Sleep and I are in a relationship built mostly on lies. I pretend I’m tired, it pretends it’s coming, we both know we’re bluffing. The bed welcomes me like a salesman, pillows fluffed with deceit, sheets tucked with malice. I lie there, a prisoner of my own design, counting regrets instead of sheep, replaying entire conversations I never had. Somewhere between the third repositioning and the fourth existential spiral, I realise sleep is not rest, it’s hope, strangled slowly by thought. And so I scroll, – because nothing says ‘relaxation’ like bathing your brain in the screaming glow of a rectangle.
“Life is short” he said.
“And it’s the longest thing you’ll do” she said.
I often find myself fantasising about how much more life I’d live if I simply embraced sleeping less. It’s a seductive idea really – like dangling a banana in front of a monkey, only to realise you’re the monkey, and the banana is your own deluded optimism. Polyphasic sleep, that tantalising theory of segmenting slumber into bite-sized naps throughout the day, seems at first like a life hack served hot from the buffet of pseudo-science and burnout-fuelled ambition.
“You can’t control everything” he said.
“I can try” she said.
“That’s still not controlling everything” he said.
“No, but it is trying” she said.
To the uninitiated, polyphasic sleep involves ditching the archaic tradition of a single nocturnal snooze in favour of sleeping in multiple segments. Schedules range from the relatively civilised ‘Everyman’ model – 3 hours of core sleep and several naps, to the Uberman, which sounds like something you’d unlock in a video game. To modern enthusiasts – “biohackers” and entrepreneurs mostly, hail the Uberman schedule like it’s the holy grail: six twenty-minute naps a day, no core sleep, leaving you with 22 waking hours to change the world, or at least alphabetise your spice rack. Da Vinci and Tesla were said to dabble in it, though I doubt they did so with a 9 – 5 day job, and historical evidence of this is shakier than a drunk flamingo. Buckminster Fuller even tried a Dymaxion variant – two hours of sleep in total, four thirty-minute naps spaced out like awkward punctuation. He eventually gave up, not because of health collapse, but because society stubbornly insisted on being awake when he was supposed to be unconscious.
My own personal entanglement with polyphasic sleep is of a more opportunistic nature. I’ve frequently weaponised it as an exit strategy from relationships, but beneath the social sabotage lies a genuine intrigue.
Imagine, just imagine, slicing off half your sleep and injecting those liberated hours into pursuits of creativity, literature, or watching YouTube documentaries about ancient civilisations at 3 a.m. I could write novels, learn Mandarin, maybe even clean the kitchen, maybe. But then I think of Margaret Thatcher, who reportedly thrived on just four hours a night. And let’s be honest, if the best branding for your lifestyle choice is “produced Thatcher,” then it’s not exactly the poster-child you want to hang over your bed.
But also, history does offer clues. Before the industrial age shackled us to 9-5s and the tyranny of bedside alarm clocks, people naturally slept in two shifts, embracing a period of wakeful reflection between ‘first sleep’ and ‘second sleep’. A time used for prayer (the 15th-century equivalent of Reddit), reading (the 15th-century equivalent of doomscrolling), or staring gloomily into the void – something I partake in regardless of sleep schedule.
But the science isn’t kind. Studies find that within weeks, most people collapse into cognitive decline, mood swings, and social exile. Growth hormone production can plummet by 95%, memory takes a nosedive, (stuff I struggle with anyway).
So now I exist in a strange limbo: mildly fascinated, wholly unconverted. Polyphasic sleep remains my cerebral mistress, ideal for getting out of commitments, not for getting anything done. Maybe I’ll try again, maybe I’ll become a butterfly in the dead of night, or maybe I’ll nap on it and dream of being someone who could. Or maybe it doesn’t matter, because I work from home, so I essentially nap like a cat throughout the day anyway.
If it is something of interest to you, then check out the small website I created for Polyphasic Sleep, with the different schedules and some references to the history and risks.
:: REFERENCES ::
- Polyphasic Sleep – RandomBoo
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