quote:
I know the principle of polyphasic sleep I also know from personal experience that one can go without sleep for long periods. And from personal experience as well as considering our social lifestyle consider trying to mold ones internal clock to set hours of sleep is going to take more than 7 days adjustment. I consider taking a 1.5 hour nap a minor setback especially considering you benefitted from it.
It is not the adjustment of ones internal clock that takes roughly 7 hours. But about the time it takes for the brain to start jumping directly to REM, and beginning to benefit of the 20 minute naps. Apparently this takes aprox 6-9 days, while it takes 10-12 days until you start to feel really refreshed after each nap.
It then also takes aprox 20+ days before your internal clock is adjusted, so you actually wake up after 20 minutes without having to use an alarm clock.
quote:
As for it being the way Leonardo slept... have you considered that the wiring of his brain was probably different since humanity as a whole has not adopted this method in all these years. It's questionable if this make him more productive or whether it was necessary for him because he was such a genius thinker. To compare with someone who is not alive today is redundant. Expecially when considering the, pollution, our bodies must handle, the processed foods we ingest as well as the sheer volume of sugar and caffine consumed. If you want to be like Leonardo you need to eat the same foods as him and have the same internal clock as him.
Mentioning Leonardo was just a side-note explaining what cycle I was refering to, since it is a well known fact that Leonardo slept very little.
There are quite a few well known people though the times known to use this system to sleep. But that is really not important, and was mostly mentioned to see that even great thinkers used this system, and still keeping the same clear-mindness.
It is not like he, or anyone else, slept like this originally, but something you adjust to. In reality most animals sleep this way, and even though humans no longer do so, we can still adopt to it.
It works more as a security feature of the mind. After about a week of sleep deprivation, while still sleeping, but not long enough to benefit from it (15-30 minutes). The mind as a security precaution, jumps right into REM, skipping the other steps. Regenerating the mind, but does skip the steps only beneficial to the body. That is why for some people the imune system goes down a little after a few months, and you should be careful to get all necessary vitamins and try to eat healthy while on this cycle.
There has been studies on the polyphonic sleep cycle during the 90's. And my facts are based on them, and not on Leonardo or anyone else. But even though Leonardo slept like this most of his life, the studies show it is safe to go on this cycle for six months to a year, but should not be followed any longer. This mostly because there aren't any scientific tests for longer periods, that is why I wanted to know if someone had followed though with this for several years.
quote:
I don't think finding that your internal clock kicking in a nap for 1.5 hours is failure in the project. A minor stumbling block perhaps. They say Rome wasn't build in a day they probably had to knock down some of the work they did to get it right too.
As mentioned, I did try this for about two years ago. I kept oversleeping, and because of that failed and after 30 days I gave up. I never lasted as long as 6 days without oversleeping, as I did the last week. Going through the the sleep deprivation period is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. And if the nap of 1,5 hours sets me back a day or two, having to go through it all again, that I do consider a failure.
quote:
BTW I've had a sleep cycle of 4 hours sleep 18 to 20 awake then sleep again for years. I don't recommend it.
That is understandable, but then again that is pretty much the opposit of the polyphasic sleep cycle. Sleeping several hours at a time (regular sleep) causes you to get about 1,5 hours REM on a 8 hour sleep. If you sleep only for 4 hours, you only get about 45 minutes worth of REM. And it is no wonder you feel tired. Successfully converting to polyphasic sleep and sleeping 20 minutes every 4 hours causes you to get 2 hours REM in a 24 hour period, actually more than a normal 8 hour sleep would
I found this forum by searching for further information regarding the cycle, and you should really check this one out: http://www.learningstrategies.com/forum/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000476.html
Thank you for your reply however, at least someone cared to read my useless post 
