sleeping 5.2 hours per night = Everyman2

Right I hope this is the appropriate place to post this. I'm experimenting with an Uberman derivative technique that would allow me to greatly minimize my needed sleep hours, while still being energetic during the day and having LD's.

detailed explanation of what it is here:
http://dustincurtis.com/sleep.html

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It seems that all you really need to survive and feel rested is the REM phase, which is only a tiny portion of your actual sleep phases at night. You only spend 1-2 hours in REM sleep during any given night, and the rest is wasted on the other seemingly useless phases. This is where the opportunity to hack the brain presents itself. What if you could find a way to cut out the other phases and gain 4-5 more hours of productive wakeful time?
Hello, polyphasic sleep

One of the ways to force your brain into REM sleep and skip the other phases is to make it feel exhausted. If you’ve gone 24 hours without sleep, you might notice that you drift away into dreams straight from being awake. This because your body goes instantly into REM sleep as a protection mechanism. The way to hack yourself into entering REM sleep without being exhausted is to trick your body into thinking you’re going to get a tiny amount of sleep. You can train it to enter REM for short periods of time throughout the day in 20-minute naps rather than in one lump at night. This is how polyphasic sleep works.

There are actually six good methods to choose from; the first one, monophasic sleep, is the way you’ve probably slept your whole life. The five others are quite a bit more interesting.

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Polyphasic dreaming log. Everyman2. 11pm-3:30am core, 7am nap, 6pm nap.


Days 1-2
I started off expecting these great feelings of dizziness/sleepiness that are supposed to happen during the adaptation period. So far I’m on day 2, that is I already spent 2 nights sleeping this way- it’s 16:12 now and I’m still quite energized. While I did feel somewhat tired yesterday during the evening it wasn’t anything I’d consider “abnormal” – if even this goes away then wohoo that’d be awesome. It’s really awesome how the days are getting longer- I usually sleep 8-11 hours so getting an extra 5-6 hours in a day is incredible I finally feel like I have time. Still, I wonder if the brunt of the adaptation is still in front of me as it very well could be – as of yet I’ve had problems with napping – while I do lie down at the prescribed times I don’t really fall asleep – instead at best I sort of zone-out and am on the verge of sleep. Yesterday something interesting happened- as I was trying to nap I was startled by a very loud violin sound that my own brain created randomly – it was the “loudest” thought I ever had while awake- was quite interesting. So far no dream recall, that I attribute to the fact that my dreams become recallable after I sleep for 3-4 hours of sleep normally (prior to that I can never recall anything) – hopefully if/when I begin to nap my dream recall will go back up.

okay- 5 more days have past. 3 LD's

I have been strictly adhering to this schedule, and the amount of time I have gained is amazing! waking up at 3:30am and doing everything you normally wouldn't have time to do is simply brilliant! Now, as for the downsides- they are pretty much negligible with me- I'd say that for the vast majority of the time I was in a productive state of mind, and this is truly worth it. Usually when you wake up you are very sleepy but as soon as I start doing computery stuff the tiredness goes away. I also had this fear, that there would be a cumulative sleep deprivation effect, where I'd feel more and more tired every following day- this hasn't happen- I feel that my energy levels are stable if not on the increase. I did oversleep one nap yesterday by 2 hours due to improperly setting the alarm- I was energetic before going to sleep but after oversleeping woke up drowsy, and with a feeling like my body has basically been in a coma, not refreshed at all.

As for the 3 LD's - I didn't do any type of induction, except for sporadic RC's. Today I had an extreeeeemly vivid dream in which I later gained lucidity- I won't go into details of it but in the nonlucid I thought I died and had reincarnated and was still in my own house for some reason, and in that initially nonlucid part I still felt way more "conscious" than regular nonlucids, it was extraordinary, realistic and slightly disturbing, but oh what a trip. (btw I'm an atheist)

Also as a side-note I have read that some people who follow uberman-everyman techniques start eating more fruit - this has happened to me as well and overall I find that I eat somewhat less, which is awesome - finally I might loose those extra pounds. I'm also a vegeterian and some blogs state that it's easier for vegetarians to adapt to this schedule.

I appreciate you reporting your experiences on polyphasic sleep. I keep looking into it but hesitating because I'm concerned about whether it really works and whether it's practical at all in the modern age.

Please do continue to keep us posted on how the experience goes for you!

I've been interested in trying this before, but now I am even more after reading that link. I'll keep track of this post and see how it goes for you. :)

My biggest concern is dreaming. Will this cut down on the amount of dreams I recall and am able to get up and write down? I don't know if I'd be okay with that. I like normal dreams even more than LD's.

Keitorin, I've not done polyphasic sleep myself, but I've read enough about it to know that the principle is to drive REM sleep more abruptly and deeply so that the smaller amount of sleep you get is more efficient in a sense. Dreams actually become more vivid, easier to recall, and easier to become lucid in. Few people who attempt polyphasic sleep have as carefully developed a language for lucid dreaming as DV does, but I think the type of lucid induction that's most typical is WILD since the time from waking to sleeping is so short that you can easily just choose to keep your mind awake as your body falls asleep.

I don't know if it's easy to keep dreams non-lucid, though. Most people don't comment on that. I do know, though, that there are lots of people who are lucid for practically all their dreams, and many of them enjoy their dreams quite well.

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Originally Posted by Morphenius

Keitorin, I've not done polyphasic sleep myself, but I've read enough about it to know that the principle is to drive REM sleep more abruptly and deeply so that the smaller amount of sleep you get is more efficient in a sense. Dreams actually become more vivid, easier to recall, and easier to become lucid in. Few people who attempt polyphasic sleep have as carefully developed a language for lucid dreaming as DV does, but I think the type of lucid induction that's most typical is WILD since the time from waking to sleeping is so short that you can easily just choose to keep your mind awake as your body falls asleep.

I don't know if it's easy to keep dreams non-lucid, though. Most people don't comment on that. I do know, though, that there are lots of people who are lucid for practically all their dreams, and many of them enjoy their dreams quite well.

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Thank you for this helpful response. :) Maybe even if I do get lucid, I can make myself a passive part of it when I want to.

I'm definitely interested in experimenting with what I can do.

Ok, I have now been practicing this technique for a month, and think it's the best thing since sliced bread - how could I ever have been without it.. all the wasted hours.. bah! So, I composed my experiences of the last month in this one post, with my problems and also my solutions - I hope someone finds them of use.

In any case, the reason that I didn't keep a more detailed log was that I initially did run into some problems, and didn't want to post until I had a solution. The problem - oversleep.

After my previous post, I would often wake up after a nap, and, for instance set the alarm to snooze for another five minutes, or something similar like "oh I'll just rest my eyes" - this always resulted in me sleeping 2-3 hours more. unacceptable. This "return to normality" to me felt useless- while I used to be a long sleeper - like 10-12 hours when I got the chance, something changed - now sleeping even 8 hours felt like a waste - after waking up from those extra hours I didn't feel more refreshed, I felt, like normal people do if they were to sleep for 13-15 - groggy, drowsy and generally non-clearheaded. What's more, I've sort of sunk into a pattern - I kept thinking that I was improving, but every 3 days or so I'd oversleep. something had to be done-.

I discovered that, the critical time for me, when I was failing this technique was right after waking up - the first few minutes are crucial, as the body seems to send out an almost magnet-like instinct to go back to sleep, after that you still feel sleepy, but I found that if I start browsing the internet after about 15 mins the tiredness goes away and I am then wide awake, ready to lead a productive 1/3rd of the day until my next sleep period.

The last straw was when I set the alarm for 3:30 am for my core sleep and woke up at 6am, with the alarm turned off- seems I have turned it off, in an almost unconscious, sleepy state of mind. I also had trouble falling asleep sometimes during naps.
So.. I began writing down rules for myself to help eliminate those issues one by one. these are all "small" things but together they helped me solve this problem.

1. no sleep time extension/snoozing - ever!!
2.get up instantly after the alarm
3.first make the bed then turn on the pc! (because, while the pc is booting, I might otherwise get an urge to lie down for "just a bit")
4.no couch!
5.no unscheduled/extra naps, even if "very" tired
6.even if you know you might miss a nap later during the day due to your activities, don't take a nap in advance.
7.if you wake up tired it's good - means you are more likely to fall asleep during a later nap.
8.bananas - good for waking up

But then, as I said earlier, I experienced the time I "unconsciously" turned off the alarm and didn't even remember it - how do you solve that?

The solution might be a bit "out there", but what I do is before going to sleep I hide the alarm behind a table in an inconvenient place, and in order to reach it I must first get up, and turn on the light - by the time I do do that I am already up and I remember why I did this in the first place. since I started that about a week back haven't overslept.

Now, to clear somethings up - you do NOT feel like a mindless tired zombie, like you would if you were to only sleep 5 hours "normally" - I feel very productive, except for the first 10-15 mins after waking up, and the extra hours are amazing! I have time for everything!

As for LD's I have those as well, I had them 2 days in a row 3 days back, then yesterday I had a semi lucid. And generally since I started this technique, I have been having lucids after 4-5 days of initially adjusting (then again I had many lucids even before). The difference is that this time I can put very little effort into it, and only keep a DJ and do occasional RC's when something weird occurs.

My theory, is that this has the same general idea as WILD, in that while WILD is falling asleep while consiousness, everyman/uberman give you REM sleep during naps (where almost all of my LD's occured) with very little "boring" sleep beforehand, so my conjecture is that parts of the brain simply don't shut down in time and you are still somewhat conscious when you enter REM during naps.

Do I feel like I can keep this technique up indefinitely? yes! I hope I'll live (sleep) this way till I die.

hope this helped or was interesting, cheers!

Sorry for bringing up an old topic, but this is quite interesting. Do you still do this now, 6-7 months later?

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Originally Posted by hallahill

Sorry for bringing up an old topic, but this is quite interesting. Do you still do this now, 6-7 months later?

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nope - I couldn't keep it up.

1. if people disturb you during the 30min nap it's VERY irritating
2. I began to constantly oversleep during naps for 1-2hours

I may give it a shot some day but for now I just have normal sleep +LD's