The Uberwomen Who Beat Sleep: Origin of the "Uberman" polyphasic sleep schedule

> During sleep deprivation, he says, “The brain, probably because it is so tired, starts to have difficulties gauging its own level of sleepiness.” Eventually, an exhausted brain gives up on sending you signals that it needs rest. You feel OK precisely because you’re not.

If true, I think that's the most important point of the article. If you can't trust your own brain, you can't any claims made by people trying that sort of schedule.

Also, the amount of effort you have to put up with in order to even start sleeping like that suggests me that's unnatural and unhealthy. We may even have some kind of adaptation for that in the short term. Think cavemen who just lost his shelter and needs to find another in dangerous territory. It's conceivable that one could spend a few weeks not sleeping much until conditions improve. Forget about longer term effects, since survival is at stake. So, the brain keeps getting pulled out of sleep due to perceived dangers (in modern times, that's the alarm clock). Then it switches off part of the sleep mechanism so that the subject will have a better chance of moving away from danger.

I tried this during college, and nearly ended up hospitalized from hallucinations and a mini seizure. My sleep cycle was ruined for a year.

I had to pay around a thousand usd for a sleep study, and had to see a sleep specialist for a year. He told me I was pretty lucky, if I tried it any longer I could have gotten permanent brain damage. He was suspicious of polyphasic claims, because he often saw people use modafinil in conjunction with this(especially among lawyers).

Maybe some people are genetically predisposed to this form of sleeping, but running experiments on yourself may not be worth it.

I've tried polyphasic sleep on a number of occasions over the past couple of decades, with a few different schedules. It doesn't work (for me). Perpetual grogginess becomes the norm, and I always felt tired, occasionally short of breath and prone to heartburn (this one seems weird, but I get heartburn when I'm overly tired in normal circumstances, as well).

The best science I've been able to find on the subject seems to match that experience. Some people can "feel fine" on a polyphasic schedule, but in tests there does seem to be a decline in performance. Slower response times and less accuracy on hand-eye tests, etc. that is similar to the decline experienced by sleep deprived subjects.

I'd love to have several extra hours a day, but from what I can tell, there are trade offs that nullify the productivity and "more time" advantages.

I read a bit on the polyphastic sleep society's website [1], and it looks entirely premised on the idea that light sleep is 'non recovering', yet it makes up >= 65% of our 8 hour sleep schedules, so they cut it out via schedules that drop you directly into deep sleep (REM and 'slow wave sleep').

I would like to know more about their claim of the unimportance of light sleep. I also don't like that the people cited in the article are writing books and pushing product.

[1] http://www.polyphasicsociety.com/polyphasic-sleep/beginners/

Experimented with polyphasic sleep back in grad school. Pretty sure it is bunk. Your body needs hours of sleep to raise HGH levels and conduct proper maintence.

I had a friend who did Uberman once. It was hard to be around him at times because he would sometimes very rapidly deteriorate into sleep as he approached one of his sanctioned sleeping periods.

Aside from those sanctioned sleeping periods, I'd estimate he was maybe a third actually-awake about seventy percent of the time.

I hope people who experiment with Uberman don't drive.

That is interesting except that it seems a bit anecdotal in terms of usability.

Is anyone doing cognitive tests to ensure that your brain is actually working optimally and answering hard questions?