Polyphasic sleeping

[DorkeyDear]

I was wondering if anybody has or has tried any sort of polyphasic (or biphasic) sleeping patterns on a regular basis. You can read up on it at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep

I have tried the uberman sleep pattern earlier this summer, which I guess I could describe as the 'most extreme' of the ones listed on the wiki page. It consists of 6 naps evenly space throughout the day (a nap every 4 hours), each being approximately 20 minutes. After school ended last semester, when summer was starting, I found that wiki article and was initially was going to try biphasic. After a couple of days I decided if I'm going to be modifying my sleep, I might as well go all the way and do one of the more difficult ones. I tried uberman for three weeks and I must say I very much enjoyed the experience. I think I can say it is one of the most exciting things I have done before. I did accidentally sleep in many times, which made the conversion difficult. I would have continued, but I got a summer internship offer and accepted it. Unfortunately, even with the summer ending here (and my internship) and school right around the corner, I don't think I will have another 'reasonable' opportunity until next summer, unless my spring semester allows it, which I doubt it will. If this opportunity does arise, I think I would do significantly better that time around (meaning, not sleeping in).

[iDante]

I have a friend that did it for a few weeks but gave up in the end.

There was some research somewhere that showed that people are programmed to sleep twice daily. Too lazy to look up the source though.

[DorkeyDear]

I read somewhere that before electricity, biphasic sleeping was much more common. I as well am too lazy to figure out the source hehe.

[Psycho]

It always sounded interesting to me, but its not very applicable to daily life, unless you have no obligations for a length of time. I heard that you have to keep it up for a few days before the brain gets used to the rythm, and goes into REM sleep faster.

[croat1gamer]

It is possible and it works, but its incredibly, if not impossibly hard to keep to the schedule, and when it screws up youll be like shit the next couple of days. Im still managing to have my sleep broken into 2 parts- one during the morning/night, the other 15-30min nap somewhere afternoon, and it works quite well, but you miss a lot of stuff then.

On the other hand, i succeed each summer to move my sleep time from around midnight to the early afternoon. At first its quite difficult to keep it up, but later it becomes easy and you usually end up with a couple of additional hours being awake. Hooray for sleeping from 10am to 3pm.

[DorkeyDear]

@Psycho: Yeah I read/got the impression of it taking a while (few weeks or a month or so) before you get fully used to uberman. I'm sure it would vary from person to person, and how many times/how often you mess up.

If someone would to become self-employed, or work from home, then I would think many of these sleep patterns would be easier to apply. I would like to do the biphasic sleep, but there really isn't a covienent way to sleep during my lunch break at work. Unless I learn to sleep sitting up more easily, I would probably need to go to my car, which would be very warm most days from sitting in the sun. However there are times which I nap after coming home from work. Even though it is past the half-way of the day, I think it still worked.

Other than biphasic and uberman, has anybody tried any of the other ones?

[Ymies]

i can't really see how uberman would work in the society. even if you were able to apply it to your hypothetical self-employed life, you'd still be required to sleep every 4 hours and what'd you do if you were outside spending your time with whatever leisure-related or other mandatory everyday activities. spending time with your social contacts might prove challenging and your sleeping rhythm would be more than likely to take a blow sooner of later

other than that i sure do like napping. 15 min naps between 4-7 pm are often lifesavers

[croat1gamer]

I did a couple of times the everyman with 2-3 naps, but that happened because i was trying to do a 4day awake marathon. Instead ended up in being awake 36hrs, sleeping for 5-6hrs and each now and then fainting for some 20ish minutes during the rest od the day, falling asleep some 30hrs later and rounded it up by a 8hrs of sleep.
My sleep rhythm was fucked the next couple of days, but i fixed that quite easily.

Now, the only way i could think of managing the ubermensch would be to become either incredibly rich without having to work too much or becoming a bum.

[VinceBros]

I find it utterly interesting but something tickles me... how is the Uberman useful?

[ExHunter]

I find it utterly interesting but something tickles me... how is the Uberman useful?

Only 2 hours sleep per day is awesome..

I am doing currently the everyman with 2 naps.. like every holidays. It works great. I am working on a plan to apply dymaxion to my school life. I just need to figure out where I could take a 30 minute nap in my 60 minute mid-time break..

(I can't apply monophasic sleep to my life at all without getting tired)

[VinceBros]

I have read on the subject and I found out some relevant comparisons of these sleep patterns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep#Comparison_of_sleep_patterns

I should try this out someday..

[DorkeyDear]

I find it utterly interesting but something tickles me... how is the Uberman useful?

-As ExHunter mentioned, you need much less hours of sleep; Somewhere around 2-3 hours.
-You remember your dreams significantly more (since you are waking from REM sleep after your nap). And since you are sleeping 6 times in a full day, it's pretty often.
-I read somewhere that you are generally more awake. The naps are more like little breaks in whatever you were doing. In a monophasic pattern, I generally feel drousy after a certain point, almost every day. This was my main advantage I wanted to see.
-Fun and excitment. I thought this would be an interesting adventure to try out, and I enjoyed it, despite being deprived of sleep for a good portion of my 3 weeks. I am definitely happy I had the opportunity, even if it was cut short.