After fighting some serious sleep deprivation all night we finally talked ourselves into a core sleep/controlled crash and slept for 5 hours. We had both been completely useless for the entire evening and it didn't seem to be getting any better. We tried inserting a couple of extra 20 minute naps to no avail. Previously these sleep dep periods would last a couple of hours and then clear up, but not this time.
Maybe it was just the lack of higher brain function, but we decided we would let ourselves one major sleep and then resume the schedule. It may completely torpedo the effort, but I don't really think it will.
My theory, based on what I've read and experienced, is that the first uberman adaptation happens in about 5 days and you learn to drop quickly to REM sleep during a nap. This keeps you from going insane. You still get massively tired though because you need more than just REM sleep. The second adaptation is where you learn to drop quickly into other phases of sleep when you need to. I think this phase is what we are in and what accounts for the horrifying sleepiness. This probably completes in about two to three weeks, going by Claudio Stampi's experiments.
This might be the main difference between Uberman and Everyman, in fact. Everyman probably doesn't really need the second adaptation since the other phases of sleep can be had during the core. Uberman has no choice.
This crash won't unravel our phase one adaptation. It will probably reset the phase two adaptation somewhat, but I doubt all the way. I guess we'll find out...