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/ 

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.

Here is a good overview found at: http://groups.google.com/group/Polyphasic/web/what-is-polyphasic-sleep

What is Polyphasic Sleep? In short, it’s sleeping multiple times per day, aka taking naps.

• Monophasic = sleeping in one large chunk, usually 6-9 hours at night.
• Biphasic = sleep hours at night; take a nap during the day. Think Latin American siesta.
• Triphasic, siesta version = sleep hours at night and take two naps during the day.
• Triphasic, equiphasic version = sleep 90 minutes every 8 hours (three times per day).
• Polyphasic = take several naps per 24-hour period. Technically, biphasic and triphasic schedules are polyphasic, too, though usually the term “polyphasic” refers to 4 or more periods of sleep per 24 hours.

There are a variety of polyphasic sleeping schedules — Dymaxion, Uberman, and Everyman are a few of those.

Dymaxion: The most hard-core of these three is called Dymaxion, with 30-minute naps every six hours. As far as I know, very few people have successfully adapted to this schedule.

Uberman: On the Uberman schedule, people sleep 15-30 minutes every four hours. Many (possibly most) polynappers strive for this schedule. The adjustment period is rough, and many, many people fail to get through it. (I’d imagine that the adjustment period for Dymaxion is even rougher.) However, those who have successfully adjusted enjoy 21-22 waking hours per day and fairly even energy levels. If you stick to the schedule and don’t oversleep, you can adjust in 7-12 days.

Everyman: The term “Everyman” was coined by PureDoxyK. Her thinking is that this schedule is one that many people could adapt to. On an Everyman schedule, you’d sleep 1.5, 3, or 4.5 hours at night and take three to five 20 minute naps during the day. The adjustment is easier to handle, but takes much longer. According to PureDoxyK, it takes over a month to adjust, and as far as I can tell from her blog, she was still tweaking the schedule and fighting early morning drowsiness at the two month mark. At six months, she reported being thrilled with how well it works.

Adjusting to the Uberman Schedule—If you’re used to sleeping 6-9 hours per night, switching to 2-3 hours spread over short naps during the day takes some getting used to. With a monophasic sleep schedule, we generally don’t reach REM sleep until we’ve been out for 90-120 minutes. Deprive your body of what it needs, and eventually it’ll adjust, but before it adapts, it’s rough! The reason Everyman takes so much longer than Uberman to get used to is that with a core sleep, your body is still getting one to three cycles of REM sleep.

Many people have theorized that polyphasic sleepers go straight to REM sleep and only get REM sleep, but in Claudio Stampi’s book “Why We Nap,” Stampi claimed that his polynapping volunteer still got the same proportions of each phase of sleep.

Another interesting note is this: Stampi’s volunteer took performance tests at the beginning of the experiment when he was still monophasic. Two to four weeks into the experiment, his scores were good, but slightly less than they had been before he became polyphasic. After four and a half weeks, Stampi had him sleep for as long as he wanted. The guy slept for 10 hours, and afterwards, his performance tests exceeded what they had been when he was monophasic. These results suggest that polyphasic sleepers should have a long sleep every 4-5 weeks.

From what I have read the body uses a 90 minute sleep schedule to get through the phases of normal sleep.  Also one clarification that I have discovered is that napping in polyphasic sleep schedules does not elimate NREM sleep phases jumping to only REM sleep, it just shortens the phases surrounding REM, most notably phase 1/2.

Here is an interesting post from Steve Pavlina.

“With a long sleep schedule, there’s the concept of a catnap–a sleep period of 30 minutes or less. Because a catnap stays in Stage 1/2 sleep, it’s easy to wake up from. It can be very useful for getting an energy boost in the middle of the day, but as stated above, it won’t fight sleep deprivation. Sleeping longer than 30 minutes but not in increments of 90 minutes is not recommended since you’ll likely wake up from Stage 3/4 sleep or REM sleep, doing yourself more harm than good.”

http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/health-fitness/2294-mechanics-polyphasic-sleep.html

Here is another quote that describes sleep processes using a computer metaphore written by Dr Piotr Wozniak.

“During the day, while learning and experiencing new things, you store your new data in RAM memory. During the night, while first in NREM, you write the data down to the hard disk. During REM, which follows NREM in the night, you do the disk defragmentation, i.e. you organize data, sort them, build new connections, etc. Overnight, you repeat the write-and-defragment cycle until all RAM data is neatly written to the disk (for long-term use), and your RAM is clear and ready for a new day of learning. At waking up, you reboot the computer. If you reboot early with the use of an alarm clock, you often leave your disk fragmented. Your data access is slow, and your thinking is confused. Even worse, some of the data may not even get written to the disk. It is as if you have never stored it in RAM in the first place. In conclusion, if you use an alarm clock, you endanger your data. If you do not care about your intellectual performance, you may want to know that there are many biological reasons for which using alarm clocks is basically unhealthy. ”

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm#Polyphasic%20sleep