The Polyphasic Sleep Thread

[Michael Archer]

Now that it's summer and I have a lot of free time on my hands, I can try polyphasic sleep.

 

Most people think that there's only one way to sleep: awake for sixteen hours, asleep for eight, for the rest of your life.

 

I first learned about this here. The theory is that when you sleep, the stage of sleep that actually makes you well-rested and alert is REM sleep. When you go to sleep at night, you don't go into REM sleep right away; it takes a few hours. Thus, a lot of one full night sleep is just empty hours i.e. REM is what matters. You can train your body to enter REM right when you go to sleep.

 

So I'm going to be taking a 20-30 minute nap ever four hours averaging two-three hours a day.

 

From what I've read, the adjustment period is a bitch. You're depriving your body of sleep, since you set your alarm to wake you up before you enter REM. If you do this long enough, your body just says "fuck it, have it your way" and enters REM immediately. I've read blogs of people trying this and failing; the biggest reason it happens is that they oversleep. One blogger didn't oversleep and reported amazing results.

 

I planning that tonight is my last full night of sleep; I'll set my alarm at 8 a.m. tomorrow and then start sleeping every four hours...given that I don't pussy out and start the day after tomorrow. If I can muster the will-power to not oversleep, I think this will work....or give me a rare sleeping disorder.

 

This thread is dedicated to the discussion of polyphasic sleep. You can share your experiences with sleep deprivation, how to overcome it, your experiences with polyphasic sleep, etc. You can also ask me questions, offer words of support, convince me not to do this (please), or troll me with lullabies and bed time stories.

 

And before you mention it, yes; Kramer did try this in an episode of Seinfeld. All the more reason that this is a brilliant idea.

[Blightmare]

You must have read my mind. yesterday I was contemplating making a topic about this very thing and seeing if people knew about it and were ever willing to try it. O_O

 

I read about this on some other forum about a year back. sounds interesting though I myself will never try it for one very important reason: I like my beauty sleep no matter how many hours are wasted.

 

My biggest issue with starting something like this is the actual time it takes for me to go to sleep. My mind is very active all the time regardless of how tired I am and even on a 48 hour day it takes me no less than an hour to actually fall asleep when I close my eyes.

[Kyon]

I go everyman in the summer to get me prepared for school next year.

[Michael Archer]

Blightmare, it takes everyone a while to go to sleep. That's why I'll set my watch to wake me up in thirty-five minutes. I heard it takes seven minutes on average for a human to fall asleep (could be a bullshit statistic).

[Epsilon]

I would recommend not doing this unless you desperately need to immediately enter REM for whatever reason; I don't know much about sleep, but I've had my fair share of problems with it. Couldn't this give you insomnia (again, I'm probably just being dense. I don't know much better.)? I've had insomnia before and it's TERRIBLE. You're never tired at night, but you wake up (assuming you fall asleep) feeling like a brains-deprived zombie. If it's not that, you wake up constantly throughout the night. It's not very pleasant.

[Jek Jek Roo]

Lucid dream anyone?

[Blightmare]

Blightmare, it takes everyone a while to go to sleep. That's why I'll set my watch to wake me up in thirty-five minutes. I heard it takes seven minutes on average for a human to fall asleep (could be a bullshit statistic).

 

No I mean, I REALLY have trouble falling asleep. when I lay down, I'm rolling over like a motor, my mind is thinking of everything I'm going to do the next day, which makes me anxious and fidgety, and my eyes creep open, etc. I'm lucky if it takes an hour just to settle down to try and sleep.

[Brad]

Blightmare, it takes everyone a while to go to sleep. That's why I'll set my watch to wake me up in thirty-five minutes. I heard it takes seven minutes on average for a human to fall asleep (could be a bullshit statistic).

 

No I mean, I REALLY have trouble falling asleep. when I lay down, I'm rolling over like a motor, my mind is thinking of everything I'm going to do the next day, which makes me anxious and fidgety, and my eyes creep open, etc. I'm lucky if it takes an hour just to settle down to try and sleep.

 

I have the same problem. It's more dangerous for me though (I'm 14) because my body needs the appropriate amount of sleep for healthy development. That's another thing though Michael, you probably shouldn't try this if you're not old enough. (18 or so.)

[BTGBullseye]

No I mean, I REALLY have trouble falling asleep. when I lay down, I'm rolling over like a motor, my mind is thinking of everything I'm going to do the next day, which makes me anxious and fidgety, and my eyes creep open, etc. I'm lucky if it takes an hour just to settle down to try and sleep.

You have it easy... Without taking pills it usually takes me 2-3 hours to go unconscious. (longer when I manage to blank my mind)

 

Try Diphenhydramine, it's a 'cold medicine', but it's only side effect is drowsiness, making it a perfect sleep aid. Takes effect after 30-60 min, and even gets rid of some allergy headaches.

 

 

On topic: I would never try the "polyphasic" shit... I already do well enough with lucid dreams, and with enough effort I can even crossover into REM while being awake. (done it several times in the past year) Now all I need is to learn to lucid dream while being awake and I'll be set for a while.

[alphabetagamma]

I have to be really tired before I can sleep, my mind is usually very active and I get either get angry at everything or depressed trying to fall asleep for long periods of time. Polyphasic sleep sounds nice but I don't think I'll be able to shift over anytime soon.

[Epsilon]

I have to be really tired before I can sleep, my mind is usually very active and I get either get angry at everything or depressed trying to fall asleep for long periods of time. Polyphasic sleep sounds nice but I don't think I'll be able to shift over anytime soon.

Ditto; I think insomnia could become a problem with polyphasic sleep, though.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I stick to a normal cycle usually. I prefer sticking to what I'm used to. I don't see any reason why I should sleep several times a day when it's more fitting for me to just sleep 8 hours at night and stay awake all day.

[ProHypster]

Blightmare, it takes everyone a while to go to sleep. That's why I'll set my watch to wake me up in thirty-five minutes. I heard it takes seven minutes on average for a human to fall asleep (could be a bullshit statistic).

7 MInutes!!!??? It takes me a damn half an hour to an hour, what is wrong with me?

If I have anything to say so that people don't get messed up sleep like me then:

 

1. Don't sleep in with music still playing, BAAAD, BAAAAAD!!

 

2. Do not dare to go on this forum after 1 AM.

[alphabetagamma]

2. Do not dare to go on this forum after 1 AM.

Got 12 more minutes.

[Axeldeath]

Yeah takes me bout an hour to get to sleep unless I'm really, really tired.

[BTGBullseye]

1. Don't sleep in with music still playing, BAAAD, BAAAAAD!!

I sleep with music. The harder the rock, the easier it is to dream...

 

2. Do not dare to go on this forum after 1 AM.

Again, another thing that helps me sleep...

[Axeldeath]

It's 1.07... School tomorrow. Dx

[Michael Archer]

School in July? Weird.

 

I'm having doubts. You guys are scaring me. Should I still do this?

 

EDIT: Uh oh. Saw this while reading a blog on polyphasic sleep. Read the last paragraph.

 

My diet is almost all meat; I can't stand most vegetables. I'm having even more doubts...

[BTGBullseye]

I'm having doubts. You guys are scaring me. Should I still do this?

 

EDIT: Uh oh. Saw this while reading a blog on polyphasic sleep. Read the last paragraph.

 

My diet is almost all meat; I can't stand most vegetables. I'm having even more doubts...

Good.

 

That sleep pattern is not natural for humans.

[Michael Archer]

I disagree, Bullseye. Have you ever lived with a baby? They don't sleep during the night; they take frequent naps.

 

Of course, an argument against "babies do it, therefore it's natural" is the fact that we go to sleep during the nighttime. Really, there's no logical reason why we do this--we can do everything during the day that we can during the night (aside from making Vitamin D). The reason why I think we go to sleep during the night is that humans have poor eyesight and the prehistoric humans could not do anything during the nighttime. If there was any time to sleep for them, it would be when they when they couldn't hunt or scavenge the land i.e. nighttime.

 

It seems that the vast, vast majority of people who've tried this have failed. The only guy I could find who did this successfully stopped after half a year since it was just too weird. He said that his perception of time got thrown out the window and he had to correct all these bad habits--he also added that any bad habits you have get amplified the less you sleep. This is a problem for me: I have many bad habits and it seems I develop some weird idiosyncrasy every day; my latest one is double, then triple, then quadruple checking the sink faucet to make sure I turned it off before I go to bed.

 

I've decided against this for a number of reasons. First, there are absolutely no reports of someone doing this successfully for a long time much less doing it successfully for a year. Secondly, it requires a shitton of self-discipline which is something I don't have. Also, I like the idea of sleeping for long periods of time, waking up and starting brand new day with a cup of coffee. Another reason (although it hasn't been proven) is that it could cause sleep problems like insomnia as other people suggested; I have had insomnia once and that was not fun.

 

But the number one reason I'm not going to, I think that it really comes down to the fact that I would have to fight two hundred thousand years of evolution (according to Wikipedia) of my ancestors going to bed at night. This is the reason that dieting is so difficult; you're biologically programmed through thousands of years to eat as much as you can since you don't know when the next meal will be.

 

But hey, if you can pull it off, you're stronger than I am and the whole species. I just know that if I personally try to fight evolution, I'll lose, and I'll lose hard.

 

Sorry for wasting your time, but if anyone else has tried this or knows anyone else who's tried this; now would be an excellent time to speak up. This thread still has its purposes.