Polyphasic sleep: reviews, "theory", personal experience

Lack of time is one of our main problems. Moreover, it is not enough for him not only to work, but also to rest, physical and moral. It is tempting to “eat away” the hours we are missing from such an obscure pastime as sleep.

Accordingly, lack of sleep is the second major problem for a modern person (and, moreover, characteristically, it usually does not solve the first one). Going to bed on time is often stupidly unwilling: there is such a bad feeling that then only life and work will remain in life.
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In time - this means reserving to sleep at least 8 hours, as all of us were taught. But in the end, in fact, most of us sleep 6 hours, and then “break away” at the weekend. But although these 6 hours are not enough for sleep, there are still too many of them in a day: the desire (and tendencies!) To “cut back” sleep even more does not disappear. In search of the magic pill “how little to sleep and get enough sleep”, I, like many, probably, once came across the doctrine of polyphasic sleep.

What is it?


This phenomenon even has an article in Wikipedia. It is also called (completely unreasonable) "da Vinci dream" and "wolf dream". According to the legend, common among fans of "polyphase", Leonardo slept just like that, due to which he managed to study, invent and create so many things. Alas, this is a fake. The second name owes its appearance to the fact that the sleep regime of many animals in the wild is close to poly-rather than monophasic. But no special studies on this score seem to have been conducted.

Polyphasic sleep is not a “single block” sleep, 8 hours a day, but gradually at regular intervals. In this case, his total time is reduced, down to only 2 hours during the day (depending on which mode you specifically chose). The possible modes are described a little.

The habit of taking a nap after lunch, it turns out, allows classifying its carriers as practitioners of polyphasic sleep - this is the “Siesta” mode, 5-6 hours sleep at night and 1–1.5 hours after lunch.

More unusual and tough modes:

“Everyman”: 1 time 1.5-3 hours at night and 3 times 20 minutes each during the day.

"Dymaxion": 4 times 30 minutes. during the day at regular intervals, i.e. every 6 hours

"Uberman": 6 times for 20 minutes. during the day at regular intervals, i.e. every 4 hours

Finally, there is a story that Nikola Tesla adhered to a certain polyphase sleep mode, called Tesla in his honor: 1 time 2 hours at night and 1 time 20 minutes. in the afternoon. As in the case of Leonardo, no reliable historical evidence of this does not exist.

If you do not take the well-known "Siesta", then in practice are mainly made attempts to use "Everyman", "Dymaxion" and "Uberman" (judging by the reports of experimenters on the Web).

I myself tried half a year ago polyphase sleep. Being a man (I want to believe) rational and cautious, I then tried to collect as much information as possible about this phenomenon in order to form a sound attitude. That's what happened.

"Eyewitness testimonies"

There are indeed relatively many reports on the Web by people who have tried the “polyphase” (and over the past year and a half there have been even more). In the runet of such reports, you can easily find two or three dozen.

Of these, the series can immediately be discarded as not satisfying the criteria of adequacy and reliability. For example, on reports with spelling and grammatical errors, "ragged" texts; articles posted on websites promoting the personal effectiveness of bad behavior (“Supermethod: stop sleeping to become a new person and start earning in five days!”) I did not pay attention.

On the contrary, a number of other reports seem reliable. For example, posted on blogs, where you can read other entries and form an opinion about the author in their context.

The overall final impression was this: it works.

Most of the reports were positive: I tried it and it worked. A series of negative ones described failure rather than some pitiable consequences from the experiment. Then, one and a half years ago, I found only one report, which stated that the result of polyphasic sleep attempts was serious impairment of working capacity, which remained after the transition to the normal mode (by the way, this report was among the "reliable" ones).

And according to the majority of negative reports, it was clear that the authors violate the main rule of the transition to polyphasic sleep: they do not withstand the new regime clearly, get off, so that “neither fish nor meat” comes out. And a difficult transition period, according to the guru of this topic, can be successfully passed only under the condition of a consistent approach and clarity, not allowing for a new breakdown mode.

Main source

By the way, about the guru. Although ideas a la polyphasic dream often gather around themselves a kind of sektochka (or even a whole sect ...), a circle of not quite adequate fans, this time I did not come across anything like that. And this is good.

The most detailed, generalizing personal and not only experience book on polyphasic sleep was written by some American living in Michigan, known by her nickname PureDoxyk. This young lady also has a twitter, and, probably, excavations on the web could allow her to find out her name and biography, but I didn’t do it. The book claims that the author has a degree in philosophy, has been practicing polyphasic sleep for many years and feels great.

The book is well written, and it is felt even in the Russian "supramolecular" translation. The author is a person with brains and charisma. The text is simply hung up with disclaimers urging the reader to treat polyphasic sleep responsibly, making the transition clearly and not making it an excuse for just indiscriminate and ineffective sleep. And then…

Here we, in fact, turn to the theory. Well, that is, to the "theory".

"Theory" is

Sleep, as we know, is divided into phases of slow sleep and fast, and the lion’s share of our rest is exactly slow sleep. It is allegedly not as beneficial to the organism as the fast one, and it is to them that the followers of the “polyphase” propose to neglect.

In the transition to the polyphasic sleep mode, the brain learns to “dive” immediately into fast sleep, bypassing the slow stage. When the transition is fully completed, the “zombie state” characteristic of this period passes. A person gets the opportunity to sleep much less time during the day, resting at the same time as fully as during an 8-hour sleep, and all at the expense of “skipping” the “unnecessary” phase of slow sleep. A complete transition, by the way, takes about a month, and the “state of the zombies” lasts about 10 days, provided that the new regime is strictly observed. When it is violated, it is delayed.

Polyphasic sleep is natural for humans as well as for animals (recall the "wolf sleep"). So babies sleep. People often naturally come to this regime under extreme conditions: in war, for example.

Everything said above about the “theory” is not my personal point of view, but the very basis that the supporters of “polyphase” bring under their experiments. It seems to me at least controversial and very common. Nevertheless, the presence of positive reports on the Web, the charm of the PureDoxyk book and the desire for the magic pill prompted me to try.

For myself, I decided this: it is obvious that even if the theory is incorrect, the "polyphase" takes place in practice. If the stars are lit, then someone needs it. Perhaps such a regime for a person is provided as extreme, and causes harm only in the long term.

I just quit my job at the office for freelancing - and decided to try. Like most of whose reports I found on the Net, I took the “Uberman” mode, designed, in fact, by PureDoxyk.

How it was

I have to say that I did not last long. I did not repeat the mistake of many experimenters and maintained the periods of sleep and wakefulness very clearly. I did not encounter another problem that many people write about - the inability to wake up; I always heard the alarm and found the will to rise.

I redid a number of cases that hands couldn’t reach for half a year (for example, I washed the kitchen cupboard covered with greasy soot), and half went through the game Call of Cthulhu - during those night hours when I couldn’t do anything else because my head didn’t think at all .

I stopped the experiment on the third day, faced with a problem that no report warned me about - my heart began to ache. Not too much, but each time with very specific movements. I shook off, noted in the logbook: "the end" and went to sleep.

On the one hand, I didn’t have such problems before, or later, but on the other hand, the pains appeared before, in fact, the experiment started with sleep — obviously, as a result of several days of a completely disorderly regime and an earlier, unrelated lack of sleep. . The new regime only made them regular and strengthened.

Therefore, despite the presence of experience, I have never built a final opinion on such a dream. Obviously, if you try, then you need to take this attempt very seriously, to prepare even more carefully. Although the experiment did not last long, I completely drank unusual psychological sensations, which gave even worse than lack of sleep. The dream began to be felt by some kind of existential value, and the realization that it is impossible to sleep off in the future, that this regime — it is forever — really scares.

Perhaps in the future I will try again. But those who wish to set up such experiments would like to warn one more time: preparation is needed. Well, and, probably, the approach in itself when you increase your effectiveness as such - an intensive approach - is more correct than an extensive one: an attempt to simply “stretch the time” without solving the underlying organizational problems.