Polyphasic Sleep Redux
A year and a half ago I had one of the best months of my life. It was 6th block my senior year of college. I remember it being non-stop hanging out. Watching The Mighty Ducks series, and Dawson's Creek and Titanic (I think?). It was also the month that I tried to sleep three hours a day. What a great time!
The sleeping three hours a day thing was called Polyphasic Sleep. These are my original posts about it. After I gave it up I for the most part lost complete interest in it. There were a couple of times where I talked about it. But the drive wasn't there.
Well, this evening on the toilet, I was lamenting about the fact that I was sleeping in waaaaay too much (12+ hours of sleep a night, though three nights ago I was up till 8am) and decided that I wanted to give it a try again. But one of the things that was so much fun about it the last time was that Omer and Poppy were doing it with me.
(Don't think that I am hoping to have another month like the last time I tried this. I understand that times are different. That was just how I wanted to segway into the polyphasic sleep topic.)
After this occurred to me, the first thing I did was call Omer up. And he is on board (though timing is a consideration; his evil girlfriend is visiting him soon, and he isn't sure how she (or him really) would feel about him being a zombie for some (to be way optimistic) of the visit). I would have called Poppy, but I don't know when she goes to sleep.
And now I am turning to the rest of you. Do any of you want to try Polyphasic sleep?
To summarize polyphasic sleep: Instead of sleeping 7+ plus hours a day you sleep 3 hours in half hour increments every 3.5 hours. So, for example, last time Omer and I took 30 minutes naps at 4am, 8am, 12pm, 4pm, 8pm and 12am. According to the theory behind this, with Polyphasic sleep your body learns to enter REM sleep immediately so you end up getting more of it. 3 hours vs. 1 and a half. So, they say you end up feeling better and more refreshed with less sleep. But that there is a hard adjustment period. At least a week. (emphasis added because there has been no scientific research done on Polyphasic sleep. At least not that I have found).
Why do we want to do this, you ask? Well!
- More time in the day! This may or may not be an advantage. Depends on how much you have going on in your life. I don't really have much going on, I don't really feel like I could use an additional 4 hours. (That isn't why I am doing it.)
- For science. Can it work? (I am very curious!)
- Its fun! Well, it is fun until 2am and you are struggling to stay awake. But believe me, it is a great bonding experience.
- It is kind of like running a marathon. Can your body do it? Can you stay awake for the week? What happens to you as you are more and more sleep deprived? It is a challenge and it takes work.
- You don't like your current sleep schedule. (I am still trying to find the perfect schedule. I am bad at sticking to these things. I always go, "One more minute." or "One more thing." and then 5 hours later I go to sleep. But with this, there is no question that you need to go to sleep immidiately, but if you are really into something you can just pick it up 30 minutes later when you wake up)
- You like hanging out at night. (I certainly do!)
- You are interested in a bonding experience. It will definitely be a bonding experience. Maybe not as much as last time because we won't all be in the same place, but it will be a shared experience that we can all enjoy (or not enjoy at times) together. And if we are the only ones awake at 3am we can play scrabble games online. Or Omer's multiplayer SET game (once he finishes it). Or we can create scavenger hunts for the night time in our cities.
- According to RhymeZone an adventure is something that is "a wild and exciting undertaking." If that doesn't describe sleep deprivation, than I don't know what does!
Another added bonus of this time would be that Peter (I think it is pretty safe to say, based off of past comments of yours, that you aren't interested in polyphasic sleep; if you are, I would love that) lives in China. Ergo, he is 16 hours later than us, so when we would need to wake up after the late night nap, he could call one of us to be sure. Or we could set up a phone tree of those participating to call the others and then once everyone has confirmed that everyone is awake, one person could call him. If he doesn't get the call then he could call one of us. We'll have to figure out a cheap way to dial across the Pacific (Or maybe the Atlantic, we don't know how those crazy phone companies would route the call).
So, once again, is anyone interested? You have no idea how happy it would make me. It could be a birthday present! (you are all getting me something for my birthday aren't you?)
Well, think about it everyone!
P.S. I was just kidding about Omer's girlfriend being evil. She is Boots on this site, or Jette in the real world. And she is a wonderful person!
P.P.S. Here is an article that my dad sent me about sleep deprivation. My dad thinks this polyphasic sleep thing is pretty silly. Though, he has admittedly never read this article; it was sent to him from someone who runs the OHSU sleep lab in response to my father inquiring about polyphasic sleep. The article goes into depth about the "Impact of Extended-Duration Shifts on Medical Errors" so it doesn't address the theory behind polyphasic sleep at all. But it does go into great detail about the effects of sleep deprevation. So, I figured I would post the link out of respect to my father. (Hi Dad!)
2 December 2007 09:41am UTC • 641 views • 2 comments
Tagged with polyphasicsleep, sleep, sleepschedule
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2 comments
The Anonymous Poppy
3 December 2007 03:23am UTC
I would have called Poppy, but I don't know when she goes to sleep.
Well, it's true, I was asleep at 4:41am this morning when this post went up. But you should know that you can always wake me up! I'd have been thrilled to get a call from you. (Although I'd be nervous about waking Kate up. I'm not sure how well sound travels through our shared wall.)
I'm not sure about polyphasic sleep.... But if you're really excited about it, I think we all know I'll probably cave. I guess I'm not really doing anything else right now. When were you thinking of starting?
Dread Pirate Benjamin
3 December 2007 03:38am UTC
Well, it's all dependent on Omer right now. He's the man in charge!