Polyphasic Sleep - Uberman Method

I remember my friend tried it for 6 days, and ended up sleeping through the whole 7th day.

How is this going to help with university, just sleep at night like a normal person. You can't just have a couple naps, the objective remains to acquire a daily total of 8 hours of sleep.

Ironically I tell you to sleep at night like a normal personal and it's going on 4am here...

The plan immediately reminded me of:

Sub-text: "Small print: this schedule will eventually drive one stark raving mad."

I was going to hop on the Uberman, but decided it would be extremely hard to follow my career path/schooling on a sleep sched like that.  My buddy actually did it for 3 months, but he has some neural issues (from birth) and his doctor told him to stop.  No negative effects were seen of it, though.

I was thinking I might try the uberman sleep schedule over the summer and see how it works out.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graphicism 

How is this going to help with university, just sleep at night like a normal person. You can't just have a couple naps, the objective remains to acquire a daily total of 8 hours of sleep.

 

Ironically I tell you to sleep at night like a normal personal and it's going on 4am here...

Studies are showing that using polyphastic sleep allows some to sleep for significantly less time than what is required under a normal sleep schedule. There are a few different varieties, the most popular are the one described by OP, with several naps throughout the 24 hour cycle, and the uberman sleep schedule, with 3-4 naps during the day and a longer(3 hour) rest at night. Most people who try sleeping like this quit due to the social annoyance of being awake at all hours of the day, when others are trying to sleep. I haven't read of anyone quitting due to fatigue or other health concerns.  
 

EDIT: One of the more important conciderations of the schedule is that you cannot skip naps. They make up your necessary sleep for that day. It is supposed to be a rather hard crash if you break your cycle.
 

Polyphastic sleep is actually still a very interesting study.  Basically, people in the Uberman sleep cycle are reprogramming their brain, through sleep deprivation, to immediately send them into their REM cycle, the most 'restful' sleep.  Studies seem to suggest that it would not negatively affect you, but critics say that you need all of your sleep cycles to attain proper restful sleep, and allow your brain relaxation and processing time.  There was a really interesting thread about the Uberman specifically, I'll see if I can dig it up.

Edit:  Here it is!  Give that a look over.  http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720

Bah, who needs sleep when I have my caffeine and amphetamines to keep me sustained?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Armaegis 

Bah, who needs sleep when I have my caffeine and methamphetamines to keep me sustained?

fixt.

= D

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddrddrddrddr 

Dang... failed hard. I took the first nap, got up, and when I went to sleep for the second nap I slept right through the alarm and woke up at 11:30. It is weird that I woke up at all though, since I can sleep from 5 am all the way to 3 pm.

Check out that thread I linked.  The key is redundant alarms for the first WEEK.  Finding a strobe simulation + alarm program for your computer might be able to do it.  Darken the room entirely, and have it go off 3 minutes after your alarm.  As long as you can set the strobes to 0.5 seconds, no problems should crop up.

I really wanted to try polyphasic sleep when I was in med school, but I couldn't find anyone who would try it with me. I think that's key, because you have to make yourself so sleep deprived that your body resets when it goes into deep sleep, and it's hard to prevent yourself from oversleeping during the transition period. If you get someone else to do it also, you can stagger your naps and each person will make sure the other wakes up.

I hate to disappoint you but it wont work in the long run. We all have a circadian pattern regulated by hormones, lots of them (day cycle) and a homeostatic drive (sleep need which increases as wake time increases).

It is not possible to entrain your normal pattern into a non-physiological one.

I had a roommate who used to work the graveyard shift and had a really wonky sleep schedule. I'm not sure if he ever slept more than 4 hours in a row. Usually one "normal" sleep, and about three "naps" throughout the day.