Do you Uberman?

[Jon Parr]

Uberman is name for a Polyphasic Sleep Cycle, where one sleeps for 15 minutes every 4 hours.  

Dymaxion sleep is where on sleeps 30 minutes every 6 hours.

Everyman is a core nap of 2-4 hours, with 2-4 naps throughout the day

Permalink Reply by Carey Ma 3 hours ago

Threadjackers united! A force of its own...hehe...sorry, sorry, I can't help myself...

I've only had two paying jobs in my life and hope never to have one again. I started sleeping only four hours a night while I was in collage some thirty years ago. I did burn out about a decade ago but am back to four to six hours a night with naps during the day, whenever feel tired. There is always so much to do and learn, twenty four hours is just not enough. I use to wish I didn't need sleep. Data on Star-Trek is so lucky.

[Nate Storey]

Huh.  That's pretty interesting.  I definitely have interactive dreams- i.e. I sat up in bed once, my wife freaked out, smacked me in the chest and told me to go back to bed.  I remember the dream I was in, fighting someone or confronting someone- when she hit me in my dream I got shot in the chest (it was incredibly real).  (disturbing I know. . . I die a lot in my dreams)  Anyway, I almost never remember dreams, except when I die.  I do sometimes dream right before I wake up, where I can conciously make decisions- kind of like a choose your own adventure book.  Anyway, I think I'm going to have to try to do this this summer- I don't know how it will work, but it's worth a shot.  When I was in the Coast Guard, I didn't get much sleep- (basic training and then different watches, etc.)  Anyway, I just remember being not-quite right most of the time, although I could fall asleep quickly.  If this works it would be very interesting, if it doesn't I'll be a total mess.

[Jon Parr]

Well there goes the myth that if you die in your dream, you die in real life too. You're wife sounds lovely, btw. :)

[Nate Storey]

She's a total sweetheart.  She just freaks out a bit when I jump up in bed, or yell and punch an imaginary enemy or something. . .  I told her the next morning that she was responsible for my death.  She didn't feel bad one little bit.  

[Jon Parr]

I'm sure she is, I'm just messing with you. So, yelling at the imaginary enemy? I predict lucid dreaming is going to be fun for you, and the whole neighborhood! Maybe have your wife keep a video recorder handy.

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Yeah, I heard that one too  when I was a kid (dying in your sleep), totally bunk though.

Hehe, she must pack quite a bunch Nate...  My wife and I do our sleeping in different rooms/beds, because of my throwing punches, kicking etc...Though it doesn't really seem to happen as often anymore...Plus she's a total wreck and can't function properly if she doesn't get at least 6.5 to 7 hours of sleep in a 'normal' block. I'd be awake and bored after 3 or 4 hours. We've gotten used to one another's schedules, and it works out quite well now.

These days (about 2 months now almost), between the winter we've been having and the grow-box lights being on all night, it's pretty much a constant "dim-light" environment for me. This polyphase sleep works real well for the hearth not going out while it's been so cold out.

Jon is right, it's not the sleep deprivation that causes all the neurotic sypmtoms, it's REM deprivation that gets ya. In lab settings they've let subjects get 7 hours of nightly sleep, but without allowing them to go into REM, the next day it was as if they hardly slept at all. The typical 'no-sleep' effects just got worse as the days progressed. I think some postulate that a human might even die if not able to dream for a period of time (rats generally die within 2 to 5 weeks).

Polyphasic sleep helps you get the good stuff without all the useless (for me) filler. And as Jon also said, helps greatly with content retention and seems to increase the occurrence of lucid dreaming. The 'waking up super refreshed' factor is just ridiculously high after a lucid nap/dream.

[TCLynx]

I'm curious here.  I know that short naps can be really refreshing when one is mentally tired.

However, how does the short sleeps work with bodies that have been doing really hard physical labor?  I know my sleep is different when I've been doing very heavy work as compared to when I've been just been working long days that are more mentally demanding.  Just wondering if you guys know of studies that have looked at the amount of physical activity in relation to sleep cycles.

[Jon Parr]

The article I first read about polyphasic sleep said that your body only needs 15-20 minutes of horizontal time to offset the cell damage of being upright for 3 1/2 hrs, but needs 6-8 hrs of horizontal time to mend being up and active for 16-18 hrs. Sort of a logarithmic scale. I can tell you that you don't get nearly as tired if you nap every four hours. It truly feels fresh to wake after an REM nap, in both body and mind. Vlad wasn't joking when he called it a "high". It feels great. But it only feels great once you've "crossed over". A nap in the afternoon after busting my ass all day is way different than an Uberman nap. In fact, a nap during monophasic sleep often makes me more tired and groggy.

[Carey Ma]

I have been struggling whether or not to share with you my personal thoughts and experiences. To most, what I say seems mumbojumbo. To others it may seem fascinating. To me it is frightening and a sensitive topic. Because, to this day, I don’t know if I dreamed or imagined some of these experiences. Am I gifted with vision or am I just crazy?

 

My background is complicated, (so is the rest of my life), I was raised Wicca, R. Catholic and Buddhist. Spiritualism teaches (for those with the gift) how to control our minds. Children, with open, blank minds are far more capable of learning than us closed-minded adults. As a child, I was taught to meditate. While in meditation, one can learn how to use several vectors to achieve different mental maneuvers. The most common is simply being aware that you are no longer in the physical world. Other vectors may include controlled dreaming, world creation, visions, remote viewing and astral projection/ travel…or the path to enlightenment.

 

I believe that we modern humans (homo-sapiens) have been conditioned to have a vary narrow focus of what we call reality. Religion seems to open the doors of our minds to the possibility of “extraordinary”, “other worldly” possibilities. As we get older, we learn to solidify what we call reality, rejecting things that “complicate” life.

 

I think the best way for most folks interested in dream control is to start by learning the principles of hypnosis and start practicing with doing a Dream dairy.

 

First practice learning to control your breathing; eight in, stop for four counts, then breath out for eight counts. Imagine a balloon of your favorite color inside of you, expanding and contracting in rhythm with your breathing. This is a good excersize for one with insomnia. Puts a restless mind at ease and allows ample oxygen to the brain.

 

Now that you know how to breathe, try imagining a landscape that is safe and comfortable. Most people feel most comfortable in a land setting. Others prefer being under water or floating in air/ space. Personally, I have a dream safety zone that is not surprisingly a farm theme with a background of forest to one side and fields to the other. In front of me is a large pond with grasses, reeds and flowers all around. This is the start of your personal dream world, a good place to go when things get rough and you feel the need to tap your heels and be safe. This is where I bring my foes to face them down.

 

As a child, I had a reoccurring nightmare about a mad scientist wanting to drill into my brain. I would always wake up screaming whenever his drill bit touched my forehead. One night everything changed. As I dreamed, I realized I was again dreaming but seemed helpless to stop this mightiest of foes…until without any conscious effort, his drill bit became a gummy worm. From there I realized that in dream-state one could sometimes control their surroundings because the laws of physics did not apply to its creator.

 

The real changing point in my dream life came when I had a falling dream. With a snap of paradigm, I was able to fly.

 

OK, lets back up a bit. A dream diary is simply a recording of your dreams. Try to have a notebook and pen ready next to your bed. Start by writing down everything you can remember in your dream as soon as you wake up. Later you will be able to tell when you are awake (but still in dream-state) and be able to write as it occurs.

 

I was literally born in a barn in Indiana. There were complications with my birth and the Doctor was twenty minutes late. My NDE that night caused several learning disabilities but more importantly, rewired the way I used my brain verses how other (normal) people use theirs. I never had a good memory, no matter how I excersize or tried. But I did have a very vivid and athletic imagination. It seemed, as if I were able to look through a veil and see other worlds, full-fledged cities, spaceships etc. with interacting characters.

 

Anyway, since my meltdown more than a decade ago, I have become out of balance and out of practice. My sparks of insight no longer contain a big picture but mere glimpses (if I am lucky). Most of the time I just feel tired. Not from physical or mental activities but from swimming upstream, (counter social). I have no doubts that my mission is the right thing to do but lack of progress and setbacks weighs heavily on me. I mean, why else would anyone in his or her right mind, go from heaven on earth (Seattle/ Great NW) to this god forsaken, heathen, foul land. Seattle nice: Beijing not!

 

I guess I’m just crazy.

 

Next time I’ll try to talk a bit about my experience with sleep deprivation.

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Personally, I'm not hearing anything too crazy or 'mumbojumbo-ish. Most of western society has come to value, almost exclusively, only skill sets that have a "earning a living" potential. Now that is crazy.

I'm not saying that earning a living is not important, but I hardly doubt that it is the reason for our existence in the Universe, or the onlything we should ever spend time on. I was hoping that things in the 'digital age' would level the playing field a bit, giving people access to vast cultural riches, but I see that our 'managers' are hard at work with various 'anti-piracy' schemes to make even these resources artificially and suffocatingly scarce.

..."We've made photo-duplicating an item of information (leaving it for others to also use and duplicate) a crime called "Piracy''. (Hehe), Imagine a pirate ship coming alongside, snapping polaroids of your treasure chest, and dashing off, cackling. Such is piracy"...

 A dream diary is a good place to start. I've gone back to that 'square one' a couple of times long ago, when I've felt that I've lost touch. Mostly it helps me with content retention, and just general activity of preparation for getting back 'into it'. The safety zone, I've never really done, at least not consciously. I tend to be confrontational with my fears and try to get over wanting to freak out and wake up. I used to get pissed at myself as a kid when I'd purposely wake myself up from a 'nightmare' and learned to deal with them in ways other than waking up. Nothing since has ever had that 'nightmare' quality to it. Exquisitely strange, and a bit macabre perhaps, but not nightmarish. Besides, I don't think that something like astral projection is even possible for me without that little bit of terror that comes right before disembodiment.

Sorry to hear that you feel you are "out of balance and out of practice". From everything I've ever read of yours here on APG, it's obvious that you have a great vision. I hope that you can persevere and see them materialize. 

  

[Eric Warwick]

Interesting discussion about dreaming. I seem to remember dreams and remembering when I was remembering dreams quite well. Many dreams include pleasant ones, weird ones, and other. What I learned from this is that dreaming is powerful and could be exploited. They've made great problem solvers, including a theory of the electron. This is why I am intrigued by this lucid dreaming. I've always thought that my best thinking is in dreams and if it could be exploited that would be wonderful.  But, now dreaming is rare and I am sad about it. My most recent dream was about combating ignorance and prejudice. Again, dreaming solves problems for me. Any thoughts? Did I digress too much? 

[Carey Ma]

Thanks Vlad, Your words comfort me greatly. 

[Jon Parr]

Thanks Carey. That was a sacred slice of life you've shared, and it didn't fall on deaf ears. I find it ironic to be discussing these things on an aquaponics forum in the first place, but it's a common tie that brings us together from different walks of life. Friends found in far places, and I'm sure if/when we physically meet we will bond and share stories like lost brothers (not sure how I will make it to China and Serbia, but stranger things have happened). Carey, I know what you mean by feeling out of balance/practice. I have been spinning my wheels here, working harder and harder to accomplish less. Thanks for the tips for expanding one's mind and dreamscape. If one of you figures out how to have a conference call of dreams, then call me up and I'll meet you friends at Carey's pond, with reeds and flowers all around. :)

Eric, getting back in touch with dreams like when we were kids is definitely a side effect of polyphasic sleeping. Try it. You will vividly remember virtually every dream during each nap, and if you're lucky, have some lucidity as well.