My polyphasic sleeping journey

Well, attempt #1 failed on day 2 :sad:
It was my fault, I didn’t make an adequate support system, I just bought one new game to keep me awake, lol it DID NOT work haha, I crashed for a solid 12 hours. I did learn how to prepare to be successful though, have LOTS of stuff to do, and try to find something natural and non-drug(like caffiene) to keep you up. Friends encouraging you wouldn’t hurt too, anyway, I’m gonna try again, attempt #2, in less than a week and will report in this post. I want to do this for at least 3 weeks to see if it is all that people say it is, if so I’ll be in for shizloads of lucid dreams :happy:

Anyway once I start I will format like before starting with Day 0

i wanted to go buy Why We Nap… then i saw the price :eh: luckily, our university has it in the library :happy:

i’ll take it out as soon as i’m done with what i’m reading now (semiotics hehe)

I got the book and I’m willing to do something that may upset copyright fans. (As a student I’m allowed to photocopy 10% of a book without breaking copyright laws. Assuming you’re all students (in the realm of lucid dreaming) i see no reason why you wouldn’t be allowed the same… so say 3 people want 3 different articles (if they’re about 24 pages, the book being around 240 pages)… i’m merely the “photocopy machine”…

So i’m willing to scan the following articles:

“Evolution, Chronobiolog, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep: Main Issues” by Claudio Stampi

“The Effects of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep Schedules” by Claudio Stampi

“What Is the Limit for Prolonged Sleep Reduction? An Objective Evaluation of the Leonardo da Vinci Ultrashort Sleep Strategy” by Stampi as well.

This is a lot to scan AND it might take some time, but i wouldn’t mind (given the price of the book and the unavailability).

Now, I’m posting this for ONE REASON. If any admins or moderators OPPOSE this happening on their message board I won’t do it, I don’t want to stirr up problems (the files would be hosted on my server so I’d be the one responsible). So if i get an ok, i’ll do it, if not… no problem. I’ll just host one article up on my school account (for personal use, so i can read it wherever i am). I’ll most likely do the second one, since most people seem to be curious with short and long-term consequences.

so there are no objections from any admin/mod concerning the above post? Last call :wink: I’ll be posting in the next 5 minutes…

article 1 - about 4 megs at 150 dpi, decent print (a bit blurry). download at your own discretion, this file is for… uhm… my own personal use.

so i’ll keep going:

Chapter 10: The Effects of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep Schedules by Claudio Stampi
hybrid.concordia.ca/~victord/Effects.zip - ~5 Mb

Thanks a lot for putting those scans up Meus! Muuch appreciated. Had a quick look and they seem really good, just about to print them off to read properly cos I hate reading too much off the screen. Please keep going!

And Prometheus, it’ll be really interesting to hear what your experience with it is. Please keep us updated. I’d love to try it out, but unfortunately haven’t got the opportunity right now.

no problem :wink:

i’ll get the third one up as soon as i have some spare time (i have a mid term on tuesday so i might not get much time till then, but i’ll have it up by the end of next week for sure)…

after that i guess i’ll post a list of all the chapters and scan what’s requested.

Hi all,

I started my attempt at polyphasic sleeping 10 Feb.So far so good. I overslept on the second night, wasn’t to bad as it was close to the start date, could only have slowed me down by a day.

It was quite funny my brain lied to me and told be at 4:30 (After I finished 30min sleep) that I hadn’t slept. So I went back to sleep without reseting my alarm. Realised what had happended in the morning.

I am using my Palm handheld as an alarm. I’ve set up schedules so it goes off at the end of each sleep. I use earphones so it doesn’t disturb anyone else in the house.

I just internet to keep myself occuppied late at night( That’s how I found this site) I’m going to have to try LD once I’ve switched over(Or give up which ever comes first).

So much for that, Gave up last night. Here are my reasons
I wasn’t all that tired on the last night(I didn’t real anything like a zombie) That probably ment it was going to take longer to adjust.

Have some work I have to finish, If I took more than another 2 days I’ld be in trouble.

Have an exam wednesday week don’t want to take chances.

Something in my brain really objects to me doing this, I think it could be my common sense.

I can’t have the lights on at night time because it disturbs others in the house.

And lastly I want to try lucid dreaming, I already remember a lot of my dreams, and have had a lucid dream this year. (I never realised how powerfull lucid dreams were, In lucid dreams I’ve had the first thing I do is try to find the boundries of my dreamscape, maybe that wakes me up.)
If anyone wants to try polyphasic sleep I suggest that they have at least 10 days with nothing planned. And you don’t dream while adjusting(I think) don’t have time to get into REM.

did you try going straight into polyphasic ? cause it seems that’s not recommended.

from what i read, you need a 6-8 days transition period (at least that’s the common period they used in the experiments i read) in which you start by sleeping 6 hours + a nap… then 4 hours + 2 naps during the day… and so on. and you reduce both the time of the polyphasic periods and the length of the “one shot” sleep until it becomes completely polyphasic.

i’ll be trying it in 2 months (i’m not risking my school stuff over an experiment) but i’m planning to go for 3 weeks or a month… the way i’d do it is the one in the third article (which i haven’t yet posted) where they had a 6 day (i think it’s 6) transition period as i explained above and then they went full polyphasic for the rest of the period, with a “break” 3/4 in where they allowed the subject to sleep a full night and two other breaks like that towards the end so that the subject readapted to monophasic.

it seems easier on the initial shock and less stressful for the body.

the only reason i want to do it is because i heard you go straight (almost) into rem 6 times a day, which would allow for all kinds of lucid dreaming experimentation over the period (given that you know when you’re in rem better than just estimating over one night’s sleep). i’m pretty excited about it.

I jumped straight in(30 minutes, 4 hour cycle). I’ve read days 3 - 10 are the worst. But at day 4 I didn’t feel to bad, just tired. I gave up mostly because if I kept going and didn’t adjust I’ld be wasting days I could be studing and working.

So yeah, I would agree, it’ld be better to go with a transition period or so many days. Those days wouldn’t be wasted as one wouldn’t be wasted.

here, this article shows an example of the transition they used (it’s the third one i mentioned):

hybrid.concordia.ca/~victord/DaVinci.zip

FARK This is hard lol, I’ve fallen off the horse a bunch of times now for all the same reason, and by far the most important thing to do as you are getting used to this… DO SOMETHING
the best is physical activity, doing stuff on the computer after day 2 or so doesn’t really help much, you should get up and do something physically challenging right after your naps or what the fark if you feel really damn tired take a cold shower.

But anyway most important is do something, right after nap do something physical to get that nasty super sleepy feeling down to controllable levels, and most important DON’T LISTEN TO THE THOUHTS OF QUITING AND SLEEPING THAT WILL, REPEAT WILL, POP INTO YOU HEAD. It’s like your mind rebels against your will and if you don’t keep busy with something will start pumping these negative “quit now!” thoughts into your head, just gotta shake it off.

I’ve never over-slept or anything, I just get flooded with negative thoughts that make me quit, but all those times I stopped keeping myself busy so I know how to prevent that.

So to repeat, KEEP BUSY. :smile:

Once your exhausted enough to fall asleep really fast is when it starts to REALLY suck, when the alarm clock wakes you up you literally feel like you’re a rotting corpse or something aweful, just gotta GETUP.

But yea, OMFGZ this takes so much will power!

Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s really strange. I bet it is ones subconcious. Whatever it is it will lie to you too and it cn argue logically too. So I agree fully with your advice don’t listen to it and do whatever you can to make it go away.

What day are you on at the moment? And what’s your new schedule?

failed attempts, big fat 2, however on my second try and did it way longer, I’m glad I got 2 months to do this. On my last try, at the end before I gave up, I started seeing shit when the clock woke me up, along with feeling like I was dead, it was very interesting how much my imagination started opening up, anyway, I promised a day to day report with this, so I guess I will, with try #3, day 1 first, the hardest thing by far is just keeping busy.

schedule has always stayed the same, 2, 6, 10, 2, 6, 10, add and repeat

ok I’m doing my log, after what a month of starting a post saying I will hehe, still on day one, making it so 6 naps = one day, since that’s what it is, just finished nap number 2 about an hour ago, will report on day one tonight, first day is really not much of a big deal, 2-3 is where it gets intense

along with my schedule, I’ve decided to do something else right after waking up along with the keep doing stuff, and that’s take a nice long soothing COLD SHOWER. That’ll wake you up hehe.

Also, I’ve found doing physical work is a thousand times better than doing mental work, so I guess I’ll be doing a lot of exercise all the time now haha. It’s a good thing too, cause whenever I get the negative bullshit thoughts doing something physical helps me get rid of it too.

Yeah, it is quite hard. I have a bunch of tips though, after getting to day 10 and feeling great .
My biggest suggestion is to eat healthy and detox for a few days before trying it. Your nutrition has a lot to do with it. I’ve just started a web log that will discuss each day of my experiment and keep commentary as things progress. You can find that here: placebo.serv.co.za

Here’s a list of tips that worked for me, for those interested:
1 Heavy dance music seems to wake me up quite nicely, even without getting out of bed. Use good headphones.
2 If you’re really struggling, do some light jogging or other mild exercise. Works a charm
3 Eat small meals, and aim for a fair amount of good residual energy food. Fruit, nuts, etc. Heavy meals will make you regret them later.
4 Don’t seriously overexert yourself in the adaptation phase. Back pain will take some time to heal during this time.
5 Don’t underexert yourself. Do something useful and physical from time to time. Not only does it keep you awake and get something done, but it also helps you sleep better in naps.
6 Use an MP3 such as my one and earphones or something similar. It seriously helps. For those interested in making their own, I got my hands on a noise generating program like soundmasker for sleeping soundly, and audicity to mix the wake up sounds.
7 If you have a significant other, do something useful for them every night. They’ll learn to love your new routine. In fact my wife changed her mind very quick when she realised that she can have more time with me simply by waking up earlier or going to bed later. She loves the choice apparently.
8 Definitely find something engrossing to do in this time. Otherwise you’ll struggle. Reading and TV watching isn’t a lot of help. Do something creative and constructive. Preferably away from the PC, unlike my choices Razz
9 In contradiction to the above, don’t expect to get a lot done in the first few days of this routine. You’ll be mentally tired and will struggle to motivate yourself, let alone do things properly
10 Have a shower after one of your late afternoon naps. This seems to revitalise and give your body the sense of starting a new shift.
11 I strongly do not recommend pushing your naps to anything more than 5 or 6 hours apart, at least in the adaptation. I did 7 hours, and it may have been the cause of some unpleasantness.
12 Caffiene seems to have a bad impact on my naps. I hope you aren’t an addict Wink
I’ve cut down my coffee to one good cup right after my morning nap. This gives me some time to work it out of my system.
I’m unsure of alcohol so far. I would suspect it might cause havoc as well, so be cautious.
15 Try to eat food that is easy for your body to break down, or if you can’t help it, small portions of the difficult-to-digest food. A box of salty popcorn is a bad bad idea. A handful of it probably isn’t a trainsmash, so if you want something that you know is a problem, do it in moderation. If you go to the cinema and have a tradition of salty popcorn to scoff, consider sharing most of it to someone else, and eat it slowly.
Or take the rest home. Trust me, you’ll regret eating the whole lot if you’re on this schedule.

Good tips, thank you, you are making me want to try again. How did you start? By jumping straight into 2 hours sleep a day or by increasing daytime naps and decreasing your main sleep at night?

Well, I feel that the short naps is the most important aspect of the adaptation. So I’m not keen on core sleep.
My first attempt only lasted 2 days, while my second attempt went for 10 days, and felt great.
During my second attempt, I would sleep a lot of naps at night, and the usual 3 naps in the day.
As long as the naps are about an hour apart, I allowed myself to have as many as I like.
Then I began to whittle those down later.

On my third run, the one I’m doing now, I’m struggling a bit because of a bad choice of KFC for supper :razz:
But I was intending to do a strict uberman routine.