot more important to my well-being than the gym ever was.”
“These successive, two-minute sleeping periods lead to increased dopamine levels,” fellow NAPS intern Tyler “Ty” Erd elaborates. “The intentional brevity of the return to unconsciousness is key. Sleeping for two- to five- minute intervals fifteen times in a row is not the same as just sleeping for an additional thirty to seventy-five minutes beyond a sleeper’s alarm clock,” he clarifies.
“Oh, hitting ‘Dismiss’ on your alarm is just irresponsible. It’s totally different,” Austead adds.
When asked for comment, third teammate Ford E. Winx chimed in with, “Yeah … I’ll do your interview thing … just let me sleep for five more minutes.” At the time of publication, he has reportedly hit the snooze button an impressive 26 times.
