According to Matthew Walker's book "Why we Sleep", sleep deprived people think they thrive. https://inweb.notesalong.com/id/5d785df04818060013b15a78/htt...;
The results kind of speak for themselves. These people have jobs, families and generally productive lives like everyone else. If these people felt the extra sleep made their lives better than the extra time to do stuff they'd probably sleep more.
I can manage a job, side projects, girlfriend and social life. I'm not sure when will it hit back if it will ever.
I don't think he addresses this subject in the book or in his talks, but it would be interesting to know his opinion on the subject.
Not much need for sleep if all you do is meditate
You might be more productive per minute after meditating but that's another discussion
However, in my experience it takes years before you may comfortably spend all day meditating. I'm pretty sure most of meditators, teachers or otherwise, are not able to do this. It's extremely demanding, it is only boring if you don't focus properly.
I've participated in retreats that start at 2h30AM and end at 00H00 every day, with 1h sits and 20m breaks in between (same routine over 3-7 weeks), and only a handful of people are able to follow this schedule. Even meditation "only" on a 9-5 schedule is hard.
For people doing it in their culture, from a young age, it's second nature...
https://www.quora.com/Have-you-seen-Himalayan-yogis-who-clai...
You don't need to be a yogi to do those things. There are men and women (even kids and teenagers) who can read your mind like a page. Advanced ones can know what you're thinking before you're even aware of what that thought is. And they don't even have to be looking at you. It's 360 degree vision. Distance is no barrier. People who can read minds know to respect your space, because they know it's against spiritual law to violate your psychic space.
People who have developed the ability to bring the dead back to life will not do it, because they know there's a reason why somebody had to die. Why mess with the cycle of life?
That must be terribly reassuring to the families of car crash victims.
You can make all the extraordinary claims you want if you never have to prove it, and no one should believe you until you do. You're basically just wasting your breath and letting everyone know you believe in fairy tales.
But maybe there's a reason why an automobile accident happened in the first space. Live is not just made up of a series of random events.
citation needed
You can make all the claims you want. Everything is being made as it goes along, and if someone claims to have these powers and doesn't use them, they are either lying, deluded, or terribly cruel. It's awfully convenient, and really a sick joke, if the moment one has real agency, they can't use it.
Yes, and tons of people fall for that. They're up there with those other yogis who "don't eat food" (e.g. "Prahlad Jani is an Indian breatharian monk who claims to have lived without food and water since 1940"), perform magical tasks, and so on...