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171 lines
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Markdown
171 lines
8.4 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Polyphasic Sleep
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date: 2010-05-06
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techne: :done
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episteme: :broken
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---
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Definition
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==========
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Polyphasic sleep means sleeping in multiple chunks per day instead of one big
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one. Monophasic sleep is the normal one, averaging in at about 7-9 hours per
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day. The most common form of polyphasic sleep is something like 5+2, i.e. 5
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hours at night and a 2 hour nap around noon.
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However, the really interesting ones are those where you only sleep about 2-5
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hours in total per day. Yes, that's not a typo: *2 hours per day*. They can
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generally be classified into Uberman sleep, which has 6 naps of 20 minutes each,
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and Everyman sleep, which has one core of 1-3 hours and up to 5 nap of 20
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minutes. Both terms were coined by [puredoxyk][], who also has one of the best
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sites on how to adapt to them. I'm not gonna repeat all that here, nor address
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any of the common myths and criticisms (Like, "That's impossible!". It isn't.),
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but instead give my own criticism why I believe it's a *Bad Thing*. Also, a bit
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of personal experience with it because every site about polyphasic sleep needs
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to have anecdotes how bad the zombie phase was.
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Why It's Bullshit
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=================
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Let's start at the opposite end - what does work? Well, polyphasic sleep is the
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best (known) option you have when you can't have more than 2-4 hours per day of
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sleep. If you must sleep that little, for example because you are into solo
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sailing or your newborn child and 2 jobs keep you up all day, than polyphasic
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sleep is right for you. It minimizes the damage this kind of life will do, but
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you will still be worse off. You will still be sleep deprived. [^deprived]
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[^deprived]: Well, as far as I can tell, you are not doing any permanent damage,
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so a week of good sleep will probably fix everything again. Also, many
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polyphasic sleepers will argue that they are not sleep deprived and I
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certainly accept that they don't _feel_ that way. But try using your memory
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and see how fast you crash.
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Ok, having acknowledged that, let's start with the criticism. In fact, it's a
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very simple criticism because it only involves one point.
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Polyphasic sleep destroys your memory.
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--------------------------------------
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Sure, you are awake more (if you are lucky; most people aren't and delude
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themselves to the fact), but you can't use the time in any meaningful way. You
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can't learn more; in fact, you'll learn less. All existing studies show that
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performance is slightly below normal levels, which means you have 4-6 more hours
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of waketime, but you are actually performing worse than if you had slept them
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all. Great job. That's like taking a shortcut, only to drive slower so that you
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arrive even later.
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Why is there not a single polyphasic scientist? No, Tesla was not polyphasic, he
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crashed regularly. Edison lied about his schedule and, while being mostly
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polyphasic, didn't save any time (and he was not a scientist). Buckminster
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Fuller only slept polyphasically when touring, for the reason I mentioned above.
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Why is there not a single polyphasic polyglot? You'd think that someone who is
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learning multiple languages at the same time would be glad over every single
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hour per day they can get. Yet, not a single one of them is documented to be
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polyphasic. Some have tried (mostly early polyglots), no one was happy with it.
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Why does no military or space agency advocate polyphasic sleep? There are
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several studies researching it, but they all document a severe loss of
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performance and they all advise against it, except when external circumstances
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force you to be polyphasic, as mentioned earlier.
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Why does all data collected via SRS, like for example Supermemo, show that
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sleeping in big chunks correlates with good performance? If there are working
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examples of polyphasic sleepers, no one of them has ever demonstrated this via
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their SRS statistics, and Supermemo captures a lot of those. There isn't a
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single example of someone sleeping 4 hours or less per day and still getting a
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normal retention rate for the same amount of data learned.
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There is a simple answer to these questions: Because polyphasic sleep doesn't
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work. It's bullshit. For all the claims of "superhuman" feats, there hasn't been
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a single bit of evidence for it. Proponents have made all kinds of claims and
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assurances, yet have presented nothing. Most of them don't even seem to be
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capable of grasping the importance of empirical evidence. It is pseudoscience.
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Alternatives
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============
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Alright, so polyphasic sleep sucks. But is there an alternative? As you can see
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in my blog posts below, I occasionally got really cool runs of 3-5 days where I
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worked like a madman for 20 hours a day, no problem. Sure, I crashed afterwards,
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but I still got all this stuff done. And if you sleep long enough afterwards,
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then your memory will catch up a lot.
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If you don't care about your mental health and you don't care about being able
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to sustain your behaviour, go right ahead. If you also keep in mind that the
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majority of people drop out of polyphasic sleep after a month or less, I would
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recommend a better alternative: Amphetamines. It has exactly the same amount of
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advantages (awake at all costs), is easier to use and fucks you up just the
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same.
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Or, a bit more seriously, if you are bipolar like me, you can simply embrace
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your manic side and fuel it every time it shows up. Every once in a while, I
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go on a megalomaniac caffeine spree, drinking over 3 liters of coffee (or cola,
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sometimes - I still like the added sugar high) per day. Sure, I can't maintain
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that and after about a week, I look like I just escaped Arkham Asylum, but _man_
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do I get stuff _done_ in this week.
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Being a Zombie
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==============
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This is one of my old blog posts, written 8 months after my first adaptation in
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2008.
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> I'm pissed. So very pissed.
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>
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> Polyphasic sleep is getting on my nerves. Let me summarize the last 8
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> (8?!) months.
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>
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> _October_. Yay, finally some Uberman! Oh god, this is hard! I may have only
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> 2 hours of sleep, but I also only have 2 hours of
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> not-feeling-like-a-zombie. Screw this shit.
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>
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> _November_. Experimentation. More experimentation. Even more
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> experimentation. It works! I feel ok! An unexpected event occurs. I'm
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> screwed.
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>
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> _December_. It's futile. Uberman is just not practical. Let's do everyman! 3
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> hour core, sleep galore! It works! The excitement wears off, I'm screwed.
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>
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> _January_. Can't think, can't dream, can't move. Bang my head against the
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> wall. Some days are perfect, others are hell. Experimentation.
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>
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> _February_. Better times, stricter schedule, more experience. Results:
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> underwhelming. I crash, can't get back up. This doesn't work.
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>
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> _March_. Not enough time. The naps too infrequent, the core too short, the
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> sleep-throughs too frequent. This is just an adaptation problem, it will
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> go away.
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>
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> _April_. It didn't. It's futile. What about a 90 minute core and 5 naps? It
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> works! Excitement! Uberman-with-a-core works! I study like mad, finish 2/3
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> of the whole semester in 3 days.
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>
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> _May_. Instability. It really is Uberman-with-a-core. Didn't eat right?
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> Oversleep. Did some exercise? Oversleep. Didn't find a bug in your code?
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> Oversleep. Made the tea a little too strong? Oversleep. Every one
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> destabilizes the schedule. I have 3 in one week, that's it. Impractical,
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> totally impractical. Better than Uberman, though.
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Another one:
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> Impatience is really getting annoying. Except for the short core I can't skip
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> any time at all anymore. If something takes 6 hours, like a download for
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> example, I will be awake (almost) all the time and have to wait. Every.
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> Minute. Of. It. You see everything pass. Someone just went to bed and you want
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> to talk about something? Prepare to sit there, for 8 hours or more, fully
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> awake. Wrote some email and await an answer? You'll have memorized 500 digits
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> of π before you get it. You can't skip anything, can't just hibernate a few
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> hours. Once the sun went down, you'll sit in darkness, for 14 hours and more
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> right now. If you are not president by day, superhero by night and mad
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> scientist on the side, you'll be bored right out of your skull. Your puny
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> hobbies are not enough for The Night That Never Ends, mortal!
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This was actually my main motivation to become polyphasic. I just had too many
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hobbies and needed way more time. And when polyphasic sleep works, you feel like
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on cocaine, finishing the work that takes your friends weeks during one 40 hour
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weekend. I even started picking up another language just to have something to
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do! But then, after a while, your brain is completely overloaded and you just
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crash. So it _is_ just like cocaine, really.
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