
Polyphasic Sleep: Facts and Myths - etal
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm
======
dgreensp
Thanks, there's some good technical knowledge here, and also some FUD.

I dug into the subject of polyphasic sleep and read a couple very personal
accounts of people who made it work for them for extended periods (several
months or more). I never tried it myself, but I don't believe they were any
less "creative" or functional during this time, or that they were doing long-
term damage. So until better evidence comes along, I believe that maintaining
schedules like Uberman is possible for the right person in the right place and
time, and not trivially a bad idea. For all I know there are good reasons for
most people not to bother with it -- like some gene you need to have to
succeed -- but we don't know yet.

As drx points out, the author strays into arguments like "abnormal means
unhealthy". Another bizarre argument is "it's not optimal because you're less
creative etc". Putting aside my own anecdotal evidence that sleep dep makes
you _more_ "creative", look -- if Uberman is actually sustainable and gives
you X more waking hours per day, I'll decide for myself if that's outweighed
by hypothetical cognitive deficits! Arguments like "lots of people have tried
and failed" are also sloppy.

~~~
philwelch
"I dug into the subject of polyphasic sleep and read a couple very personal
accounts of people who made it work for them for extended periods (several
months or more). I never tried it myself, but I don't believe they were any
less "creative" or functional during this time, or that they were doing long-
term damage."

Chronic sleep deprivation doesn't cause obvious, self-evident damage at the
time, and it's not always obvious to the person who's experiencing it. But it
can cause serious, serious problems over time. That is essentially the effect
of sleep apnea. The effects are subtle enough that an enthusiastic
confirmation-biased person would easily miss them over a period of "several
months or more", but they're real and they get worse over time.

~~~
PieSquared
As I said in another one of my comments, sleep deprivation, in my opinion,
isn't actually the key part of polyphasic sleep. You can sleep 6 or 7 hours
polyphasically, too, and this will increase your productivity and creativity
than sleeping the same amount monophasically.

~~~
philwelch
Sleeping _biphasically_ for 7 hours or so works because that's what humans are
wired for. Maybe taking two or three naps instead of one is better than taking
none at all, but without the sleep dep you might as well just go biphasic. The
main selling point of polyphasic _is_ the sleep dep.

~~~
keefe
Indeed... in a short period of time where you must do X, polyphasic makes a
hell of a lot of sense. As a long term strategy, I can't believe it's healthy.
I'd rather not meddle with the default operation of a complex system I don't
really understand, so usually I sleep until I feel like waking up - there are
very few leisure activities that I'd rather do than be consistently well
rested.

------
drx
I have no opinion either way, since the field seems to be dominated by
empirical "evidence" and cranks, but this guy's entire argument rests on this
sentence:

"One of the myths of "Uberman sleep schedule" is that it makes it possible to
enter REM sleep and skip non-REM sleep stages entirely. That myth is derived
from another false claim that implies a non-essential role of deep sleep. I
will ignore these claims as standing in total disagreement with laboratory
findings and models of sleep. Instead, let us focus on a more plausible claim
of the possibility of compressing sleep stages.".

I.e. "I will ignore one of my opponent's arguments and instead focus on
another. Since I can rebuff the other argument, my original viewpoint is
true". It's a logical fallacy.

He also tends to say "X is unnatural/abnormal" => "X is unhealthy".

I wish someone did serious research into the topic without prejudice.

~~~
pwnsnake
Let me tell you, as a narcoleptic, I get hours and hours of REM sleep and
virtually no deep sleep. It is not pleasant. I started using a drug that
facilitated more deep sleep. All of this was monitored and my brain waves were
recorded. This is anecdotal but the idea that deep sleep is not absolutely
essential is ridiculous to me.

------
urza
Here is a very good reply to the arcitle from Puredoxyk:

[http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2006/11/01/an-attack-
on-p...](http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2006/11/01/an-attack-on-
polyphasic-sleep/)

Puredoxyk is one of the two (back then) college girls, who lived on the
Uberman Sleep Schedule (and gave it its name) back in 2000. She is also author
of the original E2 node about Uberman SS. <http://everything2.com/node/892542>

There is great discussion on the Google Polyphasic Group about this [Dr.
Wozniak's] article:
[http://groups.google.com/group/polyphasic/browse_thread/thre...](http://groups.google.com/group/polyphasic/browse_thread/thread/fd1e3e91d65ba492/d0f308868351a810?hl=en&pli=1)

Here is my quick summary:

1\. There is not enough scientific data to backup either side (for/against
polyphasic);

2\. Dr. Wozniak has his own agenda - he advocates so called "free-running
sleep";

3\. Some of the "facts" [mentioned in Dr. Wonziak's article] are in
contradiction with experiences of people who tried polyphasic sleep, like
Puredoxyk ( <http://www.puredoxyk.com> ) or Steve Pavlina (
<http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/> )

~~~
philwelch
Pavlina's ex-wife and business partner is a telephone psychic. Pavlina has
extensive blog posts in which he takes her occupation seriously. He's a garden
variety crank, frankly.

------
rsheridan6
When looking into this, I've found a lot of people blogging about trying to do
this. Usually they talk about how great it and then quietly drop it.

~~~
petercooper
Sleep is _weird_ like that. I've read a lot of articles about people trying
modafinil and similar substances in order to sleep less and be more alert and,
again, most who blog about it (or even write articles for popular
publications) tail off or give up for extremely vague "It was great but it's
not going to work for me" type reasons.

------
lionhearted
Wow, I like this site. Some of the author's analysis seem slightly off to me,
but there's a heck of lot of anecdotes and data and quotes. A heck of a lot of
anecdotes, data, and quotes makes for good reading.

I particularly liked the part about the sleep habits about the various genius
creative people. Cntrl+F "da vinci" to start on that section of the article.

Personally, my best sleeping pattern so far has been a 1-4 hour nap and 4-7
hours of sleep at night. I want to see how low I can go while getting at least
a few hours of high level performance and able to function the rest of the
day. I don't actually need full speed productivity all of the day and I even
prefer cleaning and organizing while I'm a little tired, I get into sort of a
zen of it. Anyone else have thoughts on how low you can go while functioning?

~~~
etal
Yep, it's a bit of a rant, but an interesting one. Wozniak's an interesting
person; I hope you've checked out Supermemo and its open-source counterpart,
Mnemosyne.

I've been taking a 20-45 minute nap in the afternoon for close to a year now.
I think it was Dustin Curtis's article on polyphasic sleep that prompted me,
and I went with the "siesta" schedule because it seemed the most sustainable
-- a lot of people do live that way, and getting work done in the mid-
afternoon is hopeless for me anyway.

------
kiba
Ever since high school stop forever, I been sleeping whenever I want, without
the use of an alarm clock.

I find that I naturally wake up at 9 PM on a normal day. Sometime, I only
sleep 3 or 4 hours a night. However, that is compensated by another 3 or 4
hours of sleep.

But the best thing is that I am no longer sleep tortured by the school system.

~~~
pavel_lishin
What do you do for a living?

~~~
kiba
I am a "freelancer" with only one client and with an income that doesn't
actually make me a living. I still live with my parents. It's only a month
since the end of high school though.

I aspire to become an entrepreneur and an independent person and is trying to
work toward that goal.

I do, however, predict an early death if I am forced to work with a rigid
schedule, especially if I have to drive a car to work everyday.

~~~
pavel_lishin
A "rigid" schedule might be necessary to communicate with your clients.

------
DanBlake
Wasnt there a thing on here a few months ago about a "guy and a girl" who were
going to attempt polyphasic and blog as they do it? Would like to find that
and see how it went.

~~~
scott_s
They were very tired. Then they stopped.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1225122>

------
scott_s
The best part is the Comic Relief section. Read that, and you'll know what to
expect every time you read a blogger experimenting with polyphasic sleep.

------
joe_the_user
The phrase "Facts and Myths" needs to die a messy painful death. It's the
fodder of sex education brochures and corporate training camps.

Any topic away from the main stream should avoid the nasty tactic of labeling
different opinions "myths". Wait till your stupid idea is endorse by every
sheep-like general practitioner in North America - then you can get away with
taring your opponents that way.

"Facts and Myths concerning why 'supermemo.com' is a font of mis-
information..." See?

