[David Hausladen]

Sleep Experiments Summary and Conclusion (November 6 to December 17)

Dymaxion Sleep Experiment: From November 6 to November 14, I tried out Buckminster Fuller's "Dymaxion" sleep schedule, which involves just four 30-minute naps per day--mine were set at 12am, 7am, 12pm, and 5pm. The hardest days on the schedule in terms of effort exerted were Days 2 and 3; around Day 4, as the schedule started to get slightly easier to maintain, I started experiencing cold-like symptoms (from my immune system being worn down by sleep deprivation) which persisted for several days. On Day 5 things seemed to get easier for part of the morning, but it was a prelude to my first major sleeping incident on Day 6, followed up by two more sleeping incidents on Days 8 and 9, respectively. After the third sleeping incident, I decided that Dymaxion sleep was unsustainable for me under the present conditions.

Dymaxion Sleep Verdict: In theory, the best sleep schedule I've ever heard of; in practice, nearly impossible to adapt to.

One trend which persisted through the experiment and continued through the free-running sleep "intermission" and biphasic sleep experiment: I have far, far better awareness during the afternoon and evening than during the morning. This is a good illustration of how powerful the circadian sleep response is. If there were a good way to circumvent or alter this sleep response, maybe alternative sleep schedules would be far easier to adapt to.

Intermission (Free-Running Sleep): From November 15 to November 17, I adopted a free-running sleep schedule in order to recover from my Dymaxion sleep experiment. This involved not using an alarm at all. These days were extremely relaxing, as I could lay down and take a nap whenever I wanted. However, I did sleep about 10-11 hours a day, most of it in a chunk from 1:30am to 11:30am. If I had stayed on the free-running schedule, I think I could expect my sleep time to eventually trim down to 9 hours a day, but probably not any further.

Free-Running Sleep Verdict: Extremely relaxing, but extremely time-consuming.

Biphasic Sleep Experiment: From November 18 to December 17, I tried a biphasic sleep schedule. Originally my intention was to use a 3-hour core sleep from 2am to 5am and 1.5-hour nap from 2:30pm to 4pm--just 4.5 hours of sleep a day. This didn't work too badly, and overall adaptation was not too difficult--but I had enough trouble with the 4.5-hour schedule that I decided on Day 10 to switch to 6 hours of sleep a day--a 3-hour core sleep from 2am to 5am and a 3-hour nap from 9am to 12am. I hoped that the shift to an earlier nap would help me to fight off drowsiness when it seemed the strongest--in the morning.

Considering how well I did on Days 10, 11, and 12, I think that sleep schedule would have worked perfectly if I had kept those sleep hours consistently. Unfortunately, my self-discipline started to slip around Day 13, and I suspect the inconsistency that this introduced into my sleep schedule created problems for me for the rest of the experiment. That is to say, getting inconsistent sleep made it harder to sleep on schedule, and lack of self-discipline then made it even harder to sleep on schedule, so I slept off-schedule, which introduced more inconsistency.

Nonetheless, my overall sleep requirement has still been dramatically reduced--to 6 hours a day usually, on- or off-schedule, and usually 7.5 hours on the occasions when I oversleep. And having just two blocks of sleep has made this schedule much easier to integrate with a social life than either of the others.

Biphasic Sleep Verdict: Well-balanced between sleep time, ease of adaptation, and fitting into society; self-discipline is essential, though.

One tool that was somewhat helpful when I didn't overdo it was the 25-minute catnap--this is perfect for overcoming momentary bouts of sleepiness caused by a blood sugar drop, tiredness from physical exertion, or whatever. My general guideline was one a day, though some days I ended up with 2 or 3. The effectiveness of these naps makes me think there really could be something to the Everyman sleep schedule.

I think that's actually what I'll try next. My sleep schedule will include a 3-hour core sleep from 2am to 5am and then 2-4 unscheduled 20-minute catnaps during the day. The 3-hour core sleep ensures that I get a lot of deep sleep and a bit of REM every night, while the 2-4 catnaps should be useful for overcoming light bouts of sleepiness at various times during the day. This schedule will average 4 hours of sleep a day--better than biphasic sleep by 2 hours, worse than Uberman sleep by 2 hours. Overall, though, it will be a great schedule if (and only if!) adaptation is not overly difficult. Considering it preserves the 90-minute sleep cycle in the core sleep, I would expect little, if any, adaptation, but I could be wrong.

I'll log the experiment here, but I realize that my updates for biphasic sleep were getting a bit monotonous, so I'm going to limit the updates to when things actually happen--probably an update a day at first, but then slow down the updates over time (which is what Steve did with his polyphasic sleep experiment--now I see why).