Thread: Third Polyphasic Sleep Attempt (Everyman)

I've been thinking about polyphasic sleep myself, I'm going to keep checking this thread to see how it's going for you. I've just heard so many pros and cons to polyphasic sleep, I'd just like to talk to somebody who's actually done it; and better yet, while their doing it! haha
Keep in touch please

I've been doing Everyman with 2 naps for 7 days so far. 12:00am to 4:45am for core, a nap 12:00pm and one at 4:00pm.

On my naps I've only been reaching the HI stage and no SP until day 6 when I couldn't resist laying down in my bed "To pass some time" at around 7:30am because I was tired and bored, I tried not to fall asleep but couldn't keep my eyes open. turned to my side and was out within 10mins of laying down. Next thing I knew I was dreaming, I was lucid the whole time that I remember and woke up at 8:13am when the dream ended and didn't feel so much like laying down anymore.

On day 7 (Today) I was able to dream again on my 4:00pm nap, I went to bed earlier at 3:40 to pass time but didn't really feel sleepy enough to fall asleep. I started feeling a bit sleepier and checked the time and it was 4:00pm, I turned on my side and next thing I knew lucid dream with a zillion false awakenings. I was very aware in this one, I was even able to hear what was going on outside my room without waking up(My mom is taking care of a baby that likes to make noise lol). I was even checking the time in my dream to see how much time I had left and was anticipating the alarm. Though my dream time was 30mins fast but the alarm was set 30mins later too so it was pretty accurate.

Anyway both of the times I had a successful nap I had a peanut butter sandwich within an hour of the nap. I think that may have helped with entering REM and getting a nice strong SP.

Also 2 months ago I was doing the Uberman schedule but gave up after 14 days because I kept oversleeping from 2 to 8 hours at night and didn't remember any dreams and while I was awake time was going painfully slow and was painfully tired. The everyman schedule is way easier and is paying off much faster. On my normal monophasic (12:00 to whenever I wake up) I was taking about 2 hours to fall asleep, now it takes about 20mins to fall asleep for my core sleep.

If my current schedule works out smoothly I might try shortening the core and adding another nap.

So Trevorm, would you recommend a polyphasic sleep schedule?
I've been debating whether or not I want to try it out.

Well I'm not that experienced. Find what fits your schedule and see how it goes. This link has some good information: http://dustincurtis.com/sleep.html

Originally Posted by Trevorm7

Well I'm not that experienced. Find what fits your schedule and see how it goes. This link has some good information: http://dustincurtis.com/sleep.html

Thanks for the link, it's quite informative; I'll play around on paper for a bit and see what works for my schedule.

Originally Posted by LucidSleeperCel

I've been thinking about polyphasic sleep myself, I'm going to keep checking this thread to see how it's going for you. I've just heard so many pros and cons to polyphasic sleep, I'd just like to talk to somebody who's actually done it; and better yet, while their doing it! haha
Keep in touch please

Well, during my last two attempts I never quite adjusted to a polyphasic schedule, but I came close with Everyman. Even though I didn't receive the full potential from that schedule, I still prefer it to monophasic sleep. With monophasic, I personally seem to need 10 hours of sleep to feel normal. Needless to say, I almost never get that. So surprisingly enough, after the first 2 or 3 weeks on Everyman, I felt more rested than I did returning to monophasic. Another thing: I was on Everyman for almost an entire semester, and a very busy and stressful one at that. Although I was annoyed about oversleeping issues while trying to adjust, I felt better rested than I had during any other semester on monophasic.

The main cons I know of: Fitting naps into a busy schedule and not being able to skip them entirely and... the adjustment period. The latter is a hurdle I haven't yet managed to overcome, but I think I have a pretty good idea of the reasons why now (primarily my bad relationship with alarms and the morning).

Feel free to post here with questions/comments or send me a pm

P.S. I do have quite a bit of experience with what not to do while adjusting to a polyphasic sleep schedule

hahaha I'm entering college in the fall, that's one of the main reasons I'm looking into polyphasic sleep; so I can hold a job while being a full time student too, and have time to get more stuff done. Oh and of course the best benefit, having more vivid dreams (making lucid dreams much more enjoyable and frequent ). At least that's what I've gathered from my research
Is there any particular schedule you'd recommend for somebody's first attempt at polyphasic sleep?
I'm assuming some variation of the Everyman schedule? Oh, and is it actually true that your dreams become more vivid? Or did you not experience that seeing as how you were on it for only one semester.

Originally Posted by LucidSleeperCel

Is there any particular schedule you'd recommend for somebody's first attempt at polyphasic sleep? I'm assuming some variation of the Everyman schedule? Oh, and is it actually true that your dreams become more vivid? Or did you not experience that seeing as how you were on it for only one semester.

Personally my dreams didn't stand out all that much, although occasionally I had vivid dreams and I had at least a couple semi-lucids... but I don't know if I'm the best example because I wasn't really trying for it at the time. I've just gotten out of a long period of barely remembering my dreams. Even less after returning to monophasic. Only recently, in the last week or so, have I been starting to remember a decent amount again. (I'm getting back on track with my dream journal, and I'm going to be more focused on lucid dreaming this time around!) I can say that I had a lot more dreams, which makes sense if you think about it; you're waking up after each REM period for the naps (which are almost purely REM themselves), whereas on monophasic only the last phase of REM gets remembered. Unless you wake up after each REM phase during the night.

As far as which polyphasic schedule I'd suggest, it really depends on your personality. I'd say it's a toss up between Uberman and Everyman. An equiphasic schedule (Uberman and Dymaxion) has a really interesting feeling to it because there's no core sleep, so the days seem to blend into one another. I absolutely loved that feeling, but some people might not. You also get more time alone at night to do quiet activities (assuming other people are trying to sleep). I tend to seek out alone time for such activities anyways, so for me that was a benefit. With Everyman, it still felt like the days were separate, just longer than days on monophasic. Also, the Everyman schedule is more flexible with the nap times, and probably easier to work into a busy schedule since there are fewer naps to deal with.

Then there's the adjustment to consider. Uberman is a harsh adjustment, but it's over after a couple weeks. Everyman's easier to adjust to (not easy, just easier), but it takes about a month. During the adjustment period, you want to make sure you have hardly anything going on in your schedule and that you stick to the nap times as closely as possible (moving them around is for after you adjust).

Thank you for explaining with such resounding clarity, those three paragraphs actually did a better job at clarifying polyphasic sleep schedules than many other forums and/or "research" sites.
Personally I think I'm going to try the Everyman first, and then if I'm still not getting what I'm looking for I'll venture an attempt at the Uberman schedule.

Btw, how's the Everyman shedule coming along this time around?

I haven't added in the naps yet, but this was my fourth day of getting up at 7:00 exactly and I seem to be adjusting to that part fairly well. I tend to go to sleep around 22:00 or 23:00, which is about four hours earlier than I'm used to. I am still a bit tired, and really need to pay even more attention to when my body's getting tired each night. It's probably closer to 21:00. I'm basically in the process of switching from my lifelong mindset of "stay up until you're really tired, then sleep longer in the morning (or deal with being tired)" to "go to sleep when you're just tired enough, even if you could keep yourself awake longer".

I've also been training myself out of hitting the snooze button upon waking. I want to have an ingrained morning ritual of getting out of bed right away and going downstairs for a glass of water. The article I mentioned in the first post (or maybe it was one of the related ones) suggests practising by pretending you're going to sleep, setting the alarm for a couple minutes, then "waking up" and going through the motions of the way you want to wake up each morning. I figure I'll need to do this at least a couple times a day, so that I'm enforcing the new habit more often than my old habit of whacking at the alarm several times, sleeping in until five minutes before I have to go somewhere, and yawning for a couple hours after waking up.

Another seven days or so and I think I'll be ready to start adding the naps.

Huh, I've never heard of somebody putting the naps in later; most cases I've always heard of people just taking the new schedule on all at once. What benefits are there to adding the naps in later?

Originally Posted by LucidSleeperCel

Huh, I've never heard of somebody putting the naps in later; most cases I've always heard of people just taking the new schedule on all at once. What benefits are there to adding the naps in later?

Yeah, I haven't heard of it being done this way either, which is why I'm giving it a try (although, I have heard of a few people starting out with somewhat longer core sleep then trying to shorten it.)

I'm trying to achieve two things with this plan: a more reliable way of waking up and a smooth, painless adjustment period.

My idea came from a technique for monophasic sleepers. Many people look at sleep in one of two ways: either they try to schedule exact amounts of sleep, controlling both their wake up time and their bedtime, or they sleep when they feel tired, leaving both their wake up time and their bedtime to when they feel tired. The problem with the first method is that your body needs a different amount of sleep each night, and a rigid schedule means that as soon as you need more than the allotted amount of sleep, you'll oversleep your alarm (or go right back to sleep after waking up). The problem with the second method is that you wind up sleeping longer than you really need to and you don't have a consistent wake up time to depend on.

The technique is to have a consistent wake up time and to let your bedtime be the variable. This way, your body knows when you're going to wake up and lets you know when to go to sleep to get enough rest that night. However, you have to pay attention to when you get just tired enough to fall asleep.

Here are the articles I know of for more details:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...n-early-riser/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...riser-part-ii/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...larm-goes-off/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...totally-alert/

I found this technique very interesting because I've never been a morning person and always felt at least a little tired throughout the day. I got to thinking, what if this technique could be applied to a polyphasic sleep schedule? Or at least to the core sleep of Everyman. In other words, the wake up time from core is exactly the same from one day to the next, and the bedtime is at least slightly variable. The nap times would still be adjustable and no more than 20 minutes long, but the core sleep would be a lot more stable and dependable. I hope that makes sense.

Taking it a step further, it might make the adjustment period a lot easier as well. Here's my reasoning: I start by applying the technique to monophasic sleep, partly to get used to the 7:00 wake-up time and partly to get a feel for when I get tired each night. Once I've done that, I can add the naps in. If I'm already going to sleep when I'm just tired enough, then the extra rest I get from the naps should naturally lead to me getting tired later for core sleep (in other words, I'm not forcing the three hour core right away, I'm hoping it will happen naturally). So, in theory at least, I should be getting enough sleep each day throughout the entire adjustment period.

Yes, that makes perfect sense, and a much easier adjustment period. Your logic is very sound in this, sound enough to where I'm going to try it myself. But instead of a 7:00 wake-up I'm going to have a 4:00 wake-up time.

The problem with that is if you're getting enough sleep you wont be able to fall asleep for your naps. The way to get adjusted to the naps is to be deprived of REM and to only give your body specific times that it's allowed to sleep and it will learn to optimize itself to make the most out of those times. This is why people say Uberman is much faster to adapt to(although way more difficult and tediously uncomfortable), because you're getting no REM at all as long as you don't oversleep your body will have no choice but to adapt.

It's also important to be very consistent while adapting, so that is another problem.

Hi nautilus,

I just finished reading your blogs of your past two experiences with polyphasic sleep, they were really informative. Thanks for putting them up! I'm thinking about trying an everyman schedule myself, and I have a few questions. First off, I'm in China right now for the summer, and I get back to the states in a month. So i figured while i'm getting my body used to the 12 hour time difference, I might as well try and change my sleep schedule altogether. Also, when I get back, i have about a week before classes start at school.

With all that in mind, do you have any advice for a noob like me?

Thanks

Originally Posted by Trevorm7

The problem with that is if you're getting enough sleep you wont be able to fall asleep for your naps. The way to get adjusted to the naps is to be deprived of REM and to only give your body specific times that it's allowed to sleep and it will learn to optimize itself to make the most out of those times. This is why people say Uberman is much faster to adapt to(although way more difficult and tediously uncomfortable), because you're getting no REM at all as long as you don't oversleep your body will have no choice but to adapt.

It's also important to be very consistent while adapting, so that is another problem.

You're right that falling asleep for the naps might be difficult. There are a couple of ways I'm going to address that issue. First of all, I'll lay down for a 20-minute rest at my nap times, even if I don't manage to fall asleep. This will get my body used to those nap times and also give me a small amount of extra rest during the day, hopefully causing me to get tired slightly later for core sleep. I don't know how much of an effect this will have, but hopefully it will build on itself until I'm eventually able to fall asleep more often for naps and the core gets even shorter.

Another thing I may do is to have an earliest and latest time to go to sleep. This will give me at least some direct control over the length of my core sleep, but I'll still have a range of time for my body to clue me in as to when I'm tired enough to fall asleep.

For example, right now, still on monophasic, I'm getting tired between 21:30 and 22:30. If I add the naps in and after a while I still can't fall asleep for them, I could say, "I'm not going to sleep any earlier than 22:00 or any later than 23:00". That shift of half an hour means that some days, when my body wants to go to sleep at 21:30, I'll wait until 22:00 (still getting up at 7:00, of course). This will make me slightly more tired and I should have an easier time falling asleep for my naps. When I do fall asleep more often, I'll be getting more rest and after a while I will naturally get tired within my new boundaries for core-bedtime. Then I can repeat the process again if needed, shifting those boundaries another half hour to "no earlier than 22:30 and no later than 23:30".

As you can probably tell, my new approach is a lot different from the way just about everyone adjusts to Uberman or Everyman. With the standard approach, the idea is to start right off the bat by sleeping only at certain times and for certain lengths of time. The amount of sleep per 24 hours is immediately reduced by several hours, causing sleep deprivation until the body can go directly into REM sleep for the naps. This takes about 2 weeks for Uberman or a month for Everyman.

My new (still hypothetical) approach doesn't involve sleep deprivation, only mild tiredness at most. This tiredness probably won't be more than the tiredness I've experienced most my life while on monophasic (it may even be less), but it should be enough to very gradually transition over to Everyman. I know for a fact it will take more than a month, and it will probably quite a lot longer before I'm close to a 3-hour core, but since the tiredness is so mild, it shouldn't impact my day-to-day life hardly at all.

As far as consistency goes, the only variable will be my bedtime for the core; the nap times will still be 20 minutes each and as close to their scheduled times as possible (at least while adjusting). The wake-up time for core will be as exact as possible, and that exact 7:00 wake-up time is what I'm getting used to right now. Even after adjusting, I'm going to keep that wake-up time exact. (This is different from my last attempt at Everyman, where the core was always 3-hours, but it got shifted around a bit just the way naps can be shifted around somewhat.)

Originally Posted by Voytek

Hi nautilus,

I just finished reading your blogs of your past two experiences with polyphasic sleep, they were really informative. Thanks for putting them up! I'm thinking about trying an everyman schedule myself, and I have a few questions. First off, I'm in China right now for the summer, and I get back to the states in a month. So i figured while i'm getting my body used to the 12 hour time difference, I might as well try and change my sleep schedule altogether. Also, when I get back, i have about a week before classes start at school.

With all that in mind, do you have any advice for a noob like me?

Thanks

Well, first you'll want to make sure you choose a version of Everyman that will work with your schedule when you're back in school (once adjusted, you can move the naps around by as much as an hour without a problem, or even 2 hours I've heard, so long as the other naps around it are on schedule). The different versions of Everyman I've heard of are: three 20-minute naps + 3-hour core (the one I've tried), four or five 20-minute naps + 1.5-hour core, and two 20-minute naps + 4.5-hour core. Ideally, keep the naps pretty evenly spaced.

If you're adjusting to Everyman the way most people do, that is by taking on the new schedule all at once, you'll need to mostly clear your schedule (of things like work or other things you need to be productive for) for the first couple of weeks and at least keep it light for the first month. You won't be as much of a zombie as if you were adjusting to Uberman, but it won't easy, either.

Alternatively, you could try the gradual approach I'm taking for my current attempt (described in this thread). In that case, you won't need to clear your schedule for the adjustment, you'll just have to be willing to go to bed early when you're just starting to get tired, at least for the initial stage, and wait quite a bit longer before you're actually on the schedule you're aiming for. Keep in mind that this is still an untested approach, so I don't know yet how well it will work.

If you decide to go with the all-at-once approach, I can give you tips on how to stay awake.

Originally Posted by LucidSleeperCel

Yes, that makes perfect sense, and a much easier adjustment period. Your logic is very sound in this, sound enough to where I'm going to try it myself. But instead of a 7:00 wake-up I'm going to have a 4:00 wake-up time.

Good luck Tell me about any observations you have while you're adjusting, I'm sure I'll find them helpful.

Hey nautilus, awesome that you're trying polyphasic sleep. I've done tons of research on it and was even going to attempt to implement it. It's good to know you'll be able to adjust naps by an hour or so to fit in with your schedule.

I have a few questions:

1) Since this is your third attempt, did you find it difficult to go back to regular sleep patterns after the other two attempts, or is it really difficult?
2) More tips on how to stay awake would be awesome!

I agree with SteadyState, some tips on how to stay awake would be great haha
But I won't be able to start this schedule until I get this new job, because I'm not sure exactly what my schedule will look like once I'm hired (sad day )

Originally Posted by SteadyState

Hey nautilus, awesome that you're trying polyphasic sleep. I've done tons of research on it and was even going to attempt to implement it. It's good to know you'll be able to adjust naps by an hour or so to fit in with your schedule.

I have a few questions:

1) Since this is your third attempt, did you find it difficult to go back to regular sleep patterns after the other two attempts, or is it really difficult?
2) More tips on how to stay awake would be awesome!

1.) It's extremely easy to go back to monophasic. All you have to do is go to sleep. My first attempt I tried to adjust to Dymaxion, but that didn't work out and after a couple weeks I decided I was getting too sleep deprived. So I went back to monophasic, slept through the night, had breakfast and slept several more hours and after that I was feeling pretty normal. My second attempt, which was Everyman, when I returned to monophasic I barely even remember a transition period. I got a bad cold, so couldn't keep my schedule any more. I just sort of slept when I could (I have a terrible time getting to sleep when sick).

The only problem with returning to monophasic is that the days seem ridiculously short, I keep thinking of taking naps during the day, and I can be rather cranky in the morning At least until now, where I'm trying to change my wake-up habits.


2.) Some general things to keep in mind during a difficult adjustment period:
-The more tired you are, the more physically active you want to be. I found that getting outside and walking around or going places with friends/family made a huge difference in staying awake. The middle of the night can be a tricky time to be really active if there are other people sleeping and you have to keep quiet, but try to find something to do that involves moving around and which isn't too loud.

-If you find yourself getting really sleepy while doing a particular activity, do something different! It's good to have an always growing list of things to do so that you don't have to think too hard about how to keep from getting bored when you're in a zombie-like state. Plan out some things to do that day ahead of time. Even better, just before you go to sleep, have an activity ready to do for when you wake up.

-Do things you find interesting! Cleaning your room might be good for keeping your body moving, but if you find it incredibly boring, you might wind up taking a snooze the moment you stop. The adjustment period is a great time to pick up new hobbies. If you don't have anything to fill the extra time, you'll be bored and tired, which means you'll be spending your time counting the minutes until your next nap rather than focusing on what you're doing right then.

-Avoid passive activities like watching television or laying in bed wondering how you're going to stay awake. (By the way, during the adjustment period, don't lay down at all unless you're getting ready to take a nap. Really. I guarantee the idea will enter into your mind sooner or later if you're tired. If it does, quick find something interesting to do.)

-If you find yourself using more than two alarms to wake up, you need to make some changes in the way you're approaching your new sleep schedule (other than adding more alarms, getting louder ones, or building a robot that you have to chase around the room to turn it off).

-Get up the instant your alarm goes off. That's probably one of the biggest challenges, because when you're sleep deprived you'll find a way to rationalize laying down or closing your eyes "just for a couple more minutes". Or sometimes you'll go right back to sleep without even thinking about it. It's not about pure willpower, it's about habit.

As a side note, until you're adapted enough to be rested and alert, don't do anything like driving or using power tools...or flying a plane or something.

Update: I realized that I probably need more of a before bedtime ritual to calm down and get ready to sleep, because as it is, it's a bit hard to know when I'm "tired enough". If I'm still doing some activity, I tend to not realize how tired I am until I stop because mentally, I'm still interested in whatever it is I'm doing.

I don't know if I can get to bed much earlier that 22:00 most nights, because sometimes I don't get home until then. Plus my mom keeps trying to distract me right before I'm about to go to sleep (lol). I did manage to get to sleep around 21:00 a couple of nights ago, and that was the first time I woke up more than a couple minutes before my alarm (woke up around 6:30). I felt more rested than usual that day, and I got a ton of stuff done because I had so much energy!

Since I've started forming my habit of getting up at 7:00, I've only overslept once (a few days ago, by an hour and a half because I kept hitting the alarm). One other time, I think it was the 4th of July, I got home around 1:30 and purposefully set my alarm for 9:00 because I knew I wouldn't be able to function well in the morning otherwise. Other than that, I've been pretty good at waking up, and getting better as I go along.

I'm going to dig up my blood pressure machine so I can start taking some statistics, the way I did for my last Everyman attempt: I'll measure my blood pressure, weight, and reaction time once a day. I want to stay on monophasic one more week to get a good "baseline" with the stats before adding in the naps. By the way, if anyone has suggestions for some other stats I could collect (that doesn't involve purchasing expensive equipment), let me know.

Ok, so I just found my blood pressure machine (Finally! I didn't know where it was and didn't have much time to look for it.) Sorry about the delay. I wanted to get that week's worth of statistics before adding in the naps. Anyway, I'll measure my blood pressure, reaction time, and weight/body fat once a day. I want to keep the time fairly consistent, so since I won't have time in the mornings once classes start, I figure before bed (around 21:00 or 22:00) is a good time for now. After I'm closer to a true Everyman schedule, I'll take the stats around 23:00, just after my third nap.

Also starting today, I'm going to keep a detailed day-by-day sleep log! I'll probably post it weekly, and of course still answer any questions people have.

I can't wait to see your results, this will be the first report on polyphasic sleep I've seen in such detail.