Post your polyphasic sleep logs here

[Ati]

Thanks David, your advice to set as well as myself was really helpful to me.

I'm going to look into a bit by bit shift from my 3:45am start with its 30 minute nap (I'm looking your 90 minute idea in regards to my schedule). Maybe a 4.5 hour core with a 1.5 hour evening nap will do it. That's actually 6 hours.... I will look into things, try a few things out and post back.

The goal here is:
4 hours music time per day, plus
4 hours per day of stuff I have to do at home
(all businsess/productive/necessary for the next 6 months or so),
8 hours average working time (probably that's 6 to 10)
2-3 hours for other stuff--eating, time with family, correspondence,
this (!)
(This doesn't include days off when I have more time with family, more time for music and more time for other stuff...although from all I've heard and read I should stay on the same sleep cycle on days off--that makes perfect sense to me!)

So adding that up, that's 18 to 19 hours per day, leaving 5 to 6 hours for sleep if I look at it that way. I know that doing this in a monophasic way doesn't work--I get too tired, have tried that many times on purpose or otherwise. So, my physiological question to myself is: what biphasic, triphasic or other polyphasic method will work for me?

Open to further suggestions, advice, experience from you David and other folks on this board working with this most interesting idea!

[David Hausladen]

Ati: The biphasic schedule (4.5 hours +1.5 hours) looks like it would work well. Another possibility which I've thought about myself but never given a serious trial is triphasic sleep with 90-minute naps every eight hours. Since each nap should get a full sleep cycle, the adaptation should be much easier than other polyphasic schedules. At the same time, I haven't seen any reports online from anyone who's actually done it.

Whatever you decide to do, be sure to give it a good 30-day trial. I've heard that it takes the body about 21 days to completely adapt to new habits and conditions (in general, not just with sleep schedules), so you won't know what it'll really feel like until the last 9 days of that trial. Also, write out and use a firm intention that will train your subconscious to help you succeed (and have even further positive effects, if you believe in the Law of Attraction). For example, "in a healthy and positive way, I am now successfully adapting to a biphasic sleep schedule."

[Ati]

Originally Posted by David Hausladen

set: Don't worry about it. If you're still looking for a way to reduce your sleep hours without disrupting normal life, you might consider biphasic with a 3- or 4.5-hour* core sleep at night and then a 1.5-hour* nap during the afternoon or evening. This is probably the most "natural" sleep method you can achieve while using an alarm clock (the body's circadian rhythms are tailored toward this sleep schedule, with a major, prolonged drop in body temperature at night and a lesser, short drop in body temperature in the early afternoon). There will still be an adaptation period that you need to force your way through, but it shouldn't be nearly as tough as polyphasic, since it's not too far removed from monophasic sleep.

* I use multiples of 90 minutes for the nap and sleep times here because that's the average length of the sleep cycle (during long sleep periods; not applicable to polyphasic). This way you wake up at the beginning/end of a cycle, when it's easy to do so. If you wake up in the middle of the cycle, it will be harder to wake up and you'll have much less energy for your day. This is why people can get seven hours of sleep and still be tired!

Originally Posted by David Hausladen

The biphasic schedule (4.5 hours +1.5 hours) looks like it would work well. Another possibility which I've thought about myself but never given a serious trial is triphasic sleep with 90-minute naps every eight hours. Since each nap should get a full sleep cycle, the adaptation should be much easier than other polyphasic schedules. At the same time, I haven't seen any reports online from anyone who's actually done it.

Yes, totally agree with the intention component and the 21 to 30 day trial. Both very much first nature to me. The coffee...we'll see...

I think it best to leave the 3:45am routine as it is because it has, through both intention and several 30 day cycles by now become very much a part of me. It also seems fruitful to try to design as regular a schedule as possible.

So, for a 4.5 hour core, I'd be going to sleep at 11:15.

Then I should probably get either two 45 minute slots in or one 90 minute slot in. The 30 minute "power nap" has worked real well, but I'd change that for experimental purposes.

(David, would you tell me where you got the information on 90 minute sleep cycles? Are they bette than 45 minutes for most people? The medical literature is real irregular about this sort of thing, since there isn't a related interest in actual clinical medicine and the basic science information is pretty spread out, based on EEG studies primary, delta wave and REM sleep etc. I'd appreciate that, thanks.)

Going with the 90 minute sleep blocks, I guess I'll just go to sleep now It's 4:34pm. (Hey why not try something new?). Then get up at 6pm with 5 1/4 hours til bedtime, and still get up at 3:45am tomorrow. Seems a good idea to start ahead rather than behind on the shorter nights.

OK, I'll take the challenge here! Imagine that, I just had a look at this thread this morning.

Plan will be 4-5pm: 90 minutes
11:15-3:45am: 270 minutes (4:30 hrs)

We'll see how going for essentially 12-13+ hours on 4:30 hours goes. Not the same as sleeping every 8 hours. Maybe on some days, I can crash earlier for the 90 minutes, or I'll find that two 45 minute naps will work better for me physiologically.

Thanks for all the information and support!

Ati

[David Hausladen]

Ati: I hope the biphasic schedule works well for you! (I can't see any reason why it wouldn't.) Be sure to post your results.

In answer to your question, I've heard about the 90-minute cycle in sleep from a few different places, but I got the idea of using it to design a sleep schedule here.

Granted, the author is really exaggerating when he says "Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Buckminster Fuller used this *exact* technique"--Da Vinci and Fuller slept polyphasically, but with naps of 20 minutes and 30 minutes, respectively (I don't know about Jefferson). The reason they were able to still get all the stages of sleep is because of the nature of polyphasic sleep adaptation: after two or three weeks, a polyphasic sleeper's naps cease to follow the normal sleep cycle and instead visit whatever sleep stages are necessary in order to get the right proportion of each stage of sleep (75-80% Stages 1-4 NREM, the rest Stage 5 REM).

But in a person not currently adapted to polyphasic sleep, a nap interrupted between 40 and 70 minutes is at high risk for waking the person in the middle of Stage 3 or 4 (deep sleep), which is where waking up is most difficult and disruptive. For that reason, and because a 90-minute period of sleep has room for all the stages of sleep, I would agree with the author of the article that it's best to stage your sleep around multiples of 90 minutes. If, on a given day, you decide to take two naps instead of one, it would actually be better to do two 30-minute naps than two 45-minute naps.

I admit that most of my information comes from reading on the Internet: some from sleep experts, some from Wikipedia, but also a lot from bloggers and ordinary people. I tend to assign the most credibility to the information that's most consistent with what I know, but I'm often surprised when new information gives me a better explanation for phenomena.

[Ati]

Hmm.. accidentally lost my reply here..

Slept 630 to 800Pm instead of earlier (5 to 630PM) because my husband came home with needing to go back to work and wanting to eat earlier than our usual 7 or so. Fair enough!

Woke up very easily at 800PM and with only the most subtle of car into driveway sounds so probably with sleep lightening up at that point.

Plan to go to sleep at 1115PM with up at usual 345AM and see how it goes with work and other things tomorrow

I checked into Glen Rhodes site, went through his forum on sleep, asked a couple questions--primarily does it matter when one has that second nap if going biphasically. I think that's likely the most difficult thing logistically. I'll see how it goes though and try to find the best time for that second sleep block, the 90 minute cycle, both logistically and in terms of rest and sleep.

I can see I'll have to plan just what to do there in that late awake block of time (tonight b/w 8 and 1115) I've always thought of myself as an early bird. Right now, tackling an intense project doesn't look like it will happen, so I'll probably wind up on the computer doing various things. But since I'm just getting used to something like this, that's understandable!

Thanks for the encouragement, this is indeed interesting!

Best,

Ati

[Ati]

I was thinking just yesterday abt purchasing one of those lights used for seasonal affective disorder, for use in the mornings. It seems it might be a great thing for that late night spurt of activity as well. we'll see...that's not something I've heard talked about, although a fellow named Kasper has some stuff out on sleep and talks a lot abt light first thing upon awakening.

We'll see if it disturbs the going back to sleep at 11.

[David Hausladen]

Polyphasic Sleep, Day 8

What a strange day... This morning, my log says I ran into "significant sleepiness" around 2am, lasting until 2:15am or later. There's nothing abnormal about that, and it's never given me trouble before. However, sometime soon after that log entry, I fell asleep in my bed and slept until 6:15am. This wasn't oversleeping, but rather an unplanned, unintentional nap. I don't remember lying down--in fact, I have no memory of anything after a certain point in time when I was working on my computer. I keep asking myself when, how, and why I got in bed, but I've got practically no clues. The only evidence I've got is that one of my alarms which should have been set to 7:30am was instead set to 6:30am, indicating that I wasn't thinking clearly when I set it.

I'm going to bank on the probability that I was at least partly conscious when I decided to go to bed, and that my lack of memory of it is simply an indication of my tiredness at the time. In this case, the solution is simply to be more vigilant in the future. I can't think of any other tactics that would help. Overall, though, I remain optimistic. I doubt I'm more than a week away from complete adaptation, at which point sleeping accidents (oversleeping and unintentional naps) will become a much more minor problem. As is, two sleeping accidents in the first eight days of polyphasic sleep is pretty good.

Nothing else special or new happened today; after the morning's long sleep, it was pretty much a standard Difficulty 3 day, with the periods of slight and moderate tiredness spread over all but the last cycle (as usual, during the last cycle of the day I'm pretty much never tired).

[Ati]

Good morning!

I'm in on this now, will give it a try with the log idea, great idea Dave--I log stuff for myself all the time when I'm trying out new things, changing a habit, learning something new. Nice to be logging something with the sharing of experiences included!

Not sure if I will log first thing in the am or later in the day. Right now, first in the am works with how I've been doing things, so here I am (a little bit off prior schedule but here I am). So this is not a report yet on one day
since I can't tell my self I've experienced one day's worth YET.

90 minute nap 630P to 800P last night
Up doing not too much focused stuff (yet), caught up with computer stuff
Longer sleep block 1130 to 400am (To bed 1130 for some reason so set the alarm at 400, not 345 to get full 4.5 hrs)

(Woke up in the middle of a long-feeling dream in which I was learning how to do something having to do with graphs and tables from this board , had just learned what looked to be a great speed up in that process but the alarm went off---hmmmmm... got up anyway )

So, today will see how going for 12++ hours without a nap after sleeping 4.5 hours will be.

I'm going to buy into the 90 minute sleep time slot idea. I'm wondering how much it will matter if the second 90 minutes comes at different times, with the night block being stable. We'll see! (any knowledge, references, opinions, experiences on this question most welcome!)

all best,

Ati

[David Hausladen]

Polyphasic Sleep Update: Experiment Concluded

This morning, I went to bed for my 7am nap and woke up at about 10am. Both my alarms had been turned off, so I know that I woke up, turned them off, and went back to sleep without becoming at all conscious.

This is my third sleeping incident in four days; while before I could be optimistic and say that my one or two sleeping incidents were flukes and could be dealt with, I think at this point I've got to admit that with this frequency of sleep incidents I'm not making any progress, and with the current schedule and technique, polyphasic sleep in the Dymaxion variant (a 30-minute nap every six hours) is unworkable for me.

This isn't a huge surprise when I consider the relevant facts. The Uberman schedule works against the body's circadian rhythm, but has at its assistance the body's 4-hour ultradian rhythms. Monophasic and biphasic sleep take advantage of the circadian rhythm, though they often ignore the ultradian component. The Dymaxion schedule has no such synergy with either the circadian or ultradian rhythms.

I'm not sure what to say to Buckminster Fuller's alleged success with the schedule for two years, except that different people often get different results out of the same technique.

Before I go on to any other sleep schedule, I intend to take three days of free-running sleep to "reboot" my body. Among other things, my immune system has taken a beating from its lack of deep sleep in the past week, so I want to get it back to full strength again before I try anything.

Afterward, I don't want to go back to monophasic, knowing from my experiments with free-running sleep (before I started posting here) how much time it can waste. The Uberman schedule is too tightly spaced for my current obligations and social life, and furthermore I don't feel up to another strenuous adaptation at this point. My thought right now is to go to a biphasic schedule, with a 3-hour core sleep and a 1.5-hour nap. This is the schedule that aligns most closely with the body's natural circadian rhythm, so there's little doubt as to whether it can succeed.

There's not as much to learn about biphasic sleep, so I don't think there's a need to post sleep logs here on a regular basis. I'll still post occasional reports on my progress and results, just not on a set schedule.

[Ati]

Originally Posted by David Hausladen

Polyphasic Sleep Update: Experiment Concluded

This is my third sleeping incident in four days; while before I could be optimistic and say that my one or two sleeping incidents were flukes and could be dealt with, I think at this point I've got to admit that with this frequency of sleep incidents I'm not making any progress, and with the current schedule and technique, polyphasic sleep in the Dymaxion variant (a 30-minute nap every six hours) is unworkable for me.

David, I'd have to agree, it looks like you've been "sleep walking" there. I think you're right, that's probably not healthy.

Originally Posted by David Hausladen

Before I go on to any other sleep schedule, I intend to take three days of free-running sleep to "reboot" my body. Among other things, my immune system has taken a beating from its lack of deep sleep in the past week, so I want to get it back to full strength again before I try anything.

That sounds smart.

Originally Posted by David Hausladen

Afterward, I don't want to go back to monophasic, knowing from my experiments with free-running sleep (before I started posting here) how much time it can waste. The Uberman schedule is too tightly spaced for my current obligations and social life, and furthermore I don't feel up to another strenuous adaptation at this point. My thought right now is to go to a biphasic schedule, with a 3-hour core sleep and a 1.5-hour nap. This is the schedule that aligns most closely with the body's natural circadian rhythm, so there's little doubt as to whether it can succeed.

There's not as much to learn about biphasic sleep, so I don't think there's a need to post sleep logs here on a regular basis. I'll still post occasional reports on my progress and results, just not on a set schedule.

Aaww.. gee... as a new biphasic sleep experimenter, I'd like to see your posts !! But of course whatever you like.

I found some standard stuff on sleep that I want to understand better and which seems to go very well with the things you have been writing. One is in Kaplan & Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry (the two volume set has pretty much the same) and the other in David Myland Kaufman's Clinical Neurology for Psychiatrists. (The latter is one of the best neurology books around, in my opinion. He and his editors aimed it at psychiatrists which actually gives it a different sort of clinical relevance than a straight neurology text).

In K&S, it says "Short sleepers are generally efficient, ambitious, socially adept, and content. Long sleepers tend to be mildly depressed, anxious and socially withdrawn" (!!!) (Now the chicken and the egg comes into play--they don't talk about people who decide to become short sleepers, specifically)

I'm not altogether clearly seeing a consensus on whether more REM is good or not. They say long sleepers have more REM. They also say that morning and noon naps taken by nighttime sleepers have more REM (how much nighttime sleeping not stated), and nighttime sleepers have much less REM during afternoon or evening naps. They say dreaming occurs with NREM sleep and is typically more "lucid and purposeful" than dreaming with REM sleep which is "typically abstract and surreal"./ They say that REM occurs every 90 to 100 minutes with the first REM period shorter (<10 minutes) than later REM periods (15 to 40 minutes). They say most REM occurs in the last third of the night and most stage 4 deep sleep in the first third.

They also say that the first REM stage is abt 90 minutes after sleep onset, "a consistent finding in normal adults".

So what does this mean for biphasic "nappers"--first the nap--no REM or maybe short REM but good amt of stage 4 deep sleep, one round. Then for the 3 hour biphasic sleeper: probably 2 REMs and 2 stage 4 deep sleeps. For the 4.5 hour biphasic: 2, maybe 3 REMs, and 3 deep sleeps.

This is fascinating and I'm going to try the biphasic thing, then we'll see. I think you're wise in what you're doing but I hope you keep posting just because it's so interesting and you have experience. Let's see how you feel after you've been in free-running sleep long enough to feel normal again.

good luck and best wishes!

Ati

[David Hausladen]

Originally Posted by Ati

Aaww.. gee... as a new biphasic sleep experimenter, I'd like to see your posts !! But of course whatever you like.

I had figured that since biphasic sleep was so much more proven than polyphasic, that it wouldn't be necessary to post results on as regular a basis. However, if you think it would be helpful to you and others, then I certainly will--my reason for starting this thread was to provide good information for people interested in alternative sleep schedules. I probably won't need to write as much in each post, unless biphasic sleep is far more eventful than expected! But I'll provide as much useful information as I can.

I'll officially start my "reboot" tomorrow and log that here as well, I think (though I've already stopped the polyphasic naps and taking another nice long nap in addition to the morning one).

Originally Posted by Ati

I'm not altogether clearly seeing a consensus on whether more REM is good or not. They say long sleepers have more REM. They also say that morning and noon naps taken by nighttime sleepers have more REM (how much nighttime sleeping not stated), and nighttime sleepers have much less REM during afternoon or evening naps. They say dreaming occurs with NREM sleep and is typically more "lucid and purposeful" than dreaming with REM sleep which is "typically abstract and surreal"./ They say that REM occurs every 90 to 100 minutes with the first REM period shorter (<10 minutes) than later REM periods (15 to 40 minutes). They say most REM occurs in the last third of the night and most stage 4 deep sleep in the first third.

Since learning that dreaming can take place in any sleep stage, I've been wondering what the function of REM is. I looked on Wikipedia to see what the theories are. Here's the one that's most convincing to me (you can check out the other two here).

According to a third theory, known as the Ontogenetic Hypothesis of REM sleep, this sleep phase (also known as Active Sleep in neonates) is particularly important to the developing brain, possibly because it provides the neural stimulation that newborns need to form mature neural connections and for proper nervous system development (Marks et al. 1995). Studies investigating the effects of Active Sleep deprivation have shown that deprivation early in life can result in behavioral problems, permanent sleep disruption, decreased brain mass (Mirmiran et al. 1983), and result in an abnormal amount of neuronal cell death (Morrissey, Duntley & Anch, 2004). REM sleep is necessary for proper central nervous system development (Marks et al. 1995). Further supporting this theory is the fact that the amount of REM sleep decreases with age, as well as the data from other species (see below).

[...]

REM sleep occurs in all mammals and birds. It appears that the amount of REM sleep per night in a species is closely correlated with the developmental stage of newborns. The platypus for example, whose newborns are completely helpless and undeveloped, has 8 hours of REM sleep per night; in dolphins, whose newborns are almost completely functional at birth, almost no REM sleep exists.

If this theory is correct--and the evidence in the last couple sentences is very persuasive in my opinion--then this suggests that for grown adults, REM sleep is practically useless! It doesn't mean that polyphasic sleep is unworkable; as I've stated in an earlier post, polyphasic sleep actually ends up with the same ratio of NREM to REM as other types of sleep (contrary to the popular belief that well-adapted polyphasic sleep is primarily REM sleep). But it does mean that long mono- or biphasic sleepers are gleaning almost no benefit from their later sleep cycles!

[Ati]

Great, David, I'm grateful that you'll continue to post, now do sleep well!

This is real interesting and integrating the clinical stuff with the research stuff which hasn't gone through the clinical filters is always an interesting challenge. (the good part of the clinical filters has to do with efforts to use scientific information for people, some of that is very useful. The bad part is that it's generally funded by pharma and other entities who fund what's profitable more than what's not, so alot is lost)

I wonder what Andrew Weil has to say about this, I'll look into that.

Later!

[Considerate]

David, I think I detect a bit of frustration and disbelief in your post. Anyway, I know I do feel frustrated at myself for being unable to make it work and skeptical that others could do it. I mean, it fairly easy to say polyphasic, its another to do.

I have been biphasic in the past, more out of disbalance then choice. I suspect that its easier on the body that way.

I figure the better way to approach polyphasic sleep would be to *first* cut the normal sleep length into 6 segments, and then cut back on the amount slept per segment.

I'll try it that way. 1 hour sleep per 4 hours one week. 45 the next, 30 after that and 20 in the final week.

If I can make that work, then I'll give up on polyphasic sleep altogether.

[David Hausladen]

Originally Posted by Considerate

David, I think I detect a bit of frustration and disbelief in your post.

Mostly I had to stomp on my ego a few times to convince it to let go when it became apparent that this schedule wasn't working . But having gotten through the initial shock, I see now how the end result is beneficial: I've learned an incredible amount from my experience and have documented it here for others, and I now have the opportunity to investigate a biphasic sleep schedule.

I feel it's important to say that my experiment merely proves that Dymaxion sleep is infeasible for me. It doesn't say another person might not be able to get it to work, and I certainly hope it doesn't discourage the others here who have thought about trying polyphasic sleep.

Originally Posted by Considerate

If I can make that work, then I'll give up on polyphasic sleep altogether.

I assume here you meant to say "If I can't make that work".

I'm eager to see how your transition works out--taking a whole month to cut down to 6*20 could well be the best way to do it. You might consider not only gradually transitioning from long naps to short naps, but also from 1 block of sleep to 6 blocks of sleep. Just a thought. Let me know how it goes!

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by micth

That's pretty crazy hey, not even remembering it happen

You won't ever remember how oversleep happens(assuming you get up and fall back asleep without doing much else)...

And your parents will get used to the schedule eventually...

I'd recommend that you don't sleep in your bed, or make it cold if you do, and that you put a loud alarm near it to wake you up and another far away from it to prevent you from falling back asleep.

You can use your computer as an alarm(I wrote some software to do it but there should be some somewhere if you can't, and the sleep times are hard-coded into mine and you'll have to give up your screensaver to use it if you're considering that)...

I'm starting to not remember sleeping... I'd go to bed and wake up wondering why I'm awake. And I've gotten used to one of the alarms and don't really notice it ringing anymore(it's a software one so I can change it if I want to, but oversleep is less of a problem now)...

My current schedule's from 4 PM to 4:20 PM, 8 PM to 8:20 PM, 12 AM to 12:20 AM, and 4 AM to 6 AM. A new day starts at 6AM. I'm sleepy at certian times from 6 AM to 4 PM, but a short nap at around 10 AM would fix that(I'll live with it for now) and maybe a 10 minute one at 7AM, although it could be a side effect of the lack of the other one.

That would let you sleepily work for 10 hours with three hours of sleep and then have 11 hours to yourself, during which you will be very awake...

[Ati]

Yesterday felt fine all day but delayed at work, then had to go to grocery so not home til 715. Decided to go with 1:30 hour nap at that time, but from the past, could have stayed up til bedtime, probably. Didn't feel too tired. No caffeine except 4am coffee yesterday morning.

Nap 730 until I woke up on my own 2 minutes before the alarm-- REAL TIRED, SERIOUSLY SO. Therefore slept a bit more (this is a learning experience... ) and wound up sleeping on the couch til my husband was ready to turn in at 1030. To bed a bit hungry since hadn't been hungry enough to have dinner, so had a cup of warm milk, read a bit til 1130, left alarm at 4am.

4AM--woke to alarm (it kind of gives a shshsshshssh...sound which I like--it's a malfunction but wakes me up without any raucous noise and doesn't wake my husband up)--feel pretty good now but total sleep as below, so I guess I'm starting over here

11/13 Start, with first Nap) 630-800PM---1:30hrs
Nightsleep 1130-400AM--4:30hrs total ending in am: 6hrs

11/14 Day 1 Nap (++) 730-1030PM---3:00
Nightsleep 1130-400AM---4:30hrs// Total: 7:30hrs

Today's work schedule looks like (hopefully) will be shorter, so will try to find the best time for a 1:30 nap in the pm, and then back up to 1115-345 for the night. We'll see.

Does anyone know how important it is, on biphasic schedule, to have the nap part close to the same time every day or if that matters at all? Before, I was doing power naps as early as I could for general purposes, and also earlier or adding a second one any time I felt like it would do me good, i.e., I felt tired or sluggish.

At that time, I was sleeping 5:30 to 6:30 to sometimes 7 hours per night and doing well with a 30 minute pwr nap per day, sometimes two (so total 6:30 to 7:30 to 8 hrs/24). However, if I skipped the pwr nap, or stayed under 6:30 hrs for more than a 3-4 days, I'd get seriously fatigued.

My aim now is to see if, by going more biphasic than just adding a 30 minute pwr nap, I can (1) go on total 6 hours per 24 hours, because I think that adding and hour or two for music practice would be good, and (2) to experiment with the biphasic idea for more evening time awake to match up my pm sleeping with my husband's sleeping while keeping my early morning practicing intact (he's nightowlish, I'm early birdish)---naturally sleeping the evening away ain't the way to do that, but jus' learnin' over here...

All commentary and suggestions most welcome, I'll keep this log up in the hope that it's helpful to others' experience.

all best,

Ati

[set]

David your dedication really amazes me. ( I'm talking bout the post where u forgot u lie down and sleep!)

Anyway i'll try biphasic tonight too. good luck to both of us and of course all the other participants.

[David Hausladen]

Intermission, Day 1 (Free-Running Sleep)

I'm now nearing the end of Day 1 of 3 on a free-running sleep schedule. My sleep hours have been unregulated, and my initial period of sleep was 1:30am to 11:30am. I also took a short nap in the afternoon, not from tiredness, but simply because I sat down in a recliner while in a relaxed mood and let myself fall asleep. I really haven't felt significant tiredness at any point in the day, though I expect within an hour or two to get my body's signal to go to bed.

I have to say that I wish there was a way for free-running sleep to be as efficient as biphasic or polyphasic sleep, or even monophasic sleep with an alarm. It's a sleep style that lends itself to a very relaxed and carefree feeling. (It helps that this is the first day in more than a week that I've not been mentally and physically sluggish and at times prone to intense drowsiness.) In the long term, though, free-running sleep is just not as practical as any other sleep schedule. Also, waking up during free-running sleep has a distinctively slow, lethargic feeling that I don't really enjoy. I recognize the great utility of this three-day intermission, but I'll also be glad when I get to start into biphasic sleep.

[Ati]

I'll put the series of data in every day to see/show trends and just the most recent commentary. Hope this is helpful to somebody! Otherwise would just be putting this down on my own mac for my own review .

Nighttimes are fine and they've only changed a bit (below), but I'm still not doing the 90 minute bit, in part because of getting home too late the last few days.

I'd like to ultimately get the 90 minute nap in starting either around 5 or 600PM then make 1030PM to 300AM the Nightsleep block. This would give me, say 3 hours of evening working/reading/movie time between nap and nighttime, an extra early morning hour and synch in with my husband's usual pm schedule.

It make sense to me to try to regularize these times, and I'll give the nap time above a try today.

(My cat has an extremely keen sense of timing and it only takes him a day or two to adapt to any new schedule before he's waking me up at some new time, pretty amazing....I set an alarm but only occasionally wind up using it--either I wake up myself or my cat wakes me up!)

11/15 Day 2 Nap ("Nap") 800-1100PM then to bed
Nightsleep 1130-345AM---3:00hrs + 4:15 hrs//Total: 7:15hrs

Day 2 Notes: Since the first day 11/13, I find myself sleeping really deeply and dreaming more. Main possibly explanatory changes are (1) the intent to make this change, reading abt sleep and related focus, (2) the switch from 30 minute pwr naps in the earlier part of the pm (anywhere from 12N to 530PM, depending upon circumstances) to longer (!!) naps in the later pms and (3) regularly shortening nightsleep from abt 6 hrs to 4:30hrs.
Work related activity has affected the schedule. Now I'll have the next 2 days completely self scheduled, then a gang of folks coming to our house for a weekend of playing music, starting Friday evening, ending Sunday pm. Will try to get nap in early on Friday before anyone comes, and see what I can do abt a nap Saturday (maybe in the car driving 1.5hrs to a gig -- I'll have someone with their eyes open do the steering wheel part)

11/14 Day 1 Nap (++) 730-1030PM---3:00
Nightsleep 1130-400AM---4:30hrs// Total: 7:30hrs

11/13 Start, with first Nap) 630-800PM---1:30hrs
Nightsleep 1130-400AM--4:30hrs total ending in am: 6hrs

Ati

[Jeff Lilly]

Hi folks,

I tried polyphasic sleep a couple of times this past spring. Both times I made it for two weeks without any excessive oversleeping, but I found that I had to do so much driving while sleepy (I had to commute two hours to Boston thrice a week) that it was freaking me out. Also, I was always way too drowsy when my wife wanted to do... um... intimate things.

However, now back to monophasic, I am finding that I never get enough sleep to feel truly rested. I think I may be sleeping too much, or at the wrong times, or something. I'm curious about free-running sleep -- while my schedule is tight, there are flexible aspects to it and I may be able to make it work. Can you point me to any resources?

Thanks!

[David Hausladen]

Jeff Lilly: Free-running sleep, in my mind, is fairly simple: you go to bed when you're tired, regardless of the hour of day, and wake up without an alarm (this is what I'm doing for my current three-day "reboot" between polyphasic sleep and biphasic sleep). I can think of a couple variations: for one, you could go to sleep at a set time but wake up without an alarm--this would allow a fair measure of consistency in your sleep and wake patterns. Another is described in this article, though it seems to treat free-running sleep less as a long-term lifestyle choice and more as a tool for discovering the workings of your personal circadian rhythm. I admit I haven't read the whole article, but from what I have read it looks like it could be helpful.

[David Hausladen]

Intermission, Day 2 (Free-Running Sleep)

Day 2 of my free-running sleep trial is running very late. I just don't feel tired yet. It's not a distressing fact, though. I got in bed earlier and listened to music (the first five tracks of Wide Angle by Hybrid), which I found incredibly relaxing. I thought I might fall asleep for the night, but instead at the end of the fifth track I felt like getting up.

There's really not much more to report about free-running sleep. The next time I go to sleep--sometime in the next couple hours, I think--will be my last unregulated sleep before I start biphasic sleep.

[Ati]

Originally Posted by set

Anyway i'll try biphasic tonight too. good luck to both of us and of course all the other participants.

How's it going? (Just wondering... )

Originally Posted by David Hausladen

There's really not much more to report about free-running sleep. The next time I go to sleep--sometime in the next couple hours, I think--will be my last unregulated sleep before I start biphasic sleep.

Dave, looking forward to seeing how it goes and how you wind up crafting your biphasic schedule!

Originally Posted by Mr. Punch

For those of us who are unable to do it by the book - 6*20 min. naps a day - there is "the core" sleep set up. Maybe 3 hours at night and then 2*20 naps? Opinions and experiences on that?

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Can I just say a huge thanks for posting this sleep log, I hope to do this at somepoint in the future and am finding your posts very useful in my aim to sleep like this.
Thanks again

I'm looking forward to hearing of others' experiences with this sleep arrangement. I hope that everyone shares the goal to find a way to sleep which truly produces good rest and health in addition to any time or scheduling advantages...

MY BIPHASIC SLEEP LOG, CONTINUED. DAY 3:

OK that wasn't so hard now. Got home at 6 after getting groceries and 90 minutes on the couch 615-745P, no problem (!) Felt great upon awakening and had a real nice evening. To bed then at 1115P, a little late because I was on this forum Up at 345A. Alarms for both awakenings, and this morning, didn't jump out of bed, was dreaming so probably in REM but not a natural awakening so felt a bit sluggish. My usual morning routine took care of that, though and it's 413, got my coffee made, bkfst set up for later and her she be!

I'm going try to get at least this to happen for the next few days, time wise, in spite of a house full of company for two nights. I'll have to find something to do around this time of the morning and someplace to do it !! If it's too sketchy logistically, I'll just wait but we'll see. Maybe my music buddies will be up for an early start tomorrow . We'll see. Maybe I'll jump in the car and go down to my office with my guitar .

Key right now seems to be getting that nap in close to between 5 and 7, earlier the better, and I'll try to back that up a bit (earlier) this afternoon. I may need to allow variance between 10 and 11P, and always plan on 4.5 hours at night--so if to sleep earlier, then more morning music (e.g., 10P to 230A = 3 1/4 hrs music; 1030P to 300A = 2 3/4 hrs music; 11P to 330A = 2 1/4 hrs etc.). Question will be whether my sleep cycle entrains itself to the 4 1/2 hr duration, which by a lot of research, it should at 3 X 90 min = 270 minutes. Will be interesting to see how my cat adjusts. He slept through this morning for no good reason.

Once I've got 30 days or so down with 90 minutes plus 270 minutes, I might try to see if the particular physiology I'm living with will adapt to a shorter nightsleep, for 90 minutes plus 180 minutes, but we'll see. I'm hearing here that some people feel good with this. I'll not be sleep deprived, I don't think that's healthy.

For now the goals are to (1) Do this without at least the morning alarm. I didn't mind the 90 minute alarm yesterday evening and wouldn't probably have awakened without it. [I generally set alarms if I care abt when I get up, and then feel victorious when I awaken a few minutes before they go off] (2) Get the logistics around sleeping time aligned with 90 minutes starting at b/w 530 and 630P; (3) investigate over time just how important regularity of actual time of day is for both times that sleep cycles start.

11/16 Day 3 Nap 615-745P; Nightsleep 1115P-345A [1:30 + 4:30 hrs=6hrs]

11/15 Day 2 Nap ("Nap") 800-1100PM then to bed
Nightsleep 1130-345AM---3:00hrs + 4:15 hrs//Total: 7:15hrs

11/14 Day 1 Nap (++) 730-1030PM---3:00
Nightsleep 1130-400AM---4:30hrs// Total: 7:30hrs

11/13 Start, with first Nap) 630-800PM---1:30hrs
Nightsleep 1130-400AM--4:30hrs total ending in am: 6hrs

[Ati]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lilly

Hi folks,

I tried polyphasic sleep a couple of times this past spring. Both times I made it for two weeks without any excessive oversleeping, but I found that I had to do so much driving while sleepy (I had to commute two hours to Boston thrice a week) that it was freaking me out. Also, I was always way too drowsy when my wife wanted to do... um... intimate things.

However, now back to monophasic, I am finding that I never get enough sleep to feel truly rested. I think I may be sleeping too much, or at the wrong times, or something. I'm curious about free-running sleep -- while my schedule is tight, there are flexible aspects to it and I may be able to make it work. Can you point me to any resources?

Thanks!

Hey, I'm glad you decided to stop driving sleepy. I went through an extensive training program quite a long while ago which required a lot of nightwork and found myself falling deeply asleep at traffic lights on the way back home, not to mention dozing off while on the road. I'm so glad to have survived that as a mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend to others! Great you quit that

I understand that a lot of people will naturally run in 25 hour blocks of total sleep wake time during free runnning sleep. That is, when they naturally go to sleep when tired, it will be an hour later each day, on average, even with free running naps as the body dictates them. One theory is that this keeps up with the change of season light, somehow. Interesting anyway.

I've done free running sleep a lot in the past because I hate alarm clocks and don't think they are healthy at all long term, except for particular adjustment schedules... (as I've posted, I'll set one to be where I want or need to be but feel I've "made it" once I'm waking up just before it goes off). Free running sleep if the rest of life is well balanced energy wise (food, exercise, stress, etc. and caffeine and alcohol use truly suited to the individual physiology at the time) is real nice. I'm curious, just for curiosity's sake, whether your feeling inadequately rested has something to do with other aspects of daily living besides your actual sleep cycle.

It has always seemed to me that with any reasonable (broadly stated ) sleep cycle, the better your overall health balance is, the better rest you'll get. That does make sense.

Having said that, I'm learning a whole lot abt sleep doing what I'm doing, reading these threads and the related research. I've quickly become very open to the probability that it goes both ways--optimizing ones sleep cycle may have just as much an impact on the balance of health and every day life as the other way around. That makes even a bit more sense.

Originally Posted by David Hausladen

Jeff Lilly: Free-running sleep, in my mind, is fairly simple: you go to bed when you're tired, regardless of the hour of day, and wake up without an alarm (this is what I'm doing for my current three-day "reboot" between polyphasic sleep and biphasic sleep). I can think of a couple variations: for one, you could go to sleep at a set time but wake up without an alarm--this would allow a fair measure of consistency in your sleep and wake patterns. Another is described in this article, though it seems to treat free-running sleep less as a long-term lifestyle choice and more as a tool for discovering the workings of your personal circadian rhythm. I admit I haven't read the whole article, but from what I have read it looks like it could be helpful.

David, I read your link there, couldn't finish it either just now! It is interesting.

Jeff, another take on what David just said is to go ahead and (temporarily ) set your alarm at the same time every morning, one that fits with what you are doing, then leave space to go to sleep when you are tired at night. Pay close attention to suggestions of tiredness, avoid stimulating evening activities such as alcohol, exciting movies, exercise, going out etc, so that you won't miss those feelings of sleepiness you're trying to tune in with. Although since you've set an alarm, it might be hard to fully see your total circadian rhythm, it sounds like you have a lot going on and this should at least give you an idea of how much sleep you're needing right now.

Before this biphasic sleep experiment of mine, I was a big fan of power naps.... 30 minutes and I would feel like a million! That was with more sleep at night, though than in my biphasic pattern

All best, good luck with this, will be interested to hear how it goes!

Ati

[Ati]

Originally Posted by David Hausladen

Another is described in this article,

David, how did you turn this article into "this article" ??
I'd appreciate your help with that little trick !

Thanks !!!!

Ati

[KarlN]

I have a question: Has anyone tried a different form of adjusting to the schedule? I would believe that the first night, doing something like sleep 20 min, be awake 30 min, sleep 20 min would help the transition.

I might try that sometime, anyone already done so?

[David Hausladen]

Originally Posted by Ati

David, how did you turn this article into "this article" ??

I think I know what you're asking, though I'm not completely certain...

I can't just type this out because the forum software will interpret it as a link. But I can give you the step-by-step:

1. Type out "LINK TEXT" in the text editor (no quotes). You can replace LINK TEXT with whatever you want the link to say.
2. Immediately after "LINK TEXT", type "[/url]" (no quotes, no spaces between "LINK TEXT" and "[/url]").
3. Immediately before "LINK TEXT", type "[url=LINK]", replacing LINK with the address of the page (no quotes, no spaces between "[url=LINK]" and "LINK TEXT").

I hope that's helpful--does that answer your question?

[David Hausladen]

KarIN: That sounds interesting. You would start at a 20-minute nap, then a 30-minute wake, and then over time increase the time between naps until you got to 3 hours and 40 minutes?

I haven't tried it myself, but I think its success would depend on whether more naps would help the body to adapt more quickly--since 20-minute naps before adaptation after entirely Stage 1 and Stage 2 sleep, you won't get any really high-quality sleep until you adapt (my point being that you shouldn't expect that you won't get tired after a while like every other person who goes polyphasic). But if the increased nap frequency causes you to adapt quicker, then that's just that much less time for oversleeping to rear its ugly head, and that much less time you have to wait before you do reach adaptation.

I'd be interesting in seeing how that method would work--it could well be a far easier transition than what people have done so far. If you decide to try it, please post your experiences here!

[David Hausladen]

Jeff Lilly: There's a short discussion about free-running sleep in this thread. Just thought you might be interested.

[TeroMiettunen.com]

I'm going to try the polyphasic uberman schedule after I've moved which might be in a couple of months and I'll keep a log about it in my blog. Hopefully I'll remember to announce the log here.

Thanks David for trying. I've been researching sleep extensively too and can't just ignore the potential of polyphasic sleep.