I've recently read Steve's blog entries about his experiment with polyphasic sleep. I felt no temptation to try it myself, but I did find it interesting to read his account of the experience.
I'm middle aged and have two sons who are in their twenties. If one of my sons had wanted to experiment with polyphasic sleep while they still were living at home with my husband and me, I would not have objected -- in theory. But in practice it might have presented challenges.
Actually, in the last few years in which they lived with us, they did practise something akin to polyphasic sleep, and it was a challenge for my husband and me. They didn't call it polyphasic sleep, but they lived in a different time zone from my husband and me.
They were attending university. Some days of the week their classes were at night. That's just how their schedules happened to work out. They would come home after classes, sometimes with friends. They'd go into the kitchen at night -- at 11.00 p.m. or midnight or 1.00 a.m. -- and cook meals for themselves and sometimes for their friends as well.
The noise would keep my husband and me awake at a time when we were trying to get to sleep. It would be quite frustrating for us. We'd be lying there, wide awake, knowing that we ought to get to sleep because we had to get up for work the next morning.
Conversely, my sons might be fast asleep on a Saturday morning, at a time when I wanted to vacuum the house or something like that. I would make some effort not to make a noise early in the morning. But eventually it would reach the point where I needed to get on with it, and I would.
My husband, our sons, and I had conversations about this, and we experimented with different ways of accommodating each other. Each experiment helped to some extent, but no method that we tried was entirely satisfactory.
The only solution was their moving into their own apartments, which they eventually did. Now we all get together for a meal once a week or once every other week. We enjoy visiting with each other, but we're relieved not to be living under the same roof any more. I know my sons feel that way as much as my husband and I do.
So, if you and I were living in the same house, my concern about your polyphasic sleep experiment would be that your schedule would conflict with mine and make my life uncomfortable.
If I understand you correctly, AidanMatthews216, you haven't floated this idea out to your parents yet, so you don't actually know what their reaction will be. So far you've only guessed what their reaction is likely to be.
I assume you've switched to homeschooling with their consent. That seems to suggest that they're more open minded than many other parents are. Perhaps they'd be more amenable to your experimenting with polyphasic sleep than you anticipate.
But I think it would help if you considered what pratical effect it would have on their lives, apart from the concerns they may have about your health, etc. It would be useful if you anticipated, and addressed in advance, the challenges that your experiment might pose for them.
If you were my child and you asked me if you could do this experiment, I would say, "Sure, go for it." The reason I would do that would be my faith that the matter would sort itself out, one way or another. You might like polyphasic sleep, and find that it suited you. As long as it didn't interfere with my life too much, my attitude would be, "More power to you." If you found that you disliked polyphasic sleep after all, you in any case would give it up.  |