Polyphasic Sleep

[johnnycox1993]

Hi.

I'd like to know whether polyphasic sleep is a myth and a pseudoscience.
I have seen a lot of people talk about the uberman and the everyman sleeping schedule on the blogosphere and I would like to know the scientific opinion on these sleeping schedules and polyphasic sleep in general.

 

[Halfcentaur]

Ha! I saw this as polyphasic sheep.
The Pirahã apparently only sleep a few hours at a time and are awake much of the evening.
A very interesting people if you've never learned much about them.

 

[Dancing David]

I think the bigger issue usually comes down to how long you are in the deepest sleep. If that is contiguos it helps.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

Hey Johnny, I don't have links handy right now, but I can report anectdotally that it's BS. I tried it a bit, and found it worthless. My brother-in-law tried it for a much longer period of time, and not only found it worthless, but also that it had a negative effect on his health.

I did find this paper: http://coedpages.uncc.edu/cstem/summer ventures/2010 Topics in Biology/Yvonne Tran - Sleep.pdf