Polyphasic sleep

[a.Bird]

Wikipedia: Polyphasic sleep (also known as Da Vinci sleep or Uberman sleep) is a sleep pattern intended to reduce sleep time to 2–5 hours daily. This is supposed to be achieved by spreading out sleep into short naps of around 20–45 minutes throughout the day. Advocates claim that this is supposed to allow for more waking hours with relatively high alertness.

A man named Steve Pavlina attempted to achieve a steady polyphasic sleep pattern and blogged the entire progress from day 1 to day 90. It is an incredible read, and a fascinating concept. Here's a quote from the blog:


I’ve been so accustomed to thinking of monophasic sleep as “normal” that this requires a big psychological adjustment. I sometimes feel like an android who plugs himself into a wall socket to recharge once every four hours. I was reminded that babies naturally follow a polyphasic sleep pattern, and my two-year old son is biphasic with his daily naps, so monophasic sleeping patterns may be partially a learned behavior. I read that we’ll tend to drift away from strict monophasic sleep in the absence of time-of-day indicators like sunlight or clocks. I think it’s possible that a more polyphasic pattern could feel natural and normal in the absence of social conditioning. It’s beginning to feel more normal to me with each passing day.

>>read more (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/)

[DaJe]

Kramer tried doing that before. That makes more sense for me. I'm always up during the night no matter how much I slept the night before. It's easier for me to stay up during the night. During the day if I'm tired, I'll want to sleep, but at night I can manage to stay up until morning. Why should I have to force myself to follow this set pattern that everyone else wants me to.

[Slug Toy]

i find that works very well for me too... when i have the time. ive found it increasingly hard to sleep at night, and i get ten minute breaks in every class at college. if i sleep for those ten minutes, im good for the day. if i dont... im a zombie. only problem is that im all over the place at different times of the day, and i cant fall asleep between classes or in transit or else ill be late for something or end up half way across the city in the wrong direction.

my parents dont think too much of what i do. i dont care though, it works. i dont do the 20 minutes every 4 hours though... i may try that on a long weekend or something, or maybe 20 minutes every 2 hours.

one thing ive discovered is that around 3-4 in the afternoon is not a good time to sleep. every time i fall asleep on the couch at that time, i always wake up completely disoriented and the feeling doesnt go away either.

[meticoeus]

I did that in highschool. It bugged the hell out of my roommates, though lol. It worked well. I usually had to sleep for like 4ish hours at night anyway, in the hours before class in the morning. I sleep on a bi-triphasic schedule currently, alternating basid on time of week. It take a while to change your general sleeping pattern, in my experience. I personally ignore social standards unless there is good reason to use it; if I find a better way to do something I do it ;p.

[a.Bird]

I personally ignore social standards unless there is good reason to use it; if I find a better way to do something I do it ;p.
That is very incredible. I hope you stick to this method for the rest of your life.