Polynapping @ grelly.com

What is ‘polynapping’ or ‘polyphasic sleep’ ?

Posted on Friday 16 December 2005

I noticed that I never wrote a post of introduction to what I’m actually doing wrt polyphasic sleep. How daft was that?
So here follows a short explanation:

Polyphasic sleep is a method of sleep that many primates and herbivores enjoy, and entails sleeping in small amounts (eg. 6×20 minutes) throughout a 24 hour cycle. This is in contrast to monophasic sleep, which is what most people do each day. They crash for 8 hours and wake up groggy to force themselves through 16 hours (excuse me for being cynical, I love polyphasic sleep
Do the math, and you’ll see that I sleep only about 2.5 hours a day in comparison.

You can liken this to a cellphone battery - its the difference between trickle charging it all day, or leaving it to charge in the night only. The difference in the case of sleep is that polyphasic sleep is far more efficient in regards to time and mental clarity (however monophasic sleep still retains the title of ‘best physical rejuvenator’ in my opinion)

Now, if you’re a sane person, you’re going to immediately say ‘That’s insane’, ‘It can’t work’ and ‘I like my sleep too much’.
How can it possibly work? And why would you want to suffer like that?

How does it actually work?
I’m not sure *smug look*
The fact is that very little research as been done on it. All I am sure of is that it DOES work. It goes against what most scientists believe, and most professionals will advise you to never try this as ‘it can’t possibly work’.
Some animals do it. Babies do it. And quite a few people are doing it as we speak.
One shining example is Steve Pavlina, but he is by no means the only one.
Famous people such as Buckminster Fuller definitely did it. Da Vinci may have done it, as well as Thomas Edison, Thomas Jefferson and Nikola Tesla (I love this guy)

One prevailing theory lies in the REM stage of sleep. This stage of sleep is responsible for most of your dream time. And evidently is the most important mental rejuvenation section of your sleep. This was counter intuitive to me, as I’d have thought delta (deep) sleep took this role. And I consider myself well-versed with sleep and dreams, being a moderator on a huge lucid dreaming forum
The theory states that we adapt to polyphasic sleep by ONLY having REM sleep (dreams), and compensating for physical recovery during the day.
Now, I don’t believe this to be accurate, but perhaps there is a grain of truth in having a greater proportion of REM in a polyphasic nap.

UPDATE: It’s apparently been shown that the proportion of sleep phases roughly approximates that of monophasic sleep, when averaged out. So it seems that polyphasic sleep simply compresses the phases somehow.

Why would you want to suffer like that ? - I like my sleep!
This is a misconception you need to understand clearly. Once you have adapted to a polyphasic life, you are not missing out on rest. You feel perfectly alert, if not more alert than you used to be. You are not tired, fatigued, moody, etc. In fact you feel great.
The only down side that I have noticed is a lessened response to healing and building your body, but not critically so.

You like your sleep eh? Do you enjoy being unconscious for 6 hours? Do you remember that time? I thought not.
What you’re enjoying is (1) cuddling into bed before sleep and (2) feeling that you got enough sleep.
You need to understand first that you feel just FINE on polyphasic sleep. People look at me when I explain all this to them and they say ‘but you don’t look tired’. That’s the point. Get the point. Please.
As for that comfortable feeling of sleep, I just happen to do it 6 times a day. It’s great. I get a timeout 6 times as opposed to one

If you’re interested in lucid dreaming and/or dreams in general, then I have good news for you too. Once adapted to polyphasic sleep, the lessened delta sleep greatly increases your ability to lucid dream. And most of the nap time consists of dreaming, it seems.
Quality over quantity, I reckon

So what does it feel like?
Well I’m still in the process of adapting, so my feelings may change over the long term. But essentially I feel great - when I’m careful and stick to it.

1) The biggest change it has on my life is my nutrition. I cannot eat McD’s or KFC or spare ribs or a huge box of heavily salted popcorn.
I say ‘cannot’ instead of ‘will not’, because some junk foods give me nausea while others result in huge problems in keeping my sleep patterns the way I need them. Usually because of oversleeping by a number of hours, undoing some of the hard work of teaching your body this new way of life.
2) I’m more patience. I used to be a very impatient person. But when you have a whole new life to live at night, a minute or two here or there is inconsequential.
3) Clarity. I feel more aware and clear than 95% of the time I experienced living monophasically. It has forced me to reevaluate my life, and begun to turn me into a better person.
4) Free. I have a whole new life during the night, to do all the things I’ve been yearning to do. You can break free of your secular employment in this time, or do all those things you said ‘I don’t have the time’ to. Live your life to the maximum. If you find yourself bored, then you need to live bigger. Personally, I’m NEVER bored as long as I have an unrestricted life.
5) It’s forced me into a healthier lifestyle. I eat healthier, I exercise often, I’m losing weight and gaining muscle at a rapid, but healthy pace.

Now, I’m going to be objective and post my negative experiences:

a) The first 5 days or so is a nightmare. Want to test you self-discipline? You’ve come to the right place
b) Having to sleep every 4 hours can be a bit embarrassing at times. But usually this isn’t a huge issue as people are understanding and find it fascinating. You might just be ..
c) Viewed as eccentric. I wasn’t sure to put this on the pros or cons, to be honest. I’ve never wanted to be normal anyway.
d) Diet - it’s difficult to figure out what you can and cannot eat. Perhaps I can try to map out this terrain for others to follow.

(updated) How do you manage to go to sleep so fast, and wake up after 20 or 23 minutes without distractions?
I came up with an mp3 that revolutionised my polyphasic sleep, and which many other polyphasic sleepers are using with great success.
In short, it plays some ‘noise’ which cuts out any auditory distractions. The noise ends after the precise amount of time, and wakes me up with gradually more extreme sounds (it starts with a gentle chicken clucking and much later has the sound of nails on a chalkboard)

You can find them for download here (click)

What about your wife. How’s she taking it?
She actually prefers me living this way. See, she’s currently unemployed, and has no qualms with spending some of this new found time with me.
She also loves the fact that she can give me chores and activities to do in this time, and wake up to it. I can make her breakfast, clean up, fix the driveway (I did this on my 4th or 5th day of the second attempt I think). Any number of things.
I’ve been promised that she will post an essay on the experience, once we have played with the routine for a while longer.

So should I do it?
No. If you’re going to ask me for permission, then you won’t get through it. You need to be self disciplined, and able to take responsibility for your own actions.
There is so little research that we have no idea of any unheardof negative effects over the long term, in particular for growth.
For this reason I suggest that youngsters think carefully about the risks before taking on this challenge.

If you’re a disciplined, open minded, a bit reckless and possibly insane person, then it may just be for you. But I warn you, the transition is hard. Do your research and decide what you want before starting. Or you will fail.

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2 Comments for 'What is ‘polynapping’ or ‘polyphasic sleep’ ?'

Michael

December 16, 2005 | 8:52 am

Awesome article!
devdna

December 16, 2005 | 8:15 pm

Polyphasic Sleep

What is Polyphasic sleep?
“Polyphasic sleep is a sleep pattern specification intended to reduce sleep time to 2�5 hours daily. This is achieved by spreading out sleep into short naps of around 20�45 minutes throughout the day. This is supp…

Posted on Friday 16 December 2005

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