Polyphasic Sleep / Sueño Polifasico

Is I ready more from Jeffery Seely I realized that his Uberman attempt was 10 days and that due to his job issues he had to go back to another form of sleeping, it is also interesting to note that he experienced the natural desire to bounce back and forth between the various states…one night sleeping 7.5 the next back to Uberman, the next 3 hours. And that he retained vivid dreams. He also states that his habit of a 20 minute nap a few times a day greatly increased his productivity and outlook on life. Here is an excerpt of his post:

http://jseely.com/category/polyphasic-sleep/

“For about two weeks following the Uberman adaptation period, I took all of my daytime naps (noon, 4pm, 8pm) — every day. My nocturnal sleeping habits followed a different pattern. For each nocturnal episode, one of three things happened:

• I slept for 7.5 hours, or
• I required only a 3-hour core, in which case I would fit in an extra 20-minute nap during the night, or
• I followed Uberman completely, taking 20-minute naps at the usual time slots.

I could never predict which of the three would occur at any given night. But if I had a 7.5 hour sleep one night, it was very likely that I could do Uberman the next night with little to no loss in energy.

Another interesting point was that I would sometimes set the alarm for 3 hours and would wake up after 20 minutes.

I estimate that for those 2-ish weeks I slept an average of 4-5 hours a day — quite admirable for a haphazard quasi-polyphasic schedule.

My energy levels followed my circadian rhythm, it seemed. During many nocturnal waking episodes, I felt functional, but didn’t possess the concentration to read a book. Nighttime was at first a source of frustration. My body was deciding for itself that it wanted to be awake, but I still wasn’t focused enough to get work done. I eventually focused my nighttime tasks to cooking, movies, and video games — all worked well to pass the time.

Above all, the most interesting aspect of the post-adaptation period was the beneficial qualities of the daytime naps. Again, despite my nocturnal habits, I stuck with Uberman naps during the day. I took every noon nap in a super comfy chair in my school library. I usually woke up from that nap in a feeling of bliss. It’s hard to describe this bliss. It’s sort of like the just-woke-up feeling we all experience on occasion from monophasic sleep, but it’s much more intense. It borders more on euphoria and ecstasy and a feeling of oneness. But at the same time the feeling was subtle. Not subdued, but not overpowering. I often would wake up from that nap with a sudden urge to go outside and simply indulge in the beautiful sights summer.

It was not uncommon for me to experience this bliss two or three times in a day. My 4:00pm and 8:00pm naps often had this quality.

This was great news for my job. I usually reserved most of my working time to the hour or so following a nap. The post-nap state of mind was especially effervescent and unconstrained. My thoughts would flow faster than normal. If you have ever attempted difficult math proofs before, then you’re probably familiar with the frustration of hitting a mental block. It’s like writer’s block for mathematicians. I found that if I worked on my math problems after a nap, I usually experienced more lucrative thought processes, which helped get past mental blocks.

Another quality of my naps: I had dreams. Let’s review why this is a good thing. During the first several days of cold-turkey Uberman adaptation, your body is mainly getting SWS (slow-wave sleep). SWS is critical, but you also need REM, and probably the other stages as well. Your body eventually figures out that you’re only taking 20-minute naps, so it changes its sleep architecture to fit in non-SWS stages as well. When you have a dream, that usually indicates that you’re in REM sleep — a good sign for people adapting to polyphasic sleep.

Because I’ve been having dreams during many of my naps, this means that I’ve retained the altered sleep architecture from my “failed” Uberman adaptation. It’s common for me to recall 3-4 dreams a day. It’s also common to have REM-onset naps, where dreaming kicks in immediately upon falling asleep (lucid dreams, anyone?). I can’t predict which naps will give me dreams and which ones will be mostly — as far as I can tell — SWS. But I’ve noticed that both seem to leave me feeling good upon waking up. That state of bliss I described does not seem to depend whether I had a REM nap or a SWS nap, if I had a dream or not.

(Note that polyphasic naps are not compressed versions of monophasic sleep cycles. One nap might be mostly SWS with no REM, while another might be mostly REM with no SWS. The other sleep stages remain in use as well. A fully adapted polyphasic sleeper will experience overall sleep-stage ratios very similar those of monophasic sleep.)

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Like I said, I went through 10 days of Uberman adaptation but started a full time job on day 11. My body was almost adapted, but wasn’t quite there yet, so I had to focus my efforts away from maintaining this schedule. Interestingly, my body didn’t want to revert to monophasic sleep. At first I went for a couple 7.5-hours sleeps, but currently my body tends to sleep for no more than 3 hours at a time. I listen to my body and have taken 20-minute naps whenever I feel tired, which occurs about 3-4 times a day. I often remember vivid dreams from my naps (writing in my dream journal is starting to get very tedious!). I almost always spend every other night on a full-Uberman schedule. I’m not forcing my body to do this either. On the other nights my body tends to want a couple 3-hour sleeps. I sometimes set my alarm for about 3 hours and instead wake up 15 minutes later feeling totally rejuvenated. I have also noticed that there are a couple naps each day that leave me feeling euphoric upon waking up. Essentially, I’m on some sort of free-form quasi-polyphasic sleep schedule. I’ll write more about these post-adaptation experiences later.

I’d like to finish by saying that polyphasic sleep adaptation was a worthwhile experience. It was difficult and almost felt unbearable at times. But in retrospect I see all the benefits of putting myself through the challenge. Succeed or fail, I think there are several benefits to attempting polyphasic sleep:

• You become more conscious of how your energy levels work throughout the day.
• You become conscious of how you spend your free time. During Uberman adaptation you are awake for 22 hours a day, albeit a bit nonfunctional at times. You get a taste of life with extreme amounts of free time. Even if you revert to monophasic sleep, having tasted the life of the Uberman, you become highly aware of how you spend your free time. And I suspect you feel motivated to make better use of it.
• Even if you don’t succeed at Uberman, you open the door to several other polyphasic sleep possibilities. I’m currently on a free-form quasi-polyphasic schedule, where I gain anywhere from 2 to 5 hours of free time a day. I am having a blast experimenting with various schedules, and I’m experiencing little to no sleep deprivation. Hopefully I’ll settle in on either Uberman or Everyman soon.
• Lucid dreaming — although I’ve been working on having lucid dreams for several weeks now, it was only until polyphasic sleep that I had one. Lucid dreams have lots of therapeutic benefits. I’m always in a state of ecstasy after having one.
• The best benefit: adaptation tests your limits. It tests your self-discipline and your ability to control your conscious and subconscious mind. What better tool can you imagine for personal growth?

He doesn’t seem to write again after this as for now, but I think he may be onto something, some kind of schedule might be cool. Maybe week days vs. weekends etc. not sure.

I have been reading more about gradual adaptation and Claudio Stampi’ research from two good new blogs.

Jeffery Seely also mentioned that Stampi said that gradual adaption seed critical for the success of the subjects.

“So I got to thinking that adapting gradually would be easier. I noticed that in Claudio Stampi’s studies, he made his polyphasic sleeping subject adapting gradually, and Stampi even noted that adapting gradually seemed critical to the subject’s success (I’d cite the exact quote, but I returned Why We Nap to the library… I’ll recheck it soon). I’m sure that Stampi’s decision to adapt his subject gradually was based on his own intuition, but I’d trust a sleep researcher’s intuition over my own.”

http://jseely.com/2007/09/how-i-successfully-adapted-to-polyphasic-sleep/

Also Shakkun, now on day 11 of Uberman, used a gradual approach. From what I can tell he went through the same harsh adaptation we did from day 1 to day 7, and on day 11, he said he will try for three more days before switching to Everyman.  Still I think gradual is better.  I like that we have kept our nap times from Dymaxion the same, making it easier to reduce my core if desired in the future.

http://shakkun.blogspot.com/2008/01/gradual-adaptation.html

I found it interesting that Steve Pavlina actually did a planned experiment, he did each duration 8-10 times“25 Minutes. So far I’ve tested countdown alarm times of 20, 22, 25, and 30 minutes for my naps, trying each one for about 8-10 cycles. I begin the countdown timer as soon as I lie down. 25 minutes seems to work the best so far. With shorter times the alarm sometimes cuts my sleep too short, and I don’t feel fully refreshed. With longer times I often feel groggy upon awakening if I sleep until the alarm goes off, probably because I’ve slipped beyond the REM phase. 25 minutes seems to be the sweet spot that gives me enough time to fall asleep, have a dream, and wake up naturally if possible, with the alarm serving as a safety net to prevent me sleeping past REM. I notice that even if the 25-minute alarm wakes me up (which is about 1/3 of the time now), I usually wake up feeling relaxed and refreshed and remembering a dream.”

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/polyphasic-sleep-log-days-12-18/ 

So I skipped a few days writing during the regrouping phase. We made it through day 8 and then lost it, the first night for only a few hours of oversleeping and the next night more.

Last night I practically had a normal night 2am to 8am. 6 hours…Ugh. I definitely lost all the hard work I put into the first week, and we were so so close.   And I also feel like I let go of the whole thing in kind of a haphazzard way.  We wanted to suggest a tip to people, if you decide to quit, make yourself last one more day before quiting because making a decision at 4am when you are in a lot of pain is not always the best idea.

The first few days back living among the humans has been great. I am altert and sharp enough to finally get down to business and do a bunch of the things I had wanted to do.  That is one thing you certainly miss in the first week of adaptation, you don’t feel like doing much and that can get very boring.  Lucas keeps laughing as he remembers me wandering aimlessly around the apartment.

I have decided to go onto a very light schedule because I so disappointed in the tails I hear about everyman…in that people sleep 3 hour core and then naps and feel tired for 1-2 months, and never really have that energy thing that Ubermen talk about.  I figure rather than be tired, go ahead and sleep 4 hour cores and use my other hours in a better way etc. I figure I will still have a lot of time, but will also feel more rested.

It would be nice to find a groove, because it would be cool to have so much extra time.  I am currently thinking about 2pm, 8pm, 2am (all for 30 min) and then a core between 4 and 8am or 8:30.  We figured this schedule would also help us, help each other get up, though I do think it might eventualy be better to put the core at 3am to 7am… but I guess it is not that different.

Lets see how she goes this time.

We are still trying to find someone on the internet who actually was able to do Dymaxion sleep…amazing that we have come up empty handed so far.  Also read about a guy that is doing triphasic.  This sounds cool…I like the idea of having three equal sleep times. I want to learn more about the sleep cycles, and how the body goes through the cycles etc.

Found the source of the Fuller article in Time Magazine which everyone talks about…it does sound rather vague, and not as if he was on a perfect schedule.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774680,00.html 

Dymaxion Sleep
Monday, Oct. 11, 1943

Sleep is just a bad habit. So said Socrates and Samuel Johnson, and so for years has thought grey-haired Richard Buckminster Fuller, futurific inventor of the Dymaxion* house (TIME, Aug. 22, 1932), the Dymaxion car and the Dymaxion globe. Fuller made a deliberate attempt to break the sleep habit, with excellent results. Last week he announced his Dymaxion system of sleeping. Two hours of sleep a day, he said firmly, is plenty.
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Sleep Deprived

* A Fuller word representing “dynamic” and “maximum service.”

Me fui a dormir a las 2 am. y me desperté a las 5:45. Otra vez me dormí. Es más facil de lo que parece dormirse. Parece que mucha gente tiene el mismo problema con Dymaxion, tienden a dormirse una y otra vez. Voy a tratar de reforzar mis alarmas nocturnas, o bien llamarlo Everyman y listo.

La noche, entre las 0 y las 8 fue bastante muy productiva, pude mantenerme alerta sin problemas (probablemente debido a las horas de sueño de anoche), y me dediqué a programar para uno de mis proyectos-hobbie.

8:00
Me fui a dormir a las 8, me desperté 8:30 y cometí el error de quedarme “5 minutos más”. Me levante a las 10:45.

14:00
De nuevo pase de largo. me levanté a las 15:00 sintiéndome cansado y totalmente mareado. Tengo que reforzar las alarmas. Parece ser que esto de dormir irregularmente se hace costumbre…

el resto del día pasó normal. sin problemas ni contratiempos y sin sentirme cansado.

Me desperté a las 12 y media del mediodía sin entender nada ni saber como llegué a estar en la cama a esa hora.
Parece que al agregar la siesta de las 12 de la noche reventamos el ciclo, o simplemente nos dormimos. Agregar más períodos de sueño no garantiza nada.

El día fue normal, mucha culpa y cargo de conciencia, Jenny y yo decidimos separar nuestros cronogramas, porque estábamos durmiendo demasiado para mi y demasiado poco para ella, y no es bueno.

He decidido seguir (o tratar de seguir) con el esquema Dymaxion normal  (quizá agregando una siesta pero solo si me siento realmente cansado en medio de la noche. Asi que por lo pronto vuelvo al 2 - 8 - 2 - 8.

Capaz que jenny empieza con everyman super light, como  5 horas de siesta grande + 3 de 20 minutos durante el día.

Llegar despierto a esta noche fue bastante simple. Veremos mañana si puedo ajustarme.

5:30am

So it is day 7 and I am feeling pretty good. We changed the schedule one last time to make it something we can live with. I think it is going to work really well.

1. We started with Dymaxion: 4 , 30 minute naps at 8am, 2pm, 8pm and 2am for a total of 2 hours

2. On day 6, we added an Everyman core nap of three hours for the 2am block to get us through the night, total of 4 hours

3. Day 7 we have decided to create a new variant schedule: 6, 30 minute naps with the late night weighted. Times are 8am, 2pm, 8pm, 2am, 4am, 6am, total of 3 hours. Plus we are thinking about adding a free fall sleep night on Friday nights due to research we read.

The shift of schedule is due to the following. First of all it was very painful to get through the 2am to 8am shift awake. We needed to break that up better. But adding a core sleep seemed dangerous because it seemed to be mixing types of sleep (this might be a good thing for your body?). However, we have read that a core sleep of only 3 hours plus 3 naps can leave people basically constantly sleep deprived and feeling sluggish for a month or more. Some report only feeling good on the second month. We also had heard that on the Uberman, people generally felt good, it was just that the hours, nap 20 every four hours was to difficult to maintain in society. Weighting our naps to the night time, makes the time between our naps unequal but also leaves us with a nice 6 hour spread during the day which makes all the difference when you have to leave the house etc.

The last variation, a free fall sleep once a week or month we heard was heathly. I am nervous to do it right away because I want to acclimate my body first to the routine, but we will consider it, and hope that it proves to be a nice addition. Besides reading that letting the body sleep for 5 or so hours every so often was good, we actually felt the effects of it after doing a 3 hour core trial. Even though we aren’t going to stick with a core nap, doing a three hour chunk on Day 6 helped my body feel better, and as Lucas points out it was a physcological necessity. Napping for 30 minutes is not very satisfying, you don’t feel like you are getting sleep, and that is hard to adjust to mentally.

So I am feeling fairly good right now and as each day passes I feel in the mood to do regular work and mental activities etc. Before it was hard to focus your mind for more than an hour or so at a time, without exhaustion knocking at the door. I woke up very sleepy from my 2am nap, but the 4am nap was good. Again, it seems like doing a 30 minute nap schedule is dangerous because if you get into bed 5 minutes early, you might risk jumping into that extra sleep schedule and waking up dizzy and drowsey.

I continue to feel 100% more tired at night than durring the day. At night I have to do physical things often just to stay awake, and even that sometimes is challenging. The other thing that is important in general when doing this is to have lots of things to work on and do. Boredom on top of a stressful mental and physical adjustment leaves you feeling kind of helpless.

So all in all, things seem to be good. We are sticking with it, after lots and lots of doubt in the last two days. We just felt that we would never want to go through the first week again, so if we are going to try it it might as well be now. And every day that we stick with it we feel luckier that we are getting the opportunity to try it out. I think the modifications are perfect for us and I think it is a managable system all around. Lets see how it goes.

En este día tengo que readaptarme al hecho de no dormir más de 20 minutos por siesta. También es la primera noche en que probar el sistema con las 2 siestas extra.

02:44
Me desperté totalmente desorientado, no podía entender por qué el reloj decía 2:28 y pensé que había puesto mal la alarma (no se que habré estado pensando). Después de entender que esa si era la hora y de que era hora de levantarme, no tuve tantos problemas en hacerlo. Me siento bien, con poco sueño, cero cansancio y con mis habilidades mentales en bastante buen estado. Me tomo unos mates como para despabilar.

05:00
Nos levantamos después de la siesta agregada muy descansados tanto física como mentalmente. Por ahora no es problema el haber roto el cronograma anoche. Y en una hora tenemos otra siesta. Definitivamente esta noche pasó más rápido, aunque quizá adelantemos la siesta de las 2am, porque el periodo 8pm ~ 2am se hizo medio largo. Seria bueno salvo por las implicaciones sociales, se complica salir o hacer cualquier cosa a la noche si necesitamos dormir a las 12.

07:00
La segunda siesta extra hizo que la noche sea aun más llevadera. Todavía no hay signos de problemas causados por haber roto el ciclo anoche. En mi opinion deberíamos hacer siestas a las 8pm 12pm 4am y 8am (cada 4 horas a la noche y cada 6 de día) pero las implicaciones sociales son malísimas.

10:00
Hasta ahora de maravilla, nos levantamos con poco sueño y la mañana va sobre ruedas.

14:30
Nos levantamos de la siesta cansados, atontados y medio mareados, porque alguien llamó por teléfono a las 14:10. Y nos cortó el sueño. La fragilidad del cronograma es un punto a tener en cuenta.

17:20
Más allá de habernos levantado mal, estamos bastante recuperados ya. Al fin el cuerpo empieza a adaptarse y podemos sentarnos y trabajar / pensar.

23:50
El dia fue bastante tranquilo, pero decidimos agregar una siesta a las 12 porque llegamos un tanto cansados. Veremos que pasa.