Thread: Starting the Dymaxion Sleep Schedule

I just started the adjustment period for the Dymaxion sleep schedule and I wanted to post this log for anyone who's interested. To start out with, I'm taking a half hour nap every four hours (which is actually closer to Uberman) and I'll continue with that for a week or two before switching to a half hour nap every six hours. This is because I heard that adjusting to Dymaxion right off the bat is harder.

My naps were a bit off Tuesday (yesterday) due to scheduling, but I'll be taking naps at 2:00, 6:00, 10:00, 14:00, 18:00, and 22:00 from now on. I'll continue to update the log as I go. Feel free to post questions/comments.

Tuesday 6-2-09
7:45
Woke up from the usual monophasic chunk of sleep (went to sleep last night around 23:30). The bags under my eyes are not too bad right now. Previously I wasn't getting quite enough sleep because of all the things going on (finals, violin concerts, etc), but the past few days I've managed to get an extra hour or two of sleep per day. At the moment I'm actually feeling more awake than I usually do. Maybe from the prospect of taking extra naps today.

8:20-8:50
My first nap! Well, I didn't actually fall asleep... I might have started to in the last five minutes though.

12:50-13:20
About the same as this morning's nap, at least as far as being able to fall asleep. (Took a nap during my lunch break. I won't have work again for a while, but I figured it was fine for today because I have a full night's sleep and I won't start feeling the effects of adjusting until sometime tomorrow.)

17:25-17:55
Napped in the car while my dad was driving. I drifted in and out of sleep...mostly out. I did see some faint but vivid images (if that makes any sense), the way I do sometimes when I'm just starting to fall asleep.

21:35-22:05
Finally managed to fall asleep for real.

Wednesday 6-3-09
2:00-2:30
I fell asleep fairly easily this time. At first, when I woke up, I couldn't believe that I had only slept for half an hour...it felt more like two or three hours. Must be a good sign. If I had any dreams, I don't remember them.

6:00-6:30
Best nap so far; I fell asleep right away. For one thing, it felt weird seeing the sky get lighter when my mind was telling me I had just stayed up a bit late. Then when I woke up, I was instantly convinced that I had overslept, and I was starting to get upset when I realized that my mind was playing tricks on me and it had only been half an hour. I was even more confused than the previous nap

10:00-10:30
I started getting really tired about an hour and a half before the 10:00 nap. I closed my eyes and was out like a light, without even thinking about it. Now that I'm awake again, I'm wondering how I can stay awake until 14:00... reading has ceased to be an option, as I knew it would be; it might keep my mind interested, but my eyes won't focus. So far the only thing that seems to keep me awake is to keep moving. I'm going to attempt to clean my room, which needs it anyways. If I get much more tired than this, I might consider adding in the occasional extra nap during the adjustment period. I've read a few people that did that successfully...so long as the naps are limited to about 30 minutes.

(Edited at 12:33): I'm doing better now. I ate lunch around 11:30 and that really helped boost my energy.

14:00-14:30
Still can't remember any dreams, but I did feel more normal after waking up.

16:00-16:30
I decided to go ahead an take an extra nap; it seems to me like adding more naps can only be beneficial. I'm going to make sure that there's a at least two hours between the start of each nap.

18:00-18:30
I've actually been feeling pretty close to normal since my extra nap. For a short time I was worried that I wouldn't be tired enough to fall asleep for the 18:00 nap, but I seem to be getting the hang of it.

22:00-22:30
May have actually had some vague dreams, but it's hard to say. Only slightly tired feeling after waking up, not too bad.

Thursday, 6-4-09
2:00-2:30
Possibly had dreams during this nap. It's really hard to keep my eyes open...I'll add an extra nap at 4:00.

4:00-4:30
I needed this extra nap badly, but I was just as tired when I woke up. After a while, I took a shower, and that helped; my eyes can focus better.

6:00-6:30
Not quite as tired after this nap, but I'm still going to need an extra nap at 8:00. (Also, for some reason my right eye is tired but my left eye isn't?)

8:00-8:30
I can say with certainty now that I've had dreams! At first I thought I couldn't remember anything from the nap, then I realized that a particular recent memory didn't actually happen. It was a very clear and vivid dream which partly consisted of me passing by my friend V. about five times and thinking it was kind of funny (something similar happened in waking life). Maybe not the most interesting dream, but it means I'm on the right track for adjusting As far as how I felt after the nap: about the same amount of awake...ness as before the nap. I was getting a little cold earlier, since the heater isn't on at night, so I bundled up in warm clothes (usually I don't get cold easily, but being sick or tired lowers my cold resistance).

10:00-10:30
Back to almost falling asleep if I close my eyes for a split second. Had lunch. Unfortunately I timed it wrong and I'll wind up sleeping right after eating because I'm taking yet another extra nap.

12:00-12:30
Still tired, but getting better at dealing with it by finding things to do which can hold my attention without taking too much concentration. Pacing around the house like a zombie in the hopes that I won't fall asleep while walking can get old quickly.

14:00-14:30
I think I had dreams again, but I forgot them. I finally feel awake enough to not need an extra nap. This time at least. I managed to finish reading a book; my reading ability has been coming and going, depending on how tired I am. Makes me think that things are going to be a lot different once I'm well adjusted: right now my choices of things to do are a lot more limited.

18:00-18:30
Feeling pretty normal. I should be able to make it to the 22:00 nap without any trouble.

Thursday, 6-4-09
22:00-22:30
Didn't fall asleep too well, but surprisingly I wasn't tired after waking up.

Friday, 6-5-09
2:00-2:30
Still clear headed and awake feeling. I spent just about all the time between 2:30 and 6 working on a 3D puzzle.

6:00-6:30
I had a strong urge to go back to sleep, but I mentally battled reasoned it out and made myself get up. Now I feel only slightly less awake than I did after my previous two naps.

10:00-10:30
Starting to get tired again, reading ability fading.

12:00-12:30
Took extra nap, but reading ability is still gone. I played some of my piano compositions for almost an hour to stay awake; it doesn't require my eyes open all the time, but still takes concentration.

14:00-14:30
Reading ability back almost completely. Started in on a new sci-fi book.

18:00-18:30
As awake as the previous cycle. My plan regarding extra naps: I'll only take at most a couple this next 24 hour period, and one the 24 hour period after that. It occurred to me that although they help me stay awake, I'll probably adjust faster without them.

What is the purpose of this schedule, more chances to LD? If I understand correctly, you're going to sleep only 4 hours per day eventually, that sounds dangerous for your health.

Friday, 6-5-09 (continued)
10:00-10:30
Still at about the same level of awakeness (I know it's not a word) as the last two cycles.

Saturday, 6-6-09
2:00-2:30
Feeling great! I finished the 3D puzzle (it's missing three pieces, actually) and read for a bit (reading ability is still "normal"). I'm starting to really love this time period.

6:00...
I'm really not happy to report this...I overslept. A lot. As far as I can tell, I either slept through my alarm or forgot to press the button on my watch to start the countdown timer. When I woke up, I turned over and saw the clock reading 11:04 I'm worried that oversleeping like that might confuse my body (which was starting to adjust) into thinking that it doesn't need to go directly into REM every nap...That could make the adjustment period take longer, which I don't want to happen.

I have three options that I can think of:
1)I could sleep for a long time, catch up on regular monophasic sleep, then start again from scratch. Unfortunately I can't do that because I don't have time to start from scratch. At least, not enough for me to be comfortable trying.
2)I could give up and try again in the 18 days between the end of summer classes and the beginning of the fall semester.
3)I could try to continue with my naps as if it didn't happen.

After a lot of thought, I'm going for the third option. I looked at examples of other people who've overslept for a long time and a lot of them were successful if they were really consistent with their naps after that. They did say that when they overslept they tended to be really tired and groggy for the next couple of naps. I lucked out on that point; I seem to have the same amount of energy as my previous naps. From what I can gather, oversleeping once doesn't necessarily mean that all the naps before it were for nothing...even so, I'm going to watch myself even more closely. If I oversleep again like that, or if I feel more tired than what I've already experienced (that is to say more sleep deprived), I may have to stop and try again after summer classes.


14:00-14:30
Still plenty of energy. My new rule: the instant the alarm goes off I'm going to get on my feet ASAP. No matter how tired I feel at first. Getting up and moving around always helps to wake up.

18:00-18:30
Barely fell asleep this time. Maybe after the next nap I'll get back into the swing of things.

Originally Posted by Arutad

What is the purpose of this schedule, more chances to LD? If I understand correctly, you're going to sleep only 4 hours per day eventually, that sounds dangerous for your health.

Thanks for posting Unfortunately I have a tendency to give long answers to simple questions. Here it goes anyways.

It'll be two hours a day, actually, if you add up the naps for a 24 hour period. With monophasic sleep (one chunk of sleep every 24 hours), how awake you are during the day depends mostly on the quantity of sleep you get each night plus maybe where you are in the sleep cycle when you wake up.

For sleep schedules like Uberman and Dymaxion: The adjustment period is really hard because for each nap, the body starts going through the other phases of sleep but never gets to REM because the naps aren't long enough for that. Eventually, the body adapts and starts skipping the other phases of sleep and going into REM right away. So basically, once adjusted, the body gets a chunk of REM, goes for several hours, gets another chunk of REM, etc. Whereas with monophasic sleep, it goes through more phases of sleep before getting to REM, then repeats the pattern until you wake up.

Most people that have successfully adjusted to polyphasic sleep (more than one chunk of sleep in 24 hours) say they actually have more energy than before. It makes sense if you think about it. I sometimes think of sleep as a leaky battery; you can't sleep for two or three days straight and then expect to stay awake all that much longer than usual. So going the other way, getting sleep more frequently, is more efficient. Not only are you getting a concentration of REM without the other phases of sleep, but you're also spending less time awake before you "recharge".

As far as health concerns go: The adjustment period is definitely an issue. It's essentially sleep deprivation until the body adapts. That's why it's good to get through the adjustment period as quickly as possible. Some people who try adjusting will continuously miss naps or oversleep but they keep going. They often wind up not adapting, staying in sleep deprivation for a long time, and eventually giving up. (That's why I'm paying close attention to my recent oversleeping incident.)

Once the adaption period is over, however, it's a whole new ballgame. There isn't much known about the long term effects of polyphasic sleep vs. monophasic. Only a few people attempt (or even know about) sleep schedules like Uberman and Dymaxion, and even fewer get through the adjustment period. I've seen a few examples of people who have been succesfully adjusted for several months or even a couple years, and they tend to end up stopping because of scheduling issues, not observable health issues. If there are long term health effects, it's hard to know because there isn't much scientific research that's been done on the subject.

My reasons for attempting Dymaxion:
-It's strange, it's different, it's interesting and I'm curious. As I mentioned, not much official research has been done and I'd love to get some firsthand experience and contribute to people's knowledge about the topic.
-22 hours of waking time and more energy. How's that for a good deal? I can get a bit more work done than usual and also have more free time.
-Yes, it increases the chance of lucid dreams because you're going directly into REM sleep which is when dreaming happens. Plus with monophasic, only the dreams from the last REM cycle gets remembered (unless you wake up between each cycle).

Saturday, 6-6-09 (cont.)
22:00-22:30
Didn't get to sleep right away, again. I'm probably going to be seeing the effects of the oversleeping incident soon. First I'll be too awake to fall asleep, later I'll be too tired to stay awake (easily).

Sunday, 6-7-09
2:00-2:30
Still having difficulty getting to sleep.

6:00-6:30
Slept without much trouble this time. Really tired though. It's not so much that I can't keep my eyes open, just that I can't seem to open them in the first place. May or may not have had dreams, can't recall.

8:00-8:30
Decided I really needed an extra nap, which was fine since I haven't had one for a while now. Woke in about the same condition as I fell asleep. I was playing piano to stay awake when I remembered that I'd had a dream during the 8:00 nap!

10:00-10:30
The good news is, I had another dream! Several fragments, actually. I could remember right when I woke up. The other good news is that I'm almost back to the level of awakeness that I was at before the oversleeping incident. I guess REM vs non-REM really does make a big difference.

14:00-14:30
At first it was hard to wake up after this nap, but I managed. Since about half an hour after waking up, I've felt as awake as any average monophasic day when I got enough sleep... actually getting enough sleep wasn't the average. On monophasic, if I get less than 10 hours of sleep I'll feel at least slightly tired continuously. I'm looking forward to seeing what Dymaxion is like after the difficult first few weeks.

17:45-18:15
Took the nap 15 minutes earlier so my mom and I could go swimming (didn't feel like sleeping in the car and had to leave because the pool closes earlier on the weekends). Most awake I've been since starting the adjustment to polyphasic.

22:00-22:30
Almost awake as last cycle. Didn't have trouble waking up, for once.

hey, thanks for all the posts about your progress, they have been very insightful.. i have been trying to find someone who has done this with out fail.. i have heard of people doing it for like 2 years, but with no actual info.. so i decided to go for it myself.. i am on day 4 and have been doing pretty good.. but i keep getting discouraged.. people tell me that its bad for me and i get so tired sometimes that i just want to stop doing it all together.. its hard to stay on it.. right now i am doing a vlog every night at 4:30ish Am.. if you or anyone wants to follow and help support me, i would really appreciate it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfo6GBUQwGs

James

Originally Posted by Javbe

hey, thanks for all the posts about your progress, they have been very insightful.. i have been trying to find someone who has done this with out fail.. i have heard of people doing it for like 2 years, but with no actual info.. so i decided to go for it myself.. i am on day 4 and have been doing pretty good.. but i keep getting discouraged.. people tell me that its bad for me and i get so tired sometimes that i just want to stop doing it all together.. its hard to stay on it.. right now i am doing a vlog every night at 4:30ish Am.. if you or anyone wants to follow and help support me, i would really appreciate it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfo6GBUQwGs

James

Hi, thanks for your post. Yeah, I haven't heard of anyone doing it for more than 2 years...yet. It's definitely hard to stay motivated when you don't have the support of people around you. Just keep in mind that most people have never even heard of polyphasic sleep and it's been drilled into our heads that we need at least 8 hours of sleep every night (granted, this is true for monophasic sleep). The risk of the adjustment period is sleep deprivation, which you can watch for, but after that polyphasic seems to be very safe and even beneficial. Long term effects (more than 2 years) are unknown, though, since not many people have tried this.

I'll be sure to take a look at your log I'm going to be up at that time anyway, since I'm starting the Everyman sleep schedule in a couple days! (Here's the link to that thread: http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=88616 ). You can post comments there or send me a PM if you have any questions or insights.

Heya.
Thanks for the interesting information on the Dymaxion sleep cycle. You've given me a few useful ideas, mostly the stick to a solid schedule and use off the timer. I've been using my good old wake up alarm. It's a pain to keep setting it though. Upside is I already use the trick of putting it at the other end of the room so I have to get up to turn it off.
I've just started the Dymaxion routine with my boyfriend today. Just had my 3rd nap 3 hours ago. Ok I didn't actually sleep for any of those 3 naps but I'll have a proper nap soon, I hope. The boyfriend faded on me though. After nap 3 he just rolled over and carried on sleeping. I woke him up a few times and he said "I'm just going to lie here for a bit." and passed out again. Oh well. Guess I'm doing it alone.
Lucky for me I've got 6 weeks off to get used to this new routine.
Good luck for when you try the other systems out again!

I've been thinking about starting the Dymaxion sleep cycle myself, so your posts are very interesting. I have one major concern though. How can you get the right amounts of melatonin? To the best of my knowledge it's a pretty important hormone, and it's production peaks at night. Any light, even small amounts of it, can really slow it's production. If you were up and about all night, wouldn't the body's melatonin production come to a halt?

Hm good point about the melatonin! I read on wikipedia that wearing glasses that block blue light should reduce melatonin loss. And then there's this, could melatonin be related to the increase in vivid dreaming in polyphasic sleep?

Anyway, I'm doing the Everyman 3-nap schedule. It's been around 10 days (not quite sure exactly, I don't make any logs), and so far it's going pretty fine I think (I've overslept only one core sleep, and one-two naps). Usually it's hardest to wake up after the core sleep, e.g. today I needed maybe 2 hours to completely wake up. I mean I got up, walking around, watching tv, and so on, but it took me quite some time until I was able to fully open my eyes :-) But then during the day usually it's all fine.

Lately I've got quite interested in the Dymaxion (the Uberman just sounds like pain in the ass with its 6 naps). So I've realized, this Everyman 3-nap is very similar to Dymaxion, where instead of the core sleep you have another nap. After adapting to the Everyman first, it should be fairly easy to switch to Dymaxion, for example by gradually reducing core sleep from 3, to 2, 1 and then 0.5 hours (and adjusting the other naps accordingly, add one more hour between them and make them 10 minutes longer).

As it seems to me, replacing the core sleep with a nap would probably not make a huge difference (in fact it might be better, given how easy it is to oversleep the core sleep). OTOH, adding one more hour between the naps, now that might be tricky. I usually get very sleepy during the last hour before the nap (unless I'm doing something interesting). Adding one more hour to that would make it a lot lot harder to survive until the nap. Though I probably can't judge correctly right now, as I'm still in the adapting period, it will for sure get better once you get fully adapted to it. And then Dymaxion might not sound so impossible :-)

Damn, it's been a while since I've written this much text on a forum :D

There's just the thing with Dymaxion that there isn't any reliable accounts (from which I know at least) that it's even possible. I tried it last winter, but failed pretty miserably. Of course none of those polyphasic dream schedules are easy, but dymaxion ought to be near-impossible. I tried it for a month (though the last attempts were on uberman). I'm going to try uberman again this July.

@ switchbadger:
Yeah, I remember it took me a while before I started falling asleep for my naps, but after a few days that problem mostly went away. Good luck with your Dymaxion attempt!

@ KingCarnie:
Thanks for mentioning melatonin levels, that sounds like something I'd like to research (which is a fancy way of saying I don't know). In my more recent polyphasic attempt, I did the Everyman sleep schedule, and my 3-hour core sleep was at night when melatonin is supposed to peak (maybe that helps...?). A quick Google search shows self test kit's for measuring your melatonin levels...but that's about $80. If I could find a cheaper way of doing it, I'd love to have that kind of data for my next polyphasic attempt. I'd have to have at least two data points; one taken while still on monophasic, and one after adjusting to the new sleep schedule.

@ dimitar:
Thanks for the link, I'll have to look into those blue light blocking goggles. During my Everyman approach, I definitely had the most problems with the core sleep also, although for me it was more that I'd oversleep the core but generally be fine during my waking periods.

Sounds like a good approach to adjusting to Dymaxion. I would probably pick a core sleep more like 1.5 hours, though, for transitioning because it's closer to the length of a regular sleep cycle. Otherwise you might wind up waking up out of a weird phase of sleep and be groggy. Generally speaking, I try to keep my periods of sleep either to multiples of 1.5 hours for core sleep or a 20-30 minute nap. Anything in between doesn't work as well. (At least theoretically. There is a little bit of wiggle room with the core sleep, because the sleep cycles can be anywhere from 90-110 minutes.)

@ Jakro:
The only successful attempt at Dymaxion I've heard of was Buckminster Fuller, who invented it and was on it for about 2 years. And I later heard that he came up with it by sleeping when he was tired and recording when those times were and they just happened to 30 minute increments every six hours. Kind of different from the approach most of us take trying to adjust to it In any case, it's definitely a challenge, to say the least.

Good luck with Uberman

Hey I started the dymexion as well,
I honestly just need more time in the day to get stuff done,

I am doing good, my biggest problem, like I noticed with you as well, is the falling back asleep after the alarm goes off, I am going to go on a 5 minute walk the second my alarm goes off as a fix to this, your post regarding this helped, thanks

It seems like it can/would tottally work, I have more energy, and more hours in the day, it's all about getting up when the alarm goes off, but very doeable if you can.

Exercise seems to help ALOT as well

dymaxion*

is there a technique for school days like it would be strange for someone to sleep at school ,duh!

you can expiriment with the times of naps i.e. move them an hour forward or back, go to wikipedia and type in polyphasic sleeping, if you're in school maybe trying a version of the uberman would be best with only two naps a day, or the evryman

Hey everyone, I came across this thread and feel like bumping it. I'm starting the Dymaxion cycle today after 20 days of the Everyman cycle as of today.

how are you spacing your naps? evey 5.5 hours? My revised Dymaxion sleep pattern is going to be for semester 2: First 30 min nap at 0220-0250 then part 1 of day is 0250-0730 (4hours 40mins) then 30 nap from 0730-0800, day part 2 is 0800-1310 (5hours 10mins) then 30 min nap 1310-1340, day part 3 is 1340-1930 (5hours 50mins awake) then 30 min nap 1930-2000, day part 4 is 2000-0220 (6hours 20mins awake. I found that this way I can still go to social events in the evening that start around 7 and just be a little late, as well as being able to go to town an stay up with friends. My everyman gets me sleeping at 12:50 which is just to early to stay out all night with friends. Another reason i suggest times like this is that only 1 nap will be inside of normal working hours of 9-5, this leaves you with only the 1310-1340 nap to find a good place to nap.

I will be starting this in juneish. At the moment I am on a everyman cycle with core sleep 0050-0350 and 3 naps 0740-0800, 1310-1330, 1930-1950

Due to school times, I have to space my naps a little oddly. Something like this.
0000-0030, 0500-0530, 1420-1450, 1800-1830.