First of all, I want to say that I don't really take kindly to people claiming to be against a dogma, and then these same people replacing one dogma with another. If you're open-minded enough to question the need for 8 hours of sleep every night, then why are you not able to question the need for other sleeping methods as well? This is something that I just can't understand. I thought the whole point was to experiment and find different ways of doing things, the basic assumption being that there are alternatives, and we are free to discover them.
There is not one alternative, and "Uberman" is not the best sleep method. It has some crucial flaws, some of which I have previously discussed (need for a strict schedule in which no more than one nap can be deviated from, need to constantly find a peaceful spot to nap, and the need to stay in the state of mind to be able to fall asleep every four hours or risk severe sleep deprivation as crucial, scarce minutes of sleep are missed), and another that I will get to momentarily. It is something that some people have found best for their lifestyles. It is not proven to work for everyone or to give everyone the rest that they require.
Additionally, it is not a new invention that should be touted as a replacement for any other form of sleep. The idea of it has existed for centuries (with claims that various people from Ben Franklin to Nikola Tesla followed this pattern, hence why it is also often called DaVinci sleep), and people have been experimenting with it all the while. What is new is that we have groups of people on the internet claiming to follow it as a long-term lifestyle. It is treated as a lifestyle, because proponents claim many things must go with it: changes in diet and lifestyle, scheduling naps, never being far from a spot to nap. The time spent sleeping is so vital that it becomes the anchor to your schedule, and trying to schedule it around something else doesn't always work out.
Of course, Uberman does have one benefit (besides the time saved; more on that soon) that attracts people to it: if you are able to sleep on each of your naps, you will wake up refreshed. Getting refreshed every four hours throughout the day and night sounds great. However, as I see it now, the schedule comes with sacrifice and downsides that I'm not willing to accept for that one benefit. Perhaps I can successfully refresh myself about every 8 hours instead, which would be enough for me. My goal is to be able to get about 4 hours of sleep a day without the tiredness that comes with receiving all of that sleep at once, during the night.
Moving on to the other suggested schedule, "Everyman." This is aptly named, because this is the way that most mild insomniacs end up sleeping, so it is rather more common than thought, and not something that a supposed insomniac like myself has to do anything special to adapt to. For many years, I have often slept just a few hours during the night, and then taken a couple of naps during the day when I had a chance to. Thankfully, I did not receive my rest this way every single day, because it sometimes left me really groggy. This schedule is easy to fall into, but I don't really believe that it's ideal for me, either. Sometimes I felt fine with it, and I even endeavored at one point to try to "adapt" to doing it every single day because of this. Then the obvious occurred to me, that I had often slept this way out of accident in the past. My mother sleeps this way. So, it's not really a new discovery, either. The assumption of many that all of the "bears" (non-ubermensch) sleep 8 hours a day is ludicrous. I'd say that very many people get 6 hours or less, and very many have difficulties sleeping that result in them falling into Everyman patterns. Again, not a revolutionary discovery. One can be comfortable with this if one becomes solidly used to and accepting of it, but the important key is to get all your naps and get them on time. Those who intentionally follow Everyman usually take 20 minute naps during the day; they are vital, and so if you are unable to fit them in or fall asleep with them, this is a problem. These are rather more refreshing and flexible when you are getting a core sleep in addition to them, and I usually had no trouble falling asleep for the first nap on that plan, but that was because I was so sleepy by the time I reached it. The short core sleep does not set well with me, as it feels like it's either too long or too short.
With my plan, I will be getting about the same amount of sleep as with Everyman, but I hope to make it more efficient by having equal naps throughout the day. This was my goal with the sleeping four times a day for 60 minutes that I attempted earlier, but then, I was not aware that an 80 minute nap was about my optimum time. With resting for 90 minutes, allowing myself 10 minutes to fall asleep, I will be receiving 240 minutes of sleep a day (ideally), or 4 hours. With sleeping three times a day, I hope to spend less time overall falling asleep, and get more actual sleep.
This brings me to my main point: having six or four naps a day is horribly inefficient, because with each nap you add, you are adding more time to fall asleep.
If you are anything like me, and you normally aren't walking around in a zombie state in which you are ready to fall asleep as soon as you lay down, and you can't fall asleep on command, then it takes you some time to fall asleep. If I'm really tired, I take 5 minutes to fall asleep. Normally, I take more than that, and even when I'm ready to sleep right when I lay down, I may take 10-15 minutes to be out. One point I was never clear on with the talk of the Uberman plan was the actual time one spends sleeping. It is said that you sleep for 2 hours a day. Does this include time falling asleep? Let's say I set my nap alarm for 20 minutes each time I lay down for an Uberman nap. I will sleep for, at most, 15 minutes of that time. If I am not in the state of mind to sleep (something difficult to achieve every four hours), I might take 10 minutes. At best, I will be receiving 60 to 90 minutes of sleep a day if I do that. That doesn't sound like enough to me. If it is, and you feel you can live on that, bless you. Now, if I factor in a 5 - 10 minute falling asleep period, then I will set my nap alarm for about 30 minutes each time I lay down. I will get 2 hours of sleep, if I sleep each time. However, I will have spent one hour trying to fall asleep. I'm not spending 2 hours in my figurative bed, I'm spending 3, and only sleeping for 2 of them. This is enormously inefficient.
Let's say I reduce my naps to 90 minutes, 3 times daily. If I take 10 minutes to fall asleep at each, I will have spent 30 minutes falling asleep and acquired 4 hours of rest in return. If I had to spend 3 hours in bed with Uberman to get 2 hours of sleep, I would only be spending 1.5 hours more in bed (4.5 hours) and getting twice as much sleep. Not to mention the convenience of having to only schedule 3 naps instead of 6. With Uberman, time spent asleep is only twice the time spent falling asleep. With my plan, it's 8 times as much.
This is much more efficient and logical. I'm taking naps for the period of time that I believe to be optimum for me, getting three of those naps spaced throughout the day to help keep my energy up, not having to keep a very rigid schedule of naps, spending less time trying to fall asleep, and having to sleep 4-5 hours less than the prescribed 8-9 hours. This just seems logical for my lifestyle, on multiple levels. If I can find a way to get enough rest and energy from polyphasic sleeping, I believe that this is the way for me to do it. I can't advocate my plan for anyone else at this point, since I am just beginning it, but I am really enthusiastic about it at this time. I think I also decided what I would call it, too, should it be successful.
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