I dug into the subject of polyphasic sleep and read a couple very personal accounts of people who made it work for them for extended periods (several months or more). I never tried it myself, but I don't believe they were any less "creative" or functional during this time, or that they were doing long-term damage. So until better evidence comes along, I believe that maintaining schedules like Uberman is possible for the right person in the right place and time, and not trivially a bad idea. For all I know there are good reasons for most people not to bother with it -- like some gene you need to have to succeed -- but we don't know yet.
As drx points out, the author strays into arguments like "abnormal means unhealthy". Another bizarre argument is "it's not optimal because you're less creative etc". Putting aside my own anecdotal evidence that sleep dep makes you more "creative", look -- if Uberman is actually sustainable and gives you X more waking hours per day, I'll decide for myself if that's outweighed by hypothetical cognitive deficits! Arguments like "lots of people have tried and failed" are also sloppy.
Chronic sleep deprivation doesn't cause obvious, self-evident damage at the time, and it's not always obvious to the person who's experiencing it. But it can cause serious, serious problems over time. That is essentially the effect of sleep apnea. The effects are subtle enough that an enthusiastic confirmation-biased person would easily miss them over a period of "several months or more", but they're real and they get worse over time.
Unfortunately kids, wife, and job didn't cooperate with staying on polyphasic sleep.
I think the reason it keeps me more creative is that it's always morning. You are never more than 6 hours from waking up. And, when I've been awake for 6 hours, I start getting tired... take 15 minutes to relax... then take a 30 minute nap, and can get back to what I was doing with renewed vigor.
(I don't think it's the sleep deprivation that is the key part of polyphasic sleep. Polyphasic sleep with 8 hours of sleep a day - say, 4 two-hour naps - would still be polyphasic sleep. You do not have to be sleep deprived to sleep polyphasically. People assume that sleep deprivation comes with it, because when you sleep polyphasically, you need less sleep. Messed up cause and effect here.)
"One of the myths of "Uberman sleep schedule" is that it makes it possible to enter REM sleep and skip non-REM sleep stages entirely. That myth is derived from another false claim that implies a non-essential role of deep sleep. I will ignore these claims as standing in total disagreement with laboratory findings and models of sleep. Instead, let us focus on a more plausible claim of the possibility of compressing sleep stages.".
I.e. "I will ignore one of my opponent's arguments and instead focus on another. Since I can rebuff the other argument, my original viewpoint is true". It's a logical fallacy.
He also tends to say "X is unnatural/abnormal" => "X is unhealthy".
I wish someone did serious research into the topic without prejudice.
http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2006/11/01/an-attack-on-p...
Puredoxyk is one of the two (back then) college girls, who lived on the Uberman Sleep Schedule (and gave it its name) back in 2000. She is also author of the original E2 node about Uberman SS. http://everything2.com/node/892542
There is great discussion on the Google Polyphasic Group about this [Dr. Wozniak's] article: http://groups.google.com/group/polyphasic/browse_thread/thre...
Here is my quick summary:
1. There is not enough scientific data to backup either side (for/against polyphasic);
2. Dr. Wozniak has his own agenda - he advocates so called "free-running sleep";
3. Some of the "facts" [mentioned in Dr. Wonziak's article] are in contradiction with experiences of people who tried polyphasic sleep, like Puredoxyk ( http://www.puredoxyk.com ) or Steve Pavlina ( http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ )
The main weakness in Wozniak's argument/rant is that he assumes all people work the same way. For most people, monophasic or biphasic sleep is most comfortable, and normal human biology seems to back that up.
But Puredoxyk says she has always had spectacular sleep disorders, and that prompted her to try Uberman originally. I doubt her brain chemistry follows the usual biphasic pattern, so it makes sense that frequent, regularly timed naps would work better for her than a forced monophasic schedule.
Steve Pavlina seems to have incredible self-control.
I find that I naturally wake up at 9 PM on a normal day. Sometime, I only sleep 3 or 4 hours a night. However, that is compensated by another 3 or 4 hours of sleep.
But the best thing is that I am no longer sleep tortured by the school system.
I aspire to become an entrepreneur and an independent person and is trying to work toward that goal.
I do, however, predict an early death if I am forced to work with a rigid schedule, especially if I have to drive a car to work everyday.
I particularly liked the part about the sleep habits about the various genius creative people. Cntrl+F "da vinci" to start on that section of the article.
Personally, my best sleeping pattern so far has been a 1-4 hour nap and 4-7 hours of sleep at night. I want to see how low I can go while getting at least a few hours of high level performance and able to function the rest of the day. I don't actually need full speed productivity all of the day and I even prefer cleaning and organizing while I'm a little tired, I get into sort of a zen of it. Anyone else have thoughts on how low you can go while functioning?
I've been taking a 20-45 minute nap in the afternoon for close to a year now. I think it was Dustin Curtis's article on polyphasic sleep that prompted me, and I went with the "siesta" schedule because it seemed the most sustainable -- a lot of people do live that way, and getting work done in the mid-afternoon is hopeless for me anyway.
Any topic away from the main stream should avoid the nasty tactic of labeling different opinions "myths". Wait till your stupid idea is endorse by every sheep-like general practitioner in North America - then you can get away with taring your opponents that way.
"Facts and Myths concerning why 'supermemo.com' is a font of mis-information..." See?
