I don't know how many of you remember the info from when Demaris was going to do this a long time ago, so for those of you that don't:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
I just started today. I'm on a modified Uberman schedule where my day has six cycles, in which I'm up for 3.5 hours, then I sleep for half an hour. I'll be on this for the next two weeks or so, maybe three if things go well. Discuss and feel free to place bets on how long you think I'll last.

what are you trying to achieve? Are you doing it for the lulz or do you really need the time? I don't see the point.

Actually, senior project. Today I'm going to hack together a little program that generates random simple arithmetic problems and times how long it takes me to solve them, and I can use that as a diagnostic tool to see how it affects mental capacity. Also, I'll need to find a good memory game...

Isn't Uberman's the hardest to adapt too?

Yes, but it works the best once you get used to it, which is why I'm using it. I also modified it for adaptability.

If I were to try this, I'd end up skipping sleep cycles and just sleeping for one or two big chunks of the day. ;o

I think it's an interesting concept.
I read a lot of stuff on this site: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/
I recommend at least skimming a few key days of his report if you intend to try it for yourself.

He did it for about half a year and thus has fully adjusted both physically and personally, and he reports very detailed on how he felt and what were the biggest problems and benefits.

From reading his blog it also becomes clear that you need at least 2-3 weeks to gain anything from polyphasic sleep, so you should maintain it for at least 4 weeks to be able to judge this sleep pattern.

Good luck!

P.S. personally I think it's the better way of sleeping but the social problems scare me off. You just can't use the extra night time efficiently and lose precious daytime. Once a certain percentage of the population has adopted polyphasic sleep I probably will, too.

Ive always been more efficent at night, maybe I should adapt to this too so I can see all hours of the day ;o

For anyone who's planning on doing this, just a note of warning: The first day won't be too bad, and it'll feel pretty manageable, but the night after your first 24 hours, the shit will hit the fan. I was close to dozing off this morning during my first cycle, and I can hardly remember what happened during the second, besides that it involved a lot of thrashing because I was trying to stay awake and fall asleep at the same time and my legs felt like they needed to move. Now stuff's ok, though. I had a bowl of cereal last night, and I think the milk was probably putting me to sleep.

I tried it once and stayed up all night, but in my 7:00 nap in the morning, I slept right past my alarm.

I hear it takes a much longer time to recover from a workout (like a week) which is one of the reasons I haven't been more persistent.

Have you figured out how to fit it into your school schedule yet?

I just did that. Apparently I'm a deeper sleeper than I thought I was. I'll need to devise a method that will always wake me up at the right time. Luckily, I only went an hour over, so this shouldn't break things too much. On the bright side, that's the first time I've actually fallen asleep in my 30 minutes, and I didn't even feel that tired. It's working. (Edit: Also, it looks like I'm doing better than your average blogger. A quick Google search reveals that most polyphasic sleep bloggers usually oversleep by more like 4 hours, then give up. Yesssssss!)

Also, this would be entirely impossible to fit into my school schedule, unless I further cut back on sleep. I'd have to probably do a scaled back Dymaxion, which is already only 4 30-minute naps a day, and if I cut those back to the 15 minutes they would have to be for it to work... It would either be that or an Everyman, and even that would be a stretch.

Anyone have suggestions on the foolproof alarm clock? I've been using my watch, but I guess I must have been laying on it, so it was muffled.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 21 2009, 8:40 pm by FatalException.

On the subject of sleep alteration:

I've done the Uberman before; you can get a shit ton of work done but it can fuck with your social life unless you plan accordingly. You'll eventually wake up without an alarm. (I did 20 mins a nap, sucker )

I recall putting up the same topic somewhere around this community. It never got much attention.

I've been on a Polyphasic sleeping schedule since starting college like 3 years ago.

For me it's always biphasic. I start classes in the morning, end sometime around 1pm, go back to take a "1 hour" nap but I end up sleeping for 4 hours which should bring me to around dinner time. Then I won't be able to sleep again till like 3 or 4 in the morning. On average I sleep 4-6 hours at night and make up for lost sleep during my naps.

Every now and then I have to throw in a 12 hour monophasic sleep day (skipping classes.) But even in doing so I feel like passing out during the day.

I've never been able to do either of those other three types of sleep, because when I shut my eyes, I absolutely cannot wake up for at least two hours. My body accepts only power naps or deep sleeps.

I should add an extra 2 hours to 'Bed' and do that. ;o

I don't know where, probably on TV, but I heard that the most valuable time of sleep were those last couple hours before you wake up (during a 9 hour sleep). This last hour or two before you wake up was also said to be when most people dream. If you constantly miss out on those couple hours, and they really are the most valuable, it doesn't seem like too healthy a system.

It doesn't matter how you organize your sleep schedule, your body will always adjust eventually and then you can't apply truths researched about another sleep schedule (e.g. monophasic). The point is that you maintain your new sleep schedule for at least 2-3 weeks to gain anything from it.

Healthiness of sleep can even improve if you're strict about your new schedule.
Anything out of the ordinary of your current sleep schedule is bad. This includes skipping 2 hours from your regular 9 hour sleep.

So I screwed up again.

My 3:30 to 4:00 nap, I was so tired and so glad that I would actually sleep during the half hour (so far, I've only slept during naps when I've made mistakes and overslept), I forgot to set any of my alarms, except for my iPod which can handle having the six alarms that I need, except I forgot to put the headphones in my ears, so it wasn't loud enough. I have taped a bedtime checklist over my lightswitch, and if I mess up again, I'll have to abort the experiment.

Plug it into a loudspeaker. ;o

EDIT:
Can sleep schedules include irregular sleep times? I usually go to bed within like a 6 hour period (between 12 and 6 AM) and sleep for 10-12 hours (and sometimes more) every night--most of which is a very deep sleep. ;o

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jul 25 2009, 5:32 pm by FaRTy1billion.