Heh, I did the second everyman for a few months last year. It was great, but you definitely can't pull off that suggested +/- 1hr flexibility for more than a few naps or you're done.

This is awesome stuff. Never knew. Thanks for sharing.

I've tried sleeping 20 minutes every few hours. I don't fall asleep easily, so the experiment failed. But I was awake for most of 3 days. The problem was waiting an hour to take a 20 minute nap.

Eventually, I got more tired and slept longer for the next nap, which only hurt the cycle - till I was at a regular 8 hour sleeping block.

It was a productive 3 days though.

In high school the 5 + 3hr siesta worked great for me. In college I dropped the siesta and just slept 5 during the week, but on weekends I'd sleep 12. There's no shame in getting as much sleep as you need.

the interesting thing is how much less sleep you need if you take naps.

back in the early days of architecture school, i attempted the uberman polyphasic sleep cycle... i lasted about 2 weeks, but by the end of it, i could hardly tell the difference between reality and dream. these days, i'm pretty monophasic with the occasional 4 hour nap in the middle of the day. hehe. i call it "paying back my sleep debt".

I heard Tim Ferriss' voice in my head as I read this.

Uberman -- that sounds so hardcore. I have to try it sometime. There's no way I could nap that regularly though. Once I'm in the zone coding, I just want to stay there.

1. I find it difficult to fall asleep. 2. I f I nap at all during the day, I lay awake half the night. 3. I don't often feel sleepy during the day in any case - don't feel a need to nap. 4. I think I'd spend an hour each hour, trying to get 20 mins sleep. 5. What about the REM sleep, we're supposed to need?

The idea is that you hit REM sleep quicker when haven't gotten enouh REM sleep. REM rebound is evolutionary fine tuning that helps us get the more vital forms of sleep.

unfortunately, when you do not sleep in darkness, your body does not produce appropriate levels of melatonin which leads to cancer. A recent study shows those who rarely to never slept in darkness were 80% more likely to get cancer. women are at an even higher risk as melatonin is one way your body helps fight off breast cancer. Soo... in short, if you think that you feel better taking naps throughout the day... you may want to think twice. OR perhaps buy some blackout curtains for your bedroom.

bnick, can you please point us to this "recent study".

Melatonin is produced by the pinealocytes in the pineal gland (located in the brain, but outside of the blood-brain barrier) and also by the retina, lens, GI tract and other tissues. Simply sleeping during the day will not cut off your melatonin production. Matter of fact it will be a very tiny reduction if any.

On top of this if you are worried about Melatonin related issues or think sleeping during the day causes cancer you can go buy a bottle of Melatonin pills in 3 and 5mg doses at any drugstore if you live in the US and most of Europe (Except Germany).

I read on one site about Ubermans sleep schedule that in order to get into that cycle you must follow the schedule for an entire week before you body realizes that during those 20 minute naps you want it to go into REM. The problem is that you stay awake for about 22 hours a day and you have to find something to occupy your time or you will become bored and most likely start thinking about how tired you actually are, thus breaking the cycle and falling back to your regular sleep schedule.

Thanks for the pointer. I'd never heard about polyphasic sleep before, but was so excited by the idea that I started my own "experiment" the next day. http://jfriend.posterous.com/changing-sleep-patterns-day-1

Uberman has little biological basis, and the more research we do the more we realize that there is an explicit reason for sleeping 8 hours a day in a solid block, and that your body is not, in fact, trying to get you to be less efficient.

If we ignore all the dozens of neurological issues associated with polyphasic sleep (a generous term for sleep deprivation) that Uberman advocates debate endlessly, there's genetic issues too. Sleep results in differential production of mRNAs, which have a fixed timecourse and cannot be "sped up" like Uberman proposes to do with REM. Sleep deprivation induces production of growth hormone-releasing hormone mRNA, and decreases production of glutamate decarboxylase--an enzyme whose disregulation, brought on by things like...say...sleep deprivation, has been associated with seizures, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.

See also:
http://www.biomedexperts.com/Abstract.bme/11322707/Sleep_modifies_glutamate_decarboxylase_mRNA_within_the_barrel_cortex_of_rats_after_a_mystacial_whisker_trim
http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/275/6/R1755

Personally, I don't advocate polyphasic sleep but I do advocate open-mindedness.

The studies and information is appreciated; nevertheless, slights at something I gather you have never attempted is in poor form.

The more data the better, but it is a jump to correlate those studies to polyphasic sleep. Additionally, I have to ask myself if tuning my sleep schedule to a way that is optimal for me is better or worse than some other things people do nowadays:

1) Smoke
2) Drink
3) Live overstressed lives
4) Over-eat/have unfathomably poor diets

Actually, polyphasic sleep has improved each of those areas of my lifestyle as a mere secondary effect.

Like many things in life, an individual's sleep schedule is a personal decision. The original post provided the options in a helpful way and any new data is additionally helpful, but I find myself skeptical of anyone presenting an argument without an open-mind.

(p.s. polyphasic sleep is not sleep deprivation.)

this was really interesting. I just remember learning about the sleep cycles in all my psychology classes, and the circadian rhythm. our bodies are naturally set on a 24-25hr sleeping cycle, and though each of our rhythms are different, they all basically run on the assumption that our bodies will sleep consistently for prolonged periods of time. and when we sleep, we only spend a small portion of it in REM; there are other vital phases of sleep that 20min naps will not get to. deep sleep, basically phase 4, is when the body does a lot of its healing, which is why it is suggested that you sleep a lot when you are sick. REM sleep is the lightest form of sleep, and is related to uploading of information from the hippocampus to the higher parts of your brain which hold long term memory stores.
So while I find these other options interesting, our bodies do benefit from the cycle it has naturally. the previous poster, who said that our sleep schedule is a personal decision... that's not entirely true. because, as many other posters have mentioned, the cycles they try out, if not rigidly adhered to, fall to the wayside in favor of the cycle the body is on inherently. so while yes, it may be beneficial for people to try to change their sleep habits to be more "efficient", or whatever reasons people have for trying to change this, it's not really accurate to imply that we can just change our sleep rhythms on a whim.
Also, sleep deprivation can lead to some of the issues Nick mentioned, (mRNA) but it can also lead to clinical insanity. However, these issues are linked to prolonged and total sleep deprivation. If the body can get at least 2.5 hrs of sleep, then it can operate on a basic level (even if it's exhausted), because the brain has run at least one full sleep cycle.
But to say that, glutamate decarboxylase is present in people with sleep deprivation as well as schizophrenia, is a dangerous insinuation. Schizophrenia is an especially complicated disorder that presents with many other neurological deficiencies and abnormalities. So while that chemical may be present in the brains of people w/ that disorder, sleep deprivation is probably not the cause, but rather it's more likely that there was already a lack of glut. decarb. in the brain already, like the deficiencies of serotonin, enlarged ventricles, and many other issues associated with botch schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
sorry this is such a long post...

in response to bnick's post: i heard about the studies that linked decreased melatonin production with sleeping during daylight hours. but i also heard the end of it: they think it was the fluorescent lighting that was affecting peoples' melatonin levels.

here is an interesting documentation of Polyphasic(Uberman) sleep by Steve Pavlina (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/).
I hope he doesnt mind me posting it.

I wish I had found this article 2 years ago...

Sorry, Garry, I'm a psychologist and Meghan_AD is correct. Serious sleep deprivation occurs without engaging in full sleep cycles.

I would be very careful to apply the 'textbook knowledge' of psychology classes to polyphasic sleep.

Alternative sleep cycles were simply not considered when writing those books.

I am willing to consider the long term effects of polyphasic sleep, but anyone that has spent any time investigating polyphasic sleep knows that whether or not it is sleep deprivation is simply not up for debate.

Yes, temporary sleep deprivation is required to transition, but after that you are not at all sleep deprived (you do not go insane, you feel alert and able to take on any normal task, you are able to exercise and build muscle, your wounds heal, etc).

I am very skeptical of those they hide behind degrees and textbooks without looking deeper into the issues at hand.

First, everybody's sleep needs and sleep patterns are different, as should not need saying.
Second, this is so clearly true that anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists have developed hypotheses that this variability serves an evolutionary function: in any tribe or communal grouping, at least one adult is awake, and probably more than one, at any chosen hour. the survival advantage for a tribe or group with this pattern should be obvious.
Third, There are so many instances of interrupted sleep in almost all experiments allowing un-tampered-with sleep patterns that some of these researchers have concluded that it is the long, continuous block of eight hours of sleep that is abnormal (or i should say, unusual, given the first sentence in my own post, above.) and that it may be an artificial creation of civilized, or of industrialized, living. what we consider normal economic behavior requires we be awake continually for many hours, and this in turn precipitates a need to sleep deep and long once the day quiets down.
Fourth, there are of course many examples of entire cultures that reject the eight-hour night of sleep. The best known are the mediterranean or Latin we would call them, 'siesta' cultures. visitors to Spain are often amazed to see whole families--yes, including little peeps--out on the plaza at midnight or one a.m. 'How can this be? how can they do this? How can they do this to their children??!!" Well, by taking at least one long, deep nap in the afternoon, that's how.
Fifth....oh, i'm losing count..anyway, there are many other such examples, including traditional patterns in the American south in many parts of which the after-dinner nap out on the porch floor is a cherished institution. (another survival advantage here--no heatstroke!)..and so on.
whatever number is next, we know that sleep needs vary greatly for the same person depending on age, mood or mental state (huge bouts of extended sleep are one signifier of depression, for example), recency of sex, or a hundred other factors.

the point being that those earlier posts that suggest some close-mindedness are dead right. there is very strong cultural bias and cross-cultural ignorance in so many of the "studies" that claim to establish what we 'need.' and a strong felt need by the researchers to find THE answer, where this might automatically mean that they will miss the multifarious truth.

we need entirely new, unbiased, open-minded studies, that's what we need. i hypothesize (since i am at least as ignorant as the others making claims, i have this right) that we will find that there are MANY sleep patterns that can be functional for some of us, even if not for others. or some patterns functional, even ideal, under some circumstances or for some time, and yet not others, and so on.

end of screed.

I was a methamphetamine user for 18 years. Until I got arrested last year. My sleep patterns varied widely for many years. For about a 3 year period I was awake for 4 days and nights, then I'd sleep and eat for 3 days. It always took me 12 - 16 hours to "wake up" on the 7th day, despite using a couple of grams to get rolling. I hated this routine because I always felt like I was missing out on things during the 3 days of sleep.

The last 8 or 9 years I got into the habit of sleeping 3 - 5 hours every night and this routine worked out great. I had plenty of hours during the day to do the things I wanted to do and never felt like I was missing out on anything. I could work 14 - 16 hours a day and not be exhausted. I had to work that many hours to pay for my 3.5 gram a day habit.

I have been drug free for 11 months and I feel like shit. I slept 12 - 14 hours a day during the first 3 months. Now I sleep 10 - 12 hours one night and maybe 6 hours the next night, then 8, then 12, then 5, etc. Sometimes I wake up and stay awake for a couple of hours before I can go back to sleep. No pattern at all. I'm tired all the time. I'm apathetic. I lose my train of thought. I'm lazy. I have no sex drive. (Prior to my arrest I was having sex 5 or 6 days a week for several hours at a time and I'm 50 years old!) Now I could care less about sex, or anything else for that matter.

After all the years of meth use my dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine are all messed up and may never be right again. I thought my body would have normalized as I got close to my year anniversary of being clean, but no such luck. I wish I could get into a regular sleep pattern and maybe the rest of my body will get regular too.

What will probably happen is, when I get off probation, I will start using meth again and I will start to lead a happier normal life again.

Thanks for letting me share.

I sleep therefore I REM

I will say, based on both experience with abnormal sleep and a wonderful book called "The Promise of Sleep" by William Dement (a foremost sleep researcher and one who has conducted many of the "open minded" studies some above wish for), that having a non-traditional sleep schedule can be pretty bad. What I did was start setting alarms starting 4 hours before I planned to wake up, and each hour after that. This at first was because I really, really hate hearing my alarm go off and knowing I have to get up right then. But strange things started happening... my body started being able to get into REM right away (so I would be in REM during each of those hours). My personal record was having a long, memorable dream where I was asleep for exactly 7 minutes. I had begun to suspect that I had a sleep disorder, since sleep-onset REM (when your body goes into REM right away) is a symptom specifically of narcolepsy, but also of sleep dep in general. It occured to me that I had been actually giving myself a sleep disorder; while I was still getting REM during those four hours each day, I wasn't getting the other stages, which release all kinds of hormones and whatnot. There is also some evidence that the brain does major compartmentalizing of information during sleep, which means lacking that sleep could easily affect brain function and memory.

Yeah, you might be aware and awake, but that doesn't mean you're not sleep deprived. If one has an active lifestlye, for instance, they are less likely to fall into afternoon slumps where sleep deprivation becomes more obvious. Additionally, as you should read in Dement's above (you really should, its a great read), most people cannot notice how much differently than their peak they function when sleep deprived. I mean, some 12 million people are affected by sleep apnea, and most of them have no idea because they don't realize they are sleep deprived. Just because it seems to be working doesn't mean its not doing damage, or at least keeping you from functioning optimally.

But, that's not to say people's sleep needs don't vary. They do. But everyone needs more than REM sleep. Just because your body prioritizes it doesn't mean it doesn't need other phases.

Is there a sleep schedule for architecture students?

yes. it's supposedly called "do not sleep until you've qualified". i gave up long before i made it there though. which explains why i never made it to my qualification. :)

Kim, you've got an interesting perspective and I think we agree on certain things, especially that sleep is a time when the brain is processing/ordering information and events that have recently occurred.

Where we may part ways is that I find this to the specific benefit to sleeping polyphasically. As one approaches transition into polyphasic sleep, it is often reported (and this is my experience as well) that a hard-to-describe 'mental-fog' clears in the mind. That voice always worrying about this or that, whispering in your mind about being unsure of what next actions to take on a project, etc... it seems to fade away. This is an extremely profound experience.

My hypothesis is that REM is specifically the phase in which recent data is organized (hence dreams often being interpretations of recent events). While a monophasic sleeper is processing a day's worth of data all at once, a polyphasic sleeper is only organizing 4 hours of data during each sleep cycle. I believe the effect of this is that the brain is able to organize information more consistently throughout time.

To me, this seems to explain the firmer grasp on my projects, thoughts and experiences when sleeping polyphasically.

Again, these are just my experiences and I agree we are all quite different. But, there is a difference between 'sleep needs' and 'sleep abilities'. If one is unsatisfied with their sleep habits, I believe it is quite likely for them to develop the ability to sleep polyphasically.

I don't think that 'sleep deprivation' (this really needs to be defined) is a danger because when one actively chooses to alter their sleeping habits, they become sensitive to the messages their body sends them as a result. I'm open to the idea that there may be long-term side-effects, but again, not as harmful as other long-term side-effects of many things most Westerners partake in.

Anyway, that book seems interesting; I'll have to take a look. :)

If our bodies are "naturally" set on a 24-25hr sleeping cycle wouldn't babies have the same schedule? Why do they take so many naps? And why do kids need naps during the day? Why do they say that kids need more sleep than adults? Just curious.

Babies and kids sleep more because they are growing faster. The vast majority of growth hormones are released during non-REM sleep. Childhood cases are particularly interesting. Here's a hypothetical: A two year old has sleep apnea, but their parents don't know it. The kid sleeps a lot (people with sleep apnea often seem to sleep more, but in fact are not getting good sleep, because they're bodies are getting pulled out of their sleep cycles every few minutes by a stop in their breathing), and is generally not thriving. They're not growing as they should, and seem slow and disconnected during the day. Cases like that often go undiagnosed, but it turns out that often a simple surgery cures the problem. I bring this out because these polyphasitic (sic) sleep patterns run the danger of doing what sleep apnea does: pulls you out of a sleep cycle your body needs. Now, given that adults don't need a lot of those growth hormones, such cycles would do less damage to an adult than a child (though I qualify that with the fact that there are lots of different hormones released during non-REM sleep at all stages of life, including at least one that scientists aren't totally sure what it does). BUT, if we have a sleep disorder that is defined as the body being woken up frequently during the night (some cases every few seconds, others with longer intervals) because of the documented health effects of that condition, it seems that voluntarily pulling yourself out of sleep cycles after only 20 minutes, and depriving your body of sleep beyond 20 minutes entirely would have many, if not all, those side effects.

That was a super long answer to a short question. Kids and babies need more growth hormones, and those hormones are released during sleep almost exclusively, and mostly during non-REM sleep.

This thread is making me sleepy

My son is 2 years old and rarely sleeps. No I am not a mom complaining that their child doesn't sleep through the night. My son sleeps at most 4 hours in a 24 hour period. In the last seven days we have had at most 15 hours of sleep. Being only two I have to stay up with him. This has been going on for about ten months, the doctors and sleep specialist don't know what to do. He is otherwise healthy -- has some sensory problems and delayed speech, but receives therapy for that. Any Ideas?

I would try to contact William C. Dement. He's one of the foremost sleep researchers in the country, and I bet he'd be fascinated by the problem. He's also creative and flexible enough to find a solution where perhaps other sleep scientists couldn't.

Sorry to bring up such an old post, but I have recently become interested in polyphastic sleeping. I have been debating applying the Uberman or Dymaxion sleep cycles for next semester of school. If the primary concern of polyphastic sleep is not getting the 1-4 stages of sleep, would a "day of rest" solve this problem? Where you spend an entire day (or most of one) sleeping, I think several famous people in history have suggested supplementing polyphastic sleep like this.