Polyphasic sleep.
So, I'm starting a polyphasic sleep schedule tonight. For those that don't know Polyphasic sleep is where instead of sleeping once a night (biphasic) you take 6 x 30 minute naps throughout the day. (2, 6, 10 am/pm).

Wish me luck! :)
( Axai is in Montréal, Canada O.o, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 13:11, 40 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

Why?
.
( girlinthehole, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 13:24, Reply)

same reason anyone does stuff round here
to get attention online
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 14:27, Reply)

^^^ this

Although I would quite like 30 naps throughout the day on top of my usual nights sleep.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 13:26, Reply)

I'll warn you
this will seriously fuck you up.

I worked the night shift from 7pm to 7am for a couple of years, and if I wanted to have contact with my kids or girlfriend I had to shift my clock on my days off. The result was akin to two years of jet lag. Even if I was not drinking and had had my coffee, there were times when I would be going along and suddenly become utterly disoriented and not have any idea where I was or how I got there. This was especially bad when driving a car.

Unless you have a very damned good reason for doing this, I really advise against.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 15 Oct 2008, 14:03, Reply)

You'll be quite mad within a month
Do keep us up to date with developments!

:)
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 14:31, Reply)

More details...
Why:

I currently live in India with my girlfriend. I'm working full time for a company and helping start up a new business in the UK (all todo with computery goodness). I need more hours then there are in the day :)
Also, i've always been interested in the dynamics of sleep, i used to study about lucid dreaming and other phases and i'm intrigued as to whether it will actually work. I've been reading blogs of a few other people that have tried it and after about 2 weeks they adjust to it.

How:

I'm going to be starting tonight at 2am for 30 minutes and then keep it going from there. The trick to not feeling completely *fucked* is to regulate your nap schedules and be VERY strict with them. I have authoristation from my boss and company to do this and more importantly from my girlfriend too.

I'm going to need the strength to get through the first few nights but after that it supposedly starts to get easier.
I've dealt with strange sleeping patterns before but this really takes the biscuit. I'm also thinking of setting up a blog to document my experience
(I need something to do during the night!!)

@TRL: I believe that as stated before, the key is actually regulating your naps to exactly 30 minutes rather than sleeping when and if you can. It's more of an experiment for me than anything else, but we'll see

Axai
( Axai is in Montréal, Canada O.o, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 14:38, Reply)

for the love of God, please tell us you're going to blog all this
the internet must know!
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 14:53, Reply)

is there some sort of spreadsheet we could download?
or better still, a live RSS feed?
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 14:54, Reply)

Who is writing this?
Can you please make sure you sign off your posts so as not to avoid confusion.

Cheers.

Mike.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:57, Reply)

@mike
sorry mike, it's me, Gilgy

Cheers,
Gilgy

p.s. more science in this thread!
b3ta.com/questions/offtopic/post272940
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 16:01, Reply)

I hope it works.
As I said, I found that juggling my sleep cycle did very bad things to me. I was working three days on, two off, two on, three off, two on, two off. (It's a complicated sounding schedule, but it does make sense- it repeats over two weeks.) The result was that I would work, then on the first day off I would stay up all day, then go to sleep about 9:00 and sleep until about 8:00. I would then stay awake until 10:00 or so, then sleep until 8:00, then have an afternoon nap before I went in and stayed awake until 7am.

The result was not good. I needed to either go fully nocturnal (which separated me from most of humanity) or switch to the day shift. I tried the first with bad results in my relationships, and had to do the second. And then I quit altogether.

Good luck with this.


( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:15, Reply)

wait, I get it now
one of you is saying "I might start sleeping really stupid hours"

and the other one is saying "you'll feel shit and tired"

I get it now. Ignore previous messages.
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:22, Reply)

so yeah, what did everyone have for lunch?

( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:22, Reply)

I couldn't do this
for two reasons.

1 - it takes me ages to fall asleep. Even if I'm really tired, I can lie awake for 10 minutes before falling unconscious.

2 - in the rare event that I do take a daytime nap, any less than a couple of hours' sleep and I feel ten times worse than I was before. I wander around feeling groggy and vaguely sick for the next two hours.

Best of luck with this experiment, Axai. I'd be really interested to read a blog on it.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:23, Reply)

@TRL
Thank's for that - i love XKCD ;)

I hope it will be a success but i'm not counting out failure - either.
I'm not sure if my will power is up to scratch. I'll let you all know how it goes - but if you see me posting inane things, come tell me off and tell me to get some sleep.
( Axai is in Montréal, Canada O.o, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:24, Reply)

^^^
...either that or we'll guide you over to /talk, where you'll fit right in! *laugh*

I'm not in a position to experiment in this way in that I have too many other obligations that need to be met during normal hours. I'll be very interested in seeing how this works. It doesn't sound like enough sleep, though- six half-hour naps adds up to only three hours of sleep. I'll be interested in seeing how you fare with this.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:30, Reply)

but I just came from /talk and they don't like me either!
so, yeah ... I might go to sleep later
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:32, Reply)

I'm going to blog this,
http://techblog.martin-simpson.net/

Right now it has a few technical posts but i shall add my polyphasic ones there. Maybe a separate blog would be better?
( Axai is in Montréal, Canada O.o, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:32, Reply)

you should probably register www.sometimes-i-go-to-sleep-at-funny-times.com
it'd be dead popular!
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:33, Reply)

Ah the follies of youth.
I didn't sleep for most of my late twenties and it never did me any harm *twitches*
( girlinthehole, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:34, Reply)

@Gilgamesh
I wasn't aiming that comment at you- I was referring to Jam Rag Geordie et al.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:38, Reply)

he's VERY popular

( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:41, Reply)

Oh Martin, you're such a card.
It's not the ace, the king or the jack though.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:43, Reply)

well that's hardly fair
I think you're just feeling a bit inferior because Marty had to explain to you what a polyhedric sleep shuffle was
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:45, Reply)

I'll admit, Simmo does seem to be INCREDIBLY smart.
I guess we'll have to sit back and see how the Martster gets on.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:47, Reply)

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE REM SLEEP?
MY GOD WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE REM SLEEP.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:45, Reply)

Isn't this hexaphasic sleep?

( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:49, Reply)

WOAH!
you're treading on very dodgy ice there, questioning the word of Marty

I bet he can out-sleep you in his sleep
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:51, Reply)

The last thing I want to do is attempt to outsmart Simmo.
He could attack me during one of the extra hours he has created.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 15:55, Reply)

REM sleep
occurs in early sleep, and just before waking naturally. Being deprived of that is certainly dangerous. In a 30 minute nap you can get that. I just don't know what happens when one is deprived of deep sleep.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 15 Oct 2008, 16:22, Reply)

And remember
to stay away from Cherie and Tony Blair and their venal diseases!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 15 Oct 2008, 16:37, Reply)

I was rather confused...
Until i logged out and refreshed the page.

My ignore list is doing it's job.
If you don't like this thread please, do two things:
- Ignore it (Like most other sane people would do)
- Don't post

That being said, you can always add me to your Ignore list, this way i won't have to suffer your inane comments anymore :)
( Axai is in Montréal, Canada O.o, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 17:30, Reply)

I'd rather just keep taking the piss out of you without you knowing.

( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 22:21, Reply)

I AM IGNORING YOU NOW, IN FULL CAPS, ONLINE

( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 23:12, Reply)

I'm glad you joined b3ta and told us how to post
we must have been doing it wrong for four years before you got here!
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 23:18, Reply)

OLD SKOOL BUTTON NEEDED HERE

( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 23:23, Reply)

I MIGHT HAVE A POLYGONIC NAP SOON

( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 23:37, Reply)

^^
Sadly, it doesn't work that way... you'll have to ignore him in order not to see his egocentric rantings. That way, he can see this, but I can't see his replies...
(Potty Jag har smör i min rumpspringa, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 22:02, Reply)

THIS MAKES ME SAD TOO
SADFACE ONLINE

:(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Thu 16 Oct 2008, 0:04, Reply)

You're an idiot

(PsychoChomp, Thu 16 Oct 2008, 2:35, Reply)