Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep • Hacker News Board

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#41

Post by dasil003 » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 9:46 PM UTC

gerad wrote: post #32

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #5

WHY OH WHY is polyphasic sleep so attactive? Read about it a little bit, and realize that it is totally, TOTALLY unnatural, nearly impossible to maintain for any length of time, and possibly dangerous to your long-term well-being. Go hack something else. Leave your circadian rhythms alone. You cannot redesign them or improve them. If you are working on a submarine, then maybe polyphasic sleep is useful, because of th…

Polyphasic sleep looks pretty natural if you're the parent of a newborn.

True, but in terms of performance, the only measure that I would have liked to been judged on during my kid's first few months would be survival.

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#42

Post by desireco42 » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 10:06 PM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #25

xutopia wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Pavlina stopped because he was bored and it was not giving him more time with the people he loved (which was the point of it in the first place). Source: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

Which makes no sense to anyone who has actually managed to switch to polyphasic sleep, even for just a week or two. Pavlina is so inconsistent in his description of his polyphasic sleep experiences that the consensus on the polyphasic mailing list I ran for a while was that he was a lying about doing it at all.

Do you know someone who actually managed to live like this for extended periods? I would be interested to hear.

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#43

Post by mobweb » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 10:14 PM UTC

Segmentation wrote: post #27

So uh, I don't really care about the polyphasic stuff. Would this device improve normal sleep? I struggle to find comfortable sleep masks. I suppose it's kind of expensive, although the sleep monitoring stuff is cool.

Check out the "Mindfold" for a no-gimmick sleeping mask: http://www.mindfold.com/. It's really comfortable to wear and 100% pitch black dark. I actually found it via HN some time ago and I like it a lot.

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#44

Post by DoggettCK » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 10:16 PM UTC

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #5

WHY OH WHY is polyphasic sleep so attactive? Read about it a little bit, and realize that it is totally, TOTALLY unnatural, nearly impossible to maintain for any length of time, and possibly dangerous to your long-term well-being. Go hack something else. Leave your circadian rhythms alone. You cannot redesign them or improve them. If you are working on a submarine, then maybe polyphasic sleep is useful, because of th…

I bet you're just in the pocket of Big Sleep.

Regardless of whether polyphasic is best, it looks like it also supports biphasic and a variety of other sleep modes.

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#45

Post by bashinator » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 10:19 PM UTC

Anderkent wrote: post #40

bashinator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is about biphasic sleep cycles, not polyphasic.

Biphasic is a form of polyphasic. And if two segments are better than one, why would you think three segments are definitely worse than one?

Well, I'm certainly not an expert in the field, but from that same wikipedia article it seems as though a large number of human societies have practiced biphasic sleep cycles, but there's no historical reference to having more phases than that. If it were that advantageous, why haven't there been entire societies practicing it?

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#46

Post by jheriko » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 10:21 PM UTC

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #5

WHY OH WHY is polyphasic sleep so attactive? Read about it a little bit, and realize that it is totally, TOTALLY unnatural, nearly impossible to maintain for any length of time, and possibly dangerous to your long-term well-being. Go hack something else. Leave your circadian rhythms alone. You cannot redesign them or improve them. If you are working on a submarine, then maybe polyphasic sleep is useful, because of th…

actually this is the first i've heard of it and its not too far from my natural sleeping pattern tbh.

if left unchecked i usually end up with a couple of 2-3 hour naps in a 24hr period instead of a big sleep.

although i'm sure its not good for me. :)

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#47

Post by Anderkent » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 10:33 PM UTC

bashinator wrote: post #45

Anderkent wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biphasic is a form of polyphasic. And if two segments are better than one, why would you think three segments are definitely worse than one?

Well, I'm certainly not an expert in the field, but from that same wikipedia article it seems as though a large number of human societies have practiced biphasic sleep cycles, but there's no historical reference to having more phases than that. If it were that advantageous, why haven't there been entire societies practicing it?

Not necessarily.

First of all, what 'advantageous' means has changed a lot. Our priorities and needs nowadays are completely different then back in early history. Food is abundant, physical work is much less common, etc.

The benefits from having more awake time might not be enough to propagate such a change. Or the lost flexibility might have mattered much more back then.

I'm not claiming everyman is clearly and strictly better than mono or biphasic sleep. We have to find out, and the only way we can find out is by people actually trying it. But saying that monophasic sleep is the only way to sleep is silly.

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#48

Post by perino » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 10:48 PM UTC

I think that if you need the product to increase the amount of workable hours in a day, you're doing something wrong to begin with. The idea of Polyphasic sleep in itself is interesting, but do it for the right reasons (more time to communicate with friends/family who are in a different timezone, work nightshifts etc.).

One other thing to consider is the fact that sleeping less means you've got more time to spend, also during hours when almost nobody else is awake. For some this isn't an issue, but for others this could prove to be difficult. I for one would opt for an Everyman cycle, since it allows you to be awake during relatively "normal" hours.

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#49

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 11:05 PM UTC

One serious concern I have with polyphasic sleep is the suppression of pineal gland secretions like melatonin from exposure to blue/green light. 470mn is the most potent frequency (looks like "sky blue" to me) though humans have shown some sensitivity to frequencies as high as 505nm. What's more, humans have shown sensitivity to intensities as low as 0.5 lumens. (Especially for prolonged exposures. That sliver of light coming underneath your door? Bad.)

What this means: If you are doing computer work at night, you are probably messing up your circadian rhythm and endocrine system. This is true, even if you have installed software like f.lux.

Note: We have done research into melatonin levels, but there are other pineal secretions that are probably affected the same way. The receptors involved are not the ones used for sight. Also note that we uncovered that the deepest phases of sleep are involved in actually removing certain materials from your brain!

Do not mess with sleep! (Disclosure: I am currently developing an iPhone app that will help evaluate the presence of melatonin suppressing light in your environment.)

Re: Neuroon: Sleep mask for polyphasic sleep

#50

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 11:20 PM UTC

someacct wrote: post #37

thetabyte wrote: post #34

I'm really interested in this project, but wish they had left polyphasic sleep entirely out of it. The sleep data they provide (REM and NREM monitoring, etc) seems fantastically useful, and the lucid dream induction is intriguing, if dubious; however, the inclusion of polyphasic sleep makes me suspicious of the scientific rigor of the project on a whole. It's making it hard to decide whether to go ahead and back - on…

Yeah, I'd like one just to figure out how much I'm really sleeping and how much of that is deep sleep, etc. Hardware-wise, it sounds a lot like the old Zeo Personal Sleep Manager. I was interested in getting one of those, but then the company went other and shutdown their API, bricking all their devices. I hope these guys don't make the same mistake.

I am currently in the process of reviving my Zeo Sleep Manager.

http://imgur.com/rHZmTY3

I can replace the lipo battery with another one with the same capacity. However, I will have to expand the case. My current plan is to seal the battery in a few layers of aluminum tape and to 3D print a "gasket" system.

The company going out of business doesn't "brick" anything, at least for my older system. There are programs that can read the data format.