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Loved this article. I would love to see a simliar test around polyphasic sleep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyp

by udoprog 15y ago

Loved this article. I would love to see a simliar test around polyphasic sleep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep). I've actually tried the Uberman sleep schedule for three weeks. This is where you sleep 20 minutes for each 4 hours, totalling in a whopping 2 hours sleep each day. The time gain was insane, and the transition period aswell (between day 3-5 I actually hallucinated due to sleep deprevation). But around 1.5 weeks something strange happened. The 20 minute period that you are allowed to sleep seemed like hours each time, and I would wake up like clockwork on the 20 minute mark. The whole routine is not just a sleep routine, it affects your entire lifestyle. No stimulants, including sugar, high degrees of fat, caffeine. No sedatives, alcohol, drugs (!). And the fact that you are awake during the night when the whole world seems dead is one of the hardest social aspects to handle. What do you do with 6 extra hours each day? Of course there's the aspect of finding somewhere to sleep every 4 hours (was at school at the time), and if you ever missed out, you would have hell to pay. I eventually buckled on a skiing trip with an open bar, had a nice weekend and decided to going back to normal sleeping patterns. Partly because it was not socially acceptable to sleep 2 hours a day (my father threatened to beat some sense into me). But also that there was very little foundation that this kind of sleep pattern was even safe. A couple of million years of evolution had other idea's of when and how long it is necessary to sleep. Other than that, the foundations that I gathered up from this was that when changing your sleeping pattern. The body frantically tries to adapt. By sleeping extremely short periods the body would effectively increase the amount of REM sleep (and yes, I dreamed a lot during these sleeping periods), however, it has not been proven that you don't need the other types of sleep. This is probably a lot of rumours, and a lot of wishful thinking. I personally wish there was some solid backing behind this kind of reasoning (more time awake is awesome!), There are a lot of buzz out there (check google and youtube), but I've been unable to find anything reasonably solid.

chadp 15y ago
I thought the article was useless. The only thing that would have been interesting is how (or if) polyphasic naps can replace hours of one's core sleep. Uberman is too extreme to keep up, no one has done it for long periods yet. The Everyman with a core sleep of 3-4.5 hrs a day with 2-3 15 minute naps is much more interesting.
rednum 15y ago
Isn't polyphasic considered a hoax? Piotr Wozniak, though his site looks rather shitty, seems to know what he is talking about: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic2010.htm http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic2010.htm Specifically this paragraph sums the thing up: I received some 500 pieces of mail and got in personal touch with many polyphasic adepts. Of those attempts that I was given a chance to monitor, all were unsuccessful. Some of the critics of the original article claimed that they do sleep polyphasically, but I received no data that could serve as the basis for verification. Also I recall reading quite many stories about people who tried polyphasic and they are similar to yours - ie. after 2-3 weeks they stop for some random reason - which really sounds to me like "I can't make it, but I won't admit even to myself so I say I stopped for reason X". Also some actually stop earlier and admit they were constantly deprivated.
- dkersten 15y ago
  That doesn't really make it a hoax though: yes, everybody gave up after a while, but like OP, it may well just be social pressure. All polyphasic sleep accounts I read ended up with something along the lines of "its too hard to fit social events around such a strict schedule". If you're awake during the night when nobody else is and you have to nap when everybody else is awake, and you CANNOT miss a nap, then of course people are eventually going to cave in and go back to a more normal schedule so that they mesh with their friends schedules better. I think to make the ubermann cycle work, you need 1) to have a job that allows such a schedule 2) not have kids 3) have a bunch of your friends do it too so that your schedule isn't too different from the people you interact with the most. IMHO, its unlikely that people will will meet all three of those points though. The "solution" would perhaps be a less severe and strict schedule. For example, I tried a 28-hour day schedule (the one from xkcd.. am I crazy trying a sleep cycle I saw in a comic?) and it worked really well: stay up 20 hours then sleep for 8, repeat. Monday to thursday fit around my uni schedule (at the time) perfectly, Friday (which I had off) through Sunday I was basically awake at night and asleep during the day. I ended up with 6 28 hour days. Worked really well! ...until the day I had an appointment in the middle of my "I'm supposed to be asleep" time on a Friday, got knocked off course and didn't bother going back to it.
raphaelb 15y ago
I tried everyman with my wife and thought it was going great subjectively, until a friend of ours said "You guys look like shit" which made us promptly realize that hidden behind the delusion that we were doing fine we were much more dull.

by udoprog 15y ago

chadp 15y ago

I thought the article was useless. The only thing that would have been interesting is how (or if) polyphasic naps can replace hours of one's core sleep. Uberman is too extreme to keep up, no one has done it for long periods yet. The Everyman with a core sleep of 3-4.5 hrs a day with 2-3 15 minute naps is much more interesting.

rednum 15y ago

Isn't polyphasic considered a hoax? Piotr Wozniak, though his site looks rather shitty, seems to know what he is talking about: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic2010.htm http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic2010.htm Specifically this paragraph sums the thing up: I received some 500 pieces of mail and got in personal touch with many polyphasic adepts. Of those attempts that I was given a chance to monitor, all were unsuccessful. Some of the critics of the original article claimed that they do sleep polyphasically, but I received no data that could serve as the basis for verification. Also I recall reading quite many stories about people who tried polyphasic and they are similar to yours - ie. after 2-3 weeks they stop for some random reason - which really sounds to me like "I can't make it, but I won't admit even to myself so I say I stopped for reason X". Also some actually stop earlier and admit they were constantly deprivated.

dkersten 15y ago
That doesn't really make it a hoax though: yes, everybody gave up after a while, but like OP, it may well just be social pressure. All polyphasic sleep accounts I read ended up with something along the lines of "its too hard to fit social events around such a strict schedule". If you're awake during the night when nobody else is and you have to nap when everybody else is awake, and you CANNOT miss a nap, then of course people are eventually going to cave in and go back to a more normal schedule so that they mesh with their friends schedules better. I think to make the ubermann cycle work, you need 1) to have a job that allows such a schedule 2) not have kids 3) have a bunch of your friends do it too so that your schedule isn't too different from the people you interact with the most. IMHO, its unlikely that people will will meet all three of those points though. The "solution" would perhaps be a less severe and strict schedule. For example, I tried a 28-hour day schedule (the one from xkcd.. am I crazy trying a sleep cycle I saw in a comic?) and it worked really well: stay up 20 hours then sleep for 8, repeat. Monday to thursday fit around my uni schedule (at the time) perfectly, Friday (which I had off) through Sunday I was basically awake at night and asleep during the day. I ended up with 6 28 hour days. Worked really well! ...until the day I had an appointment in the middle of my "I'm supposed to be asleep" time on a Friday, got knocked off course and didn't bother going back to it.

raphaelb 15y ago

I tried everyman with my wife and thought it was going great subjectively, until a friend of ours said "You guys look like shit" which made us promptly realize that hidden behind the delusion that we were doing fine we were much more dull.