Quote:
Originally Posted by yagazuzy  REM sleep is no more or less important than NREM sleep, and the body does not get a higher proportion of REM sleep when sleeping polyphasically as opposed to monophasically. |
I'd be interested to know your source on that. My understanding is that when study groups were allowed very little sleep, but were allowed to complete their REM cycles, they functioned almost as well as if they'd gotten a full night's sleep. When other groups were allowed 8 hours of sleep, but awakened before REM set in (so that it was all NREM sleep) they functioned almost as poorly as if they'd gotten no sleep at all. So it seems to me that REM sleep is very much more important.
Now, it still may be that polyphasic sleepers get the same proportion of REM to NREM sleep -- I've seen no studies on that. But I'm curious to know where your information comes from.