This page has moved to a new address.

< $BlogTitle$>

May 8, 2012

Polyphasic Sleep Cycle Experiment


Today, I've decided to take up a little experiment with adjusting my sleep cycle and I will be documenting my experience, so please follow my blog and check it's progress. My main objective is to see if I can enter the REM period instantly during nap times thus enforcing frequent daily Lucid Dreams. With my old monophasic sleep cycle I would sleep 7-9 hours per night. On average I would have 4 LDs per week. I'm pleased with what dream stability I've achieved through the years, but I wonder if lucid dreams can be attained every day and night?


Babies are born naturally polyphasic and there nap times are spaced apart and frequent. By sleeping in a polyphasic sleep pattern, short naps consisting of 20 minutes over a course of 24 hours will not deprive your body of sleep. You can enter into the 'REM cycle' during your short nap times almost in an instant, no need to wait half the night to enter your dream world! The dreaming cycle, as I like to call it, is commonly known as REM (rapid eye movement). This generally occurs once through a course of a night's sleep alongside other sleep cycles every 90 minutes.
  

Stage 4 is REM Cycle

Many people have reported life changing turnarounds with transiting into a polyphasic sleep cycle. They managed to maintain minimal sleep but with greater energy and mental clarity. Imagine having all the time in the world to do the things you wish to do and with great mental acuity. Not to mention a heightened dream awareness!  It will be interesting for me to see if I can achieve multiple lucid dreams everyday. Imagine, every time you take a nap, you immediately emerge into a vivid dream! Possibly lucid, if you're are in that state of awareness at the moment already. Some reports show that first time polyphasers also become first time Lucid dreamers!  
The early adaptation stage can demand a great deal of phycological strength, so determination and goal setting is paramount. If you are switching from the traditional monophasic cycle to a polyphasic cycle you will discover slight sleep deprivation. This is highly normal and is not dangerous- depending on you sticking to the schedule. It's just your bodies' way of adapting and moving into a heightened state of being. Unfortunately, we must all pass this stage if we are are to feel 'normal' again! However, the amount of time depends on the specific cycle you have chosen. Once out of the adaptation period, you will gain ridiculous amounts of time, have incredible lucid dreams and be more energetically superior to your old self! That can't be a bad thing!?
You can adapt the appropreate cycle that works in harmony with your social and work schedule. You will have ample time to achieve all that you desire... 


                    ALTERNATE SLEEP CYCLES 
(Copied from Highexistence.com)

Uberman Cycle:
20 to 30 minute naps every 4 hours, resulting in 6 naps each day. The uberman cycle is highly efficient, and usually results in feeling healthy, feeling refreshed upon waking and extremely vivid dreams. Many uberman-users report increased ability to lucid dream as well. However, the rigid schedule makes it near impossible to miss naps without feeling horribly tired. Blogger Steve Pavlina tried the cycle for 5.5 months and had amazingly positive results.He only reverted to monophasic sleep so that he could be on the same cycle as his wife and children. Read his articles and updates on the cycle here.

Everyman Cycle:
One longer “core” nap that is supplemented with several 20-30 minute naps. The most successful variations that I have read about are either one 3 hour nap and three 20-minute naps or one 1.5 hour nap with 4-5 20 minute naps, all of which have equal amounts of time in between each nap. This cycle is much easier to adjust to than the Uberman and allows for more flexibity in nap times and in skipping naps when necessary. It is also still extremely efficient compared to monophasic with only 3-4 hours of sleep per day. Many bloggers have tried out this cycle and reported no negative effects on their health.

Dymaxion Cycle:
Bucky Fuller invented the cycle based on his belief that we have two energy tanks, the first is easy to replenish whereas the second tank (second wind) is much harder to replenish. So Bucky began sleeping for 30 minutes every 6 hours. That’s 2 hours a day of sleep! He reported feeling, “the most vigorous and alert condition I have ever enjoyed.” Doctors examined him after several years of using the cycle and pronounced him perfectly healthy. In fact, Fuller only stopped the cycle because his business associates were still stuck on monophasic cycles. This is by far the most extreme of the 4 alternate cycles, but also the most efficient.

Biphasic/Siesta Cycle:
Not even worthy of a diagram, the biphasic cycle is basically that of every college student in America. The biphasic cycle consists of sleeping for 4-4.5 hours at night, and then taking a 90 minute nap around noon. So not all that different, still more efficient than monophasic, but not by much



Click below to see my polyphasic dream experiment so far and please follow ! 



  
































Polyphasic Dream Experiment-Journal


Name:      Nick Barrett
objective: Using Polyphasic sleep to achieve frequent lucid dreams and gain more time to write my new book
polyphasic CYCLE: Everyman 3 core 2 naps (customised)
sleep schedule: (during adaptation period)
5am-8am (3 hour core sleep)
5pm (20 min nap)
11pm (20 Min Nap)
total hours sleep per day: 3hrs 40 mins 
optional- 3am nap for 20 mins-if about to fall! 
duration: two weeks experiment, will reassess duration time depending on dream frequency.



All achieved with no caffeine folks!



Day 1 

Ok, so here I go into the unknown! I suspect it will be much harder at the beginning than after the adaptation process whilst my body adapts. I managed to organise my To-Do list so that I wouldn't get bored, and prepared myself mentally, including my girlfriend, for the long journey ahead. I ate well throughout the day, consisting of vegetable soups, and whole foods. Fruits, vegetables and snacking on cashew nuts kept my energy high. Drank plenty of water and hardly any refined sugars apart from the odd biscuit here and there! Took my day time naps, but just laid there with eyes closed completely awake-but still. So I stayed awake until 5 am and compiled some new material for my (to be out soon) book. I was writing in the company of a beautiful full moon which I could see outside of the opposite window. I'm experiencing slight back-ache now at the base of my spine, mainly because of this chair I've sat on for hours on end probably! Oh well, we learn from our mistakes. Next time, I will take more precautions to stretch more often. I pushed on though and then collapsed gladly into bed....

Day 2 

Good start to the day, I experienced great energy after my core sleep upon awakening. Feeling brilliant! Hoping my spirit stays high like this for the rest of the adaptation period.

Took Spirulina and plenty of Vitamin C to optimise my levels. Went on a 1.5 hour country walk. Ate lunch and stayed awake, as I wasn’t tired. Had nap at 5pm.. Didn’t sleep.. Sought of ‘in-between’ state of consciousness. Woke up feeling groggy… OK once I started to move again. Ate dinner. Had nap at 11:00am.. Again didn’t really sleep, although my other half told me that I snored, but I don’t remember this. I must have been really out of it! I did lay on my back however which was uncomfortable for me to breath. I will sleep on my side next time during nap times. I am looking forward to falling into REM sleep now, along with possible vivid dreams. I am interested in feeling the effects of restoration again. The adaptation process is most definitely taking it’s toll now and my concentration is low. But, I’m assured that it’s all part of the process. I feel I’ve gone past the point of no return anyway and want to see where this takes me. When I feel week and my bed is calling me, I just think of how many lucid dreams will come my way as soon as I fall into the REM Sleep cycle. This is of course my prime objective!

Day 3

Woke up at 8am and by mistake, slightly drifted back off to sleep for an extra half hour. My body is really craving sleep now; I guess this is a good sign though. I prefer to be extremely tired in time for my 20 min nap so that I can drift instantly to sleep. I still haven’t experienced this during naptimes but feel I’m getting more relaxed quicker. No REM!

I’m also finding it confusing how I label the days now. I woke up after my 3-hour core sleep thinking to myself that it was the day after. I’m surely mistaken and because I was awake during the transition between the two days it seemed only necessary to ‘label’ the day after the core break in my sleep consciousness. This is how I will approach this matter from here on.

Looking back over the past few days, during 11:30pm – 5 am is an extremely long time to just sit around and boredom can majorly set in if I’m not fully engaged in something. I watch movies, surf the net, play video games, write some new material for my book etc. I’m also dealing with the fact that I’m the only one up and awake whilst everyone is sleeping. This is completely strange and is slightly giving me a feeling of loneliness. I can’t exactly be moving much, especially when I’m deep in the mix of the adaptation period. I do feel tired towards the 3:00am mark though and find myself looking at my watch at times willing it to go faster. This could be physiological. I may consider adding an extra 20 min naptime if it becomes completely unbearable. I believe nothing should be forced that much, not even for a sleep experiment. You should always listen to your body either way. We’ll see over the next coming days, I won’t give in unless I really have to take that extra nap at 3am.
 

Day 4

Today started terribly and ended terribly... I awoke from my core sleep feeling groggy as ever and my eyes felt like big dry rocks! I made the common mistake of not getting up instantly upon awakening. I said to myself "surely 2 more minutes would'nt hurt.." I woke up 2 hours later! I was mortified! But never the less I forgave myself because of the extreme conditions I was currently putting my body through. I also had to make a 9 hour drive across country because it was the big move.. You see, right now I'm travelling and I didn't take into account how tricky my new sleep schedule would be. But I'm pretty positive of what a polyphasic lifestyle can bring. So that day we drove and drove, and I still tried to take my naps. Still no dreams and sleeping in a car was always a challenge for me. I came to the conclusion that the end of this particular schedule would be coming to an end because of the circumstances. I arrived at the destination and zonked out into bed for the next 12 hours..

Day 5

Woke up completely amazed this morning.. It would appear that this method really works and could work even greater if one were to stick to a particular schedule and show consistant discipline. The previous night sleep was packed with the most detailed LUCID DREAM experiences I could have ever imagined! I had the great pleasure in being with my spirit guide throughout this whole dream. It was tremendously vivid and it would seem that I built up sooooooo much REM sleep in my dream bank, just bursting to get out. In the LD I would be completely aware, more so than ever! This alone tells me that the experiment was a complete sucess, yes, I didn't handle the adaptation phase to the best of my ability and gave into the sleep monster. But hey...I experienced a long awaited high-level Lucid dream that seemed to last for hours! I mean the detail was like no other and I could remember every minute detail of the dream upon awakening. So I decided to stamp it a success and once I stopped travelling so much, I began a newly refined experiment destined for ultimate adaptation into my dream lifestyle.


CONCLUSION

I would definitely recommend polyphasic to the dreaming world. Even though at this stage I'm no role model! BUT FEAR NOT FELLOW LUCID DREAMERS... As I'm writing this conclusion, I must confess that I have adopted a new polyphasic schedule and so far it's been a success. I have a 3.5 hour core sleep this time round along with 2 x 20 minute naps giving me a total of 4 hours and 10 minutes sleep per day. I will be writing more on this topic in my next blog so make sure you leave your email address in the right column to receive a notification. And YES, I am now settled in my new home, back from travelling for 2 years and feel the need now to really dissect my dreaming research even more. I will be compiling most of this in my new book which will be ready this summer, so make sure you grab a copy. I believe that this polyphasic experiment will bring lucidity every day during my 20 minute naps, and I now understand how my body reacts to sleep deprivation. So if you make a mistake, don't worry.. IT'S FINE! You will learn a great deal about yourself.. I believe that frequent, if not daily, natural lucidity can be attained through polyphasic sleep. I also feel that my newly refined schedule will demonstrate this. So far, I'm going through the first week of my adaptation period and I'm showing great progress. I take my designated naps and when it's time to get up, I get straight up no-questions asked!! I seem to have implanted some mystic confidence into my subconscious which can only bring positive results. Still no dreams because my body is still deep sleeping when it can. Currently, my body is craving REM sleep, and this is a good sign.. I will update more very soon.. If you guys out there have tried polyphasic-lucidity then please-please share your experiences below. There is so much to discover out there when our powerful intentions are set. Mine is to be lucid everyday, in waking and in sleep... ;-)

TBC...