Polyphasic Easter

It is 2.30 am and I just woke up. I went to bed at 2.05 am.

I am not crazy. Not yet, not anymore, at least not more than usual. I am just trying a new sleeping technique. It is called polyphasic sleep. I actually wanted to become polyamorouse, but I got confused during the googling process, and now it is too late.

What follows is a brief intro to polyphasic sleep for the general bear audience.

Being polyphasic means to sleep many times during the day. Each time for a very short period. Usually between 10 and 30 minutes. The aim of this is to give to the body plenty of REM sleep, while depriving it of the deeper forms of sleep. Interestingly studies have been made that proove that REM sleep is really necessary for the body. You cannot live without it, and a total deprivation of it can evan lead to death. Are the deeper forms of sleep that important? This is still debatable.

The first big difference between people who are polyphasic is between people who sleep a core sleep, a longer period usually at night, and people who just keep on going polyphasic round the clock. At one extreme you have people who just sleep normally, but usually add one or more naps during the day. Think of the spanish siesta, so widely used. I remember (link missing, can you provide it) reading studies that showed how people who took half an hour of sleep in the beginning of the afternnon were more productive for the rest of the afternoon. The study conclusions would endorse the possibility for employers in an office to take a small nap. So, this is one side, the person that essentially sleeps at night, only during the day takes a break, and as Churchill would say, “gets me two days in one”. On the other side you have the person who does not sleep any core sleep, but uses naps all arond the clock. The idea is popular among solo sailors who obviously cannot leave the deck unchacked for too long.

I don’t know when was the first time I was exposed to those ideas, probably some 20 years ago. My father told me how Leonardo Da Vinci would not sleep at night but would sleep 15 minutes every two hours. I asked him where did he took the information, but he did not know. Internet was not there, so probably from some books about sailing (one of his passions).

Most people right now are trying the Uberman schedule, which consists of 20 minutes naps every 4 hours. From what I could gather it is really important not to oversleep. As it can upset the whole schedule. But, according to Steve Pavlina, who suceeded quite effortlessly, you can fit more naps (i.e. a nap every 2 hours, instead of 4) if you feel really tired. And at the beginning you are bound to feel tired. The importance is that each nap does not last more than a REM cycle. Of course naps should not be so close together to feel like a long sleep with interruptions.

So, how do you ensure not to slip in the next phase? Keeping an alarm clock on 20-25 minutes is a simple way, although bound to make errors. REM phases don’t last always the same length, nor do we always fall asleep instantly (although when you become polyphasic you do get very fast in getting to sleep ). But there are other methods. Essentially during the REM phase muscles are not fully relaxed, and get relaxed later. This is, I assume, the reason why, for example, if we fall asleep on a train we tend to dream a bit, and then wake up as the head falls down. As long as were in the REM phase the head was supported, and we were sleeping. As soon as we hit the deeper sleep the muscles relax, the head is not supported, it falls, and we wake up. But we are often still drowsy, so we try to sleep again, just to cycle through this REM-DEEP-SUDDEN AWAKENING states.

Another method I was told (by the resident doctor) to make sure a person only sleeps his REM sleeps consists in keeping some keys in your hand, with the hand hanging from the bed. When you reach deep sleep the hand opens, the keys fall and the noise wakes you up.

On the same line of thought was a method which was hinted to me by Sandro. It seems that in some monasteries, in the deep east (respect to Europe, thus Asia), the monks would sleep standing. Hanging themselves from two wooden poles that would be placed under their armpit. Sandro did not told me why would people sleep in that way, but somehow it now starts to make sense.

So, what are the effect of polyphasic sleep that makes it so palatable.

• More time: you can sleep as little as 2 or 3 hours a day, this is a whole 4 hours a day extra. If you always thought your job was taking away time from your real passion whis technique will give you back some 20-30 hours a week. Think of all the things you placed in the back burner/maybe someday folder while knowing that you will never realistically have the time to follow them through. Now you might pick up one or two of those projects.
• Different perception of time: We are used to think in terms of days. Well, according to Steve, the biggest shift he experienced was moving from perceiving time as naturally divided into days to perceiving it as being a continuoum. But this only happens when a person gets fully polyphasic with no core sleep at all. This different perception is one of the main reason that is driving me
• Different use of the brain: Again Steve claims that inner chat turned off after some time in Poly sleep. For a meditator this is enough of a hint for wanting to try it. And this might be one of the reason that was driving the monks from the story above.
• More energy: I know this sounds strange, but it seems that after some days the body adapts and polyphaser feel a surge of energy.

Of course all this comes for a price. The first few days are notably very hard, after some people seem to adjust while others keep on struggling. Diet seem to be a major reason why some people have an easy time than others. Steve is vegan, and he observe how carnivorous animals tend to sleep in long chunks while erbivorouse tend to sleep in smaller bits. But is it really due to digestion or because it is simply too dangerous as an erbivorous to sleep many hours together?

In any case I found my diet long time ago. I follow a personalised version of the Primal Diet, from Aajonus Vonderplanitz. This means that I indeed do eat meat, but only raw. And I eat/drink dairies too, provided they are raw (unpastourized). All this raw food feels generally much easier to digest as it contains inside already the active enzymes ready to digest it. So I might not be a light as a vegetarian, but I am not also as heavy as the average Joe.

I also don’t eat chocolate, nor do I have any addiciton for coffee or tea.

All this should help. Actually the negation of it should hinder.

Now is 9.16 as I finish this entry. I still have plenty to write about PolySleep but I’ll leave it for my next entries. I am palnning to write something nearly day by day. Until the situation stabilises, one way or the other. As a taoist meditator I might have a different point of view about what exactly is happening in my body, and I hope to be able to contribute to this topic with it.

And as a first gift, especially for you who has been reading the whole entry. If you feel very sleepy, you can from time to time use deep breathing to help you. When we don’t breath deeply enough the lungs store too much carbon dioxide which has the effect of making us falling to sleep. To get rid of it breath out violently in 5 or 10 fast out burst. So fast that they might sound like a single one. This at times might wake you up. It is generally used not to fall asleep during meditation.

To conclude, you might still think that polyphasic sleep is some sort of unnatural weirdness, it might be weird, as in not normal, but it definitly is natural: babies sleep polyphasic. Monophasic sleep is an acquired habit.

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