Starting poliphasic sleep. Two hours of sleep per day. My reasons.
I've just started sleeping following the Uberman's sleep schedule. "Uberman" is just the name of one of the diferent types of polyphasic sleep. And polyphasic sleep just means that instead of sleeping once a day (monophasic), you'll sleep multiple times a day. So, the Uberman schedule consist on sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours. That means you go to sleep 6 times a day. Ending up sleeping only 2 hours every day. I've been aware of the Uberman sleeping schedule for several years. I remember, frustrated for not having time to do all the stuff I wanted, googling: "How can I sleep less?". And finding PureDoxyk's original post on the subject. At that time, I even did a impulsive attempt to try it. It didn't quite worked out. Uberman requires a very strict sleep schedule and consecuently that means you need very flexible life style. I'm not going to cover the details of Uberman or Poliphasic sleep since there are lots of stuff out there. If you are interested on the subject there are some links below you can check out. Instead I'll just try to explain my reasons for doing it, and in a while, my experience: Its life! As far as I know the time I'll be alive is kind of limited (although I really believe our generation or the next one will be able to reach immortality). Oversimplifing things, the only time during the day that I'm not really living, and for living I understand experiencing things, is when I'm sleeping (I'll put dreaming aside for now). Sadly we spend one third of our lives on this "useless" state. I don't think I'll ever be satisfy enough with the time I have. There are so many things to experience, so many people and places to meet, and so many things to build. Time is my currency. So if someone tells me there is a way I can live 30% more, and you can do it while you are young... I'm sold. This is the reason I'm doing it on the first place, but it comes with some other ones that makes the whole thing even more appealing to me. Organitzation While in monophasic when you wake up every day you have 16 hours ahead of you and lots of things to do. This is a problem to me. So much time for so many things. I end up procastinating. Is like new year's eve resolutions. Although is something to be tested, it seems to me that waking up and knowing that you just have 3h and 40min until you go back to sleep again, will make you pick up a couple of things and just get them done. For the last three years I basically had not tight schedule. I went to sleep when I was sleepy and I woke up without alarm. Uberman schedule is the antagonic piece of it. I'm a little scared of how this unflexibility can effect my freedom and lifstyle. Euforia!!! Let me just quote PureDoxky:
This euphoria is a sense of very sharp clarity, of fluid mental acuity, and in general feeling at ease - literally, as if things are easy. It is, to be cutlural and silly a moment, somewhat realizing you're in The Matrix: Everything slows down; you feel like you're functioning much faster and better than the world around you
This effect doesn't seem to happen all the time nor to everyone but is a very common report. I believe there are no much to say about it. Time perception I try to do an effort to not label concepts. We simplify an experience or a thing to just a few words to allow our heads to think about complex stuff easier. Way to often this simplified label end up replacing our understanding of reality. I have the feeling that we have a similar relationship with time. We are so use to experience it in a very specific way, defined by day and night that it seems to me that our brains have labeled (and somehow faked) our perception of time. By removing the "sleep block" that defines a new day, time becomes a continuos stream. I have no clue what I'll get from it but it feels very intriguing to me. Lucid dreaming It seems to be another comon report from Uberman users. I've never experienced it but sounds awesome to me. A the time of writing this I'm on my third day following Uberman. So, still in the middle of the adaptation phase. While adapting to the new schedule you go to a long states of sleep deprivation and lots of people give up. One of the reasons of writing this blog post is to add myself some social pressure to go over this adaptation phase. Also, I'm interested that people who surrounds me know about it due the high social implications this schedule have. I'm keeping a Google spreadshit with logs of my current experience as well as a general schedule of what to do and few lists of things to fill the 30% of extra time I have every day. Check it out here, comments are enabled. My intention is to do a follow up of the experiment on this same post after I get a significan experience on it. I mention a couple times PureDoxky. She has the credit of comming up with Uberman's schedule, experimenting, sharing and exposing it to the rest of us. On her website you'll find all the resources you need to know all about polyphasic sleep. She also have a book were she covers all the ins and outs and give ton of resources and tips to succesfully adapt to a polyphasic schedule. If you want to save some time resarching, just read this.
