An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping • Hacker News Board

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#21

Post by brokentone » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 5:09 PM UTC

I experimented with this though college. I found the idea that you could have extra months in your year amazing. But I could never stick with it for more than a couple days at a time. It was primarily this that kept kicking me off:

"I also have a theory about just being conscience that long, you start to lose a sense of time there is no finality just this never ending loop of waking up and sleeping"

I really decided I needed significant time sleeping to reset my brain. Otherwise it did just feel like a single extended consciousness.

And if you believe John Medina in Brain Rules (http://www.brainrules.net/) sleep is what solidifies memory. Which missing that isn't so helpful to a college student.

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#22

Post by Arjuna » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

Loic wrote: post #14

If you are interested in polyphasic sleep, the best long run experiment I know is from Steve Pavlina. 90 days of polyphasic sleep: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

"90 days of polyphasic sleep:"

Thank you for the link.

Actually, Steve continued to maintain his polyphasic sleep schedule for a total of 5.5 months, not 90 days [1]. It appears that he simply did not update his sleep log entries very frequently after day 90.

His "One Year Later" post was interesting: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/03/polyphasic-sleep-on...

[1] "After doing polyphasic sleep for about 5-1/2 months, I finally decided to switch back to monophasic."

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/polyphasic-sleep-th...

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#23

Post by googletron » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 5:19 PM UTC

brokentone wrote: post #21

I experimented with this though college. I found the idea that you could have extra months in your year amazing. But I could never stick with it for more than a couple days at a time. It was primarily this that kept kicking me off: "I also have a theory about just being conscience that long, you start to lose a sense of time there is no finality just this never ending loop of waking up and sleeping" I really decided…

I couldn't agree more!

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#24

Post by Lewton » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 5:28 PM UTC

Loic wrote: post #14

If you are interested in polyphasic sleep, the best long run experiment I know is from Steve Pavlina. 90 days of polyphasic sleep: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

I read this some years ago.. I've since then become very skeptical about his story. The guy makes money off of his blog, he's basically the internet version of a life coach. Writing "inspirational" articles on how to improve your life, with almost nothing to back them up. There's plenty incentive for him to have fabricated this. And back when I was interested in the uberman sleep schedule, he was the only person on the internet I could find who claimed he had done it for more than a couple of weeks

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#25

Post by cop359 » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 5:36 PM UTC

AndyNemmity wrote: post #18

I have a sort of strange sleep schedule. I work for international teams with no one I work with being on my timezone, I work from home. So every day my sleep schedule is different. My wake schedule is different. I should record my schedule since it's difficult to remember since it changes every day. To give some impression, yesterday I had meetings at 2am, 6am, 6pm, and 10pm. Through that I slept, and had social time…

There was a while in college I was like that. It's like you confuse your circadian rhythm enough that it stops bothering you. It was super convenient, but once you sleep the several days in the row it starts breaking down. You just need to constantly be changing it up a bit.

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#26

Post by AndyNemmity » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

cop359 wrote: post #25

AndyNemmity wrote: post #18

I have a sort of strange sleep schedule. I work for international teams with no one I work with being on my timezone, I work from home. So every day my sleep schedule is different. My wake schedule is different. I should record my schedule since it's difficult to remember since it changes every day. To give some impression, yesterday I had meetings at 2am, 6am, 6pm, and 10pm. Through that I slept, and had social time…

There was a while in college I was like that. It's like you confuse your circadian rhythm enough that it stops bothering you. It was super convenient, but once you sleep the several days in the row it starts breaking down. You just need to constantly be changing it up a bit.

My experience is the same. If I constantly change it up, I have no problems.

On weekends I try to hold to a more timezone specific schedule, but include odd naps at odd times to sort of keep the schedule of broken sleep.

One other aspect I've noticed is I used to feel more tired and people would always comment on how tired I looked. Now I feel much more awake and in the moment, although honestly I have no idea why this would matter.

I think I'm always kept at a constant state of having slept not all that long ago, even if it was a short period of time, and that helps? This is guessing.

The other aspect is, I try to keep my sleep intervals at an hour 30. so, 1:30, 3, 4:30 hours. Not sure if that has anything to do with it, but easier for me to wake up when I do that.

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#27

Post by rizumu » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 6:23 PM UTC

Well what about the siesta? Or, before lighting, people more commonly had segmented sleep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

This seems to be a modern, social issue, not so much a physical one.

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#28

Post by mpetr » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

Well, I'm not sure that's a very good idea. Apart from the fact that sleep helps solidify facts learned during the day (not sure whether this is really true or not but from my experience I'd say there is something to it) I remember reading a paper claiming sleep could have a crucial function in cell refreshing and rest even on a molecular basis. In fact, the former physiological and psychiological effect could be very well implicated by the latter one actually.

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#29

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

mpetr wrote: post #28

Well, I'm not sure that's a very good idea. Apart from the fact that sleep helps solidify facts learned during the day (not sure whether this is really true or not but from my experience I'd say there is something to it) I remember reading a paper claiming sleep could have a crucial function in cell refreshing and rest even on a molecular basis. In fact, the former physiological and psychiological effect could be ver…

[deleted]

Re: An Experiment: Polyphasic Sleeping

#30

Post by rabble » Fri, Apr 06, 2012, 6:55 PM UTC

I tried what might be called polyphasic sleeping twice. When both of my kids were born. It sucked. Babies do it, and their parents are forced to join them for the first few months of life. It's a damned good thing we teach kids the normal way of sleeping, when it's night.