Polyphasic Sleep on LJ

So does anybody still read this community?

It's funny to see myself only 3 posts down from this one and realize that I tried this exact same thing almost exactly two years ago. On that attempt I failed the very first day.

So far, I've made it to day 4 this time.

I think I'm actually doing it this time. I haven't overslept once and even though I'm feeling a bit tired (especially at night) I'm able to overcome it and stay awake. I've found that having an orange is extremely helpful as it seems to awaken the senses a bit so I have one right when I wake up from my midnight nap, from my 8 am nap and from my 4 pm nap.

Anybody else out there doing this successfully?

Hi everone! I'm relatively new to livejournal, and polyphasic sleeping as well. I have read quite a bit about it online, and I am experimenting with it as well: I began my second attempt to adapt to the Uberman schedule yesterday after getting 3 hours of sleep the night before.  I napped twice yesterday, and this morning at 1 AM I laid down for another nap, and I woke up feeling great at 7:30.  Any advice on beginning? How can I avoid oversleeping?    I would appreciate any and all replies. Thanks!
-Ben

Greetings! I just jumped on the Überman bandwagon. I did this because I HATE sleep. During the previous scholastic year, I had severe major depressive disorder which caused me to pretty much do nothing but sleep. Before that year, I loved my sleep, and valued it immensely. But now, understandably, I don't think I can ever love it again. I view it as lazy, blobbish, dependent, disgusting, and serotonin-imbalanced. I have been sleeping significantly less this scolastic year, abusing caffeine and frying my brain. I never, ever, ever slept on purpose. When I did sleep, it was entirely by accident - I'd spontaneously collapse from exhaustion. Überman, I'm hoping, will be a healthier way to not have to deal with the awful heavy sluggish feeling of sleep.

And now for the question: how do I eat on Überman? Normally, I try to avoid eating as much as I can, going days without eating at all, for a variety of reasons, one of which being that food knocks me out - I have an 80% chance of "accidentally falling asleep" in the 6 hours after I've eaten, versus a 7%ish chance in any given 6-hour span. Psychologically, I "know" that I "should" eat once per continuous waking period, which was compatible with my going days without eating or sleeping before, but which on Überman will be downright unhealthy and may make me overweight. Any tips?

Day one down, mostly. Had a little problem where my mp3 player died and I ended up oversleeping by an hour, but I'm okay with that for right now. There's always tomorrow.

3 more hours before my next nap, and while I'm tired, I'm not at the stage where I feel like I need these three hours to blur by. I'm a transcriptionist by trade, and have lots of work to do, so I'm hoping to finish it up in the next three hours, giving me the rest of the night (after my nap) to clean the house and play some Nintendo Wii.

Maybe someone here can help me, though.

Over at my polyphasic sleep journal, I've decided that in the morning I'm going to ask myself a series of questions to get a feel of how I am, what I'm feeling, and generally what's going on. So far they're very vague, along the lines of "how am I," or "what am I feeling," and even "what's going on?"

Very exciting.

Can anyone think of some interesting questions that will really help me evoke what it feels like to be on a schedule like this? I want to help my readers understand, but don't feel that I'm a powerful enough writer to really bring it out for them.

Any thoughts?

(I am going to be taking a reader's suggestion, and every morning I'm going to test myself with Wii Sports to find out my "Wii Age," or whatever it's called. It gives a few stats that I can use to track my progress during this whole thing, and should be interesting. I'd like questions that are like that - benchmarking, and interesting.)

Hi! I'm jfargo, but you can call me Miah.

I started a blogger account to record my polyphasic sleep experiment, that can be found here, and a friend of mine started an LJ Feed for me, which is polyphasic_miah if anyone's interested in watching.

I plan on doing a day-to-day journal, with a post or two each day about how it's going, what I'm doing to combat the tiredness in the beginning, and generally everything that comes of this. Hopefully it'll turn out well. I guess we'll see!

Everything starts tonight/tomorrow. I'm looking forward to and dreading it all at the same time.

Anyone who leads a polyphasic sleep lifestyle that has suggestions for people just starting out?

This is a link to some audio MP3s that help manage your nap schedules. Mediafire links are not working at this time:

To download, right click and select ‘Save As..’ or ‘Save Link As..’
Polynap v5, 5 minute version (12mb) - [mediafire] [mirror1] [mirror2] [mirror 3]
Polynap v5, 8 minute version (15mb) - [mediafire] [mirror1] [mirror2] [mirror3]
Polynap v5, 12 minute version (18mb) - [mediafire] [mirror1] [mirror2] [mirror3]
Polynap v5, 18 minute version (21mb) - [mediafire] [mirror1] [mirror3]
Polynap v5, 20 minute version (26mb) - [mediafire] [mirror1] [mirror2] [mirror3]
Polynap v5, 23 minute version (29mb) - [mediafire] [mirror1] [mirror2] [mirror3]
Polynap v5, 26 minute version (32mb) - [mediafire] [mirror1] [mirror3]
(Note that the time mentioned here indicates how long the noise is. All files are identical other than the length of the noise)

These links are taken directly from http://www.placebo.serv.co.za/?page_id=7
All credit goes to them!

Hello and welcome to the community!

About this community

When I started my Uberman Sleep Schedule, about a week ago, I was surprised to see there were no Livejournal communities dealing with the subject of alternate sleep schedules. And so, here I am creating one!

For those of you unfamiliar with Polyphasic Sleep, the basic idea is to greaten the amount of waking time in a person's day. Ideally, the practice may lead to other benefits, including weight loss, increased productivity and focus, and general good feeling.

When I was first considering my sleep schedule, I took the time out to read Steve Pavlina's Blog on his experience with polyphasic sleep. I highly recommend it to anyone who might be considering this change. Remember, though, that while his experience was a positive one, many factors may play in how well a person adapts to a new sleeping schdule.

In other words, what we really need is a LJ community where many different people can post accounts of there experiences with Uberman and other polyphasic sleep. And viola! Here one is!

Whether you have tried, are trying, or thinking of starting a polyphasic sleep schedule, this community is for you! Feel free to post with questions, opinions, pointers, or anything related to new sleep schedules. When in need of support, this is the place to come!

What is Polyphasic Sleep?

Polyphasic Sleep is the practice of sleeping multiple times in a 24 hour period. Instead of sleeping one time each night, polyphasic sleepers take many naps throughout the day.

The most popular of these schedules is the Uberman Sleep Schedule. On the Uberman Schedule, a person takes a 20 minute nap every four hours. They do not take an "core sleep," or longer sleep at nighttime. In other words, on an Uberman Schedule, a person sleeps a total of six 20 minute naps--a mere 2 hours in a 24 hour cycle!

To give everyone an idea of what this schedule looks like, here is mine:

My current sleep schedule is:
2:00 AM-2:20 AM
6:00 AM-6:20 AM
10:00 AM-10:20 AM
2:00 PM-2:20 PM
6:00 PM-6:20 PM
10:00 PM-10:20 PM

Thanks for stopping by the community! May you sleep happily! ^_^

EDIT:

The Down Side:

dopamine_shadow    has brought to my attention that I haven't sited any information on the risks and skepticisms of polyphasic sleep. They suggested this site.

On the subject, let me say this. Due to the lack of study on the subject of polyphasic sleep schedules (Uberman, in particular), there are admittedly risks involved in taking up this schedule!

Of the people who have actually tried the Uberman sleep schedule, many (almost all, from what I've seen) have found the experience overall beneficial--though none have continued on it indefinitely.

I think having this livejournal community, where people who are willing and interested in attempting this sleep schedule may write about their experiences, is one of the best ways of accumulating information on the subject. Hopefully, if membership increases and people begin posting what they know and have experienced with polyphasic sleep, we will eventually be able to make more informed opinions on the subject.

This community is completely open to skeptics, by the way. And, though the name is "uberman_sleep," the community focuses on all polyphasic sleep. If you have something to say, please don't hesitate to make a post!