Polyphasic Sleep

[Dechipher]

I am about to embark upon a journey to master polyphasic sleep.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

There's a mild explaination of polyphasic sleep. Most people do 4 hours and 20 minute naps or 30 minute naps in 6 hour intervals. I am going to attempt 45 minutes every 8 hours. I plan on starting Thursday after my percussion ensemble concert. I will attempt to regulate my brain to sleep every 7 hours and 15 minutes and waking up 45 minutes later.

Is anyone here familiar with this? If anyone's attempted it or knows someone who has done it, any advice will be greatly appreciated. I intend to drum a lot and play a lot of video games. Once I get on the schedule (after about a week) I'll probably start working out in the wee hours.

[Lilith]

I've heard of that before and it sounds pretty neat, let us know how it goes. I tend to enter REM very fast and I can take cat naps and be fine, but I've never regulated it.

[Breaker]

Having to nap 4 times a day for 90 minutes at a time sounds kind of unconvenient, especially for somebody working full time. :/

Fortunately I'm a fucking mutant and require little to no sleep at all over long periods of time to "function", but then again I am pretty insane.

[Beldaran]

Be careful. You can actually harm your brain by messing with your sleep patterns. If you experience adverse affects such as short term memory loss, inability to concentrate, or extreme mood swings, you should return to a normal sleep cycle.

[Breaker]

Be careful. You can actually harm your brain by messing with your sleep patterns. If you experience adverse affects such as short term memory loss, inability to concentrate, or extreme mood swings, you should return to a normal sleep cycle.

or get on some anti-psychotic medication and see a doctor about being schizo bipolar.

[Rainman]

Interesting thread to see when I've been up ~24 hours. I'm up (not) doing an essay for my Anthro class. I've never heard of polyphasic sleep actually working too long. It's seems to have worked for that guy though. I know from the all-nighters like this one that I've done that being awake during the night is not all that it's cracked up to be especially on a weeknight. With everyone else asleep, you might as well be too. It's good for getting things done of course, but you're probably not in the best condition.

[Kairyu]

Have you read the whole thing? It says that actually sticking to the schedule you've set is absolutely necessary. There are lifestyles where this sort of thing would be awesome, but for most people it'd be very restrictive.

[Archibaldo]

Didn't Kramer try this in an episode of Seinfeld? In the episode, he ends up falling a sleep while having sex. So the girl in turn assumes he's dead. Then she calls her mob friends to stuff him in a bag and throw him into the river. DO YOU WANT TO END UP IN THE RIVER? I wouldn't reccomend trying this.

[Breaker]

Have you read the whole thing?

do you believe everything you read?

[Kairyu]

do you believe everything you read?
I can't believe you just asked me that, so I guess not. I was just asking if he'd read the entire article that he was discussing.

[Dechipher]

Yeah. I'm attempting 8 hour intervals, sleeping from noon for fortyfive minutes, at 8pm for 45 and at 2 am for 45. In this way I can negotiate school and everything else. The first week is supposed to be hell, and nothing's going to be good for me. But I'm eager to see what it's like once I get it set and regulated. I've read a lot of accounts of people who've done it, and I figure why not try it?

And Breaker, I dig your concern with the whole napping a lot thing, but generally 2 total hours a day is good enough. 4 hour intervals would be kind of inconvinient, but my method will (hopefully) get me going.

[Lilith]

Be careful. You can actually harm your brain by messing with your sleep patterns. If you experience adverse affects such as short term memory loss, inability to concentrate, or extreme mood swings, you should return to a normal sleep cycle.

lol

[Beldaran]

Why is that funny?

[Tygore]

Because short-term memory loss is hilarious.

[koopa]

Fortunately I'm a fucking mutant and require little to no sleep at all over long periods of time to "function"

I thought I was wierd because I'm used to and need so much sleep ... don't most people sleep very little nowadays?

[AtmaWeapon]

I've seen threads on other forums where lots of people tried these experiments and the results are usually the same.

The first phase is adjusting to the new schedule and of course there is grumpiness and other problems associated with drastic shifts in sleep schedule.

The next phase is when your body is adjusted to the sleep schedule but the adverse effects continue.

The final phase involves the realization that grades/job performance are slipping combined with the knowledge that it will be impossible to convince a boss to give them the necessary time to continue the schedule. Normal sleep patterns continue.

I think polyphasic sleep looks good on paper. However, I think there are too many things about sleep that we don't understand to believe that it will work for anyone and everyone. I would be completely skeptical but there are enough people who successfully try it and report good results that I just hold the opinion that it is only good for some people.

Then again, I hear lots of people claim excellent results after trepanation so it could be a placebo effect/attempt to justify months of work. vhttp://www.atmaweapon.org/images/emot/shobon.gifv

[Dechipher]

Nonetheless, I'm going to proceed with my experiment. I'm not sure how it will do, but I'm not too worried about grades. The only class I'm not sure of is History which I have a test for Monday. That's the only worry I have.

[Lilith]

Why is that funny?

being crazy makes it a bit hard to sleep, mon cap-i-tain!

[Rainman]

Remember to adjust for daylight savings time.

[biggiy05]

How did this work out for you?

[Dechipher]

It sucked. I had to give it up after about a week because my alarm wasn't waking me up, either because I slept through it or didn't set it up correctly. So it got to the point where all I was doing was denying my body sleep, but not on any kind of schedule and I was just dragging it through this process. I want to do it, but I want to do it right, and there is some element of "I could kind of mess myself up" otherwise.
I haven't given up yet though. I'm considering starting it up again around Spring Break time. Trying to do it around midterms was a bad idea.

[Sir-Pimpalot]

'how bout that...

[SUCCESSOR]

THe point of polyphasic sleep is to only sleep through REM sleep and wake up out of that. REM sleep does not last 45 minutes. The reason you couldn't wake up or felt miserable when you did is because you were waking up out of deeper sleep. Your idea was stupid to begin with.

Not that I'm saying polyphasic sleep isn't stupid or that it is. Just a little far-fetched.