The term "polyphasic sleep" (sometimes called "polynapping") refers to any sleep schedule in which daily, scheduled naps figure prominently. The use of naps to refresh oneself during the day is hardly unprecedented, of course. "Siesta cultures", for example, feature a nightly sleep period of varying hours, with an afternoon nap, and might be termed "biphasic". Something like a siesta schedule is employed by the noted polyphasic sleep researcher, Claudio Stampi (see below). In general, however, polyphasic sleep is about taking more than one nap per day, to reduce the total amount of sleep to below the average for a given individual.
Recently, a seemingly very austere regimen of 6 naps every 24 hours, at 4-hour intervals, called "Uberman's Sleep" (or more often "Uberman Sleep") has gained considerable attention through the Web and the mass media. Some polyphasic sleepers prefer a 4-hour core sleep period at night, with scattered naps throughout the day.
This FAQ concerns itself primarily with Uberman Sleep and the 4-hour-core variant, since these schedules have seen the most true scientific research and and the most anecdotally-reported experience. The aim is to introduce the subject, to clear up common misunderstandings among those who have relied on highly derivative sources, to document what remains to be understood about polyphasic sleep, and to mention what seems to have worked for polyphasic self-testers, from anecdotal reports.
Polyphasic sleeping as a subject has a short but very interesting history both in the lab and on the Web and in other media. The central figure of present-day scientific research on the subject is, without a doubt, Claudio Stampi (who is described as "an advocate of polyphasic sleep" in his Wikipedia entry as of this writing, a overgeneralization that has since propagated) is founder and director of a research organization now called The Chronobiology Research Institute, in Newton (Boston), Massachusetts.
Dr. Stampi received a medical degree and a doctorate from the University of Bologna, Italy, as well as specialization degrees in neurology and biomedical technologies.
Claudio Stampi's interest in polyphasic sleeping was an outgrowth of his avocational passion, long-distance sail boat racing, a sport in which being able to cope with long periods without a full night's sleep can be critically important for both safety and racing performance, especially for the solo sailor. Dr. Stampi participated in two round-the-world sailing races himself, including the 1981-2 Whitbread Race, as Chief Scientist and Skipper of the research yacht La Barca Laboratorio.
From 1987 to 1989, Dr. Stampi was the principal investigator in a project, "Ultrashort sleep: a strategy for optimal performance during sustained operations", at the University of Ottawa. In 1990, he opened the Sleep and Alertness Research Center in Cambridge, Mass.
In 1992, Dr. Stampi published the touchstone work for polyphasic sleepers, the book Why We Nap: Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep . This book is in short supply, and much sought after in the library system, because of its unusally high price. Dr. Stampi's research center became the Chronobiology Research Institute in 1997.
Among Dr. Stampi's articles is from ABC news, "What You Can Do About Sleep Deprivation: Lessons from Around-the-World Solo Sailors" , in which he wrote "It is no coincidence that a number of highly productive and creative individuals were nappers. The list includes Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Napoleon and Thomas Edison, whose invention of the light bulb placed man in an around-the-clock world and keeps so many people up past their natural bedtimes." This may be the source of the frequent attributions of polyphasic schedules to these exceptional individuals. Dr. Stampi goes further, writing,
"... we believe that polyphasic sleep is the strategy of choice for maintaining acceptable alertness levels under situations of continuous work. This strategy is not new, for apparently it had been successfully tested as early as half a millennium ago by no other than Leonardo da Vinci, undisputedly a highly productive and creative master. According to anecdotal reports, Leonardo would sleep 15 minutes out of every four hours, for a daily total of only 1.5 hours of sleep. Our controlled laboratory studies - including those recently commissioned by NASA in an effort to design sleep management schedules for emergencies in space missions - have shown that Leonardo's idea makes significant biological sense. Individuals sleeping for 30 minutes every four hours, for a daily total of only 3 hours of sleep, performed better and were more alert, compared to when they had 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep."
Thus, the somewhat distorted characterization of various geniuses being polyphasic sleepers may trace back to overgeneralizations from this article and Dr. Stampi's book. Before this article was published, however (in 2004? the provenance is unclear), the attribution of polyphasic sleep to Leonardo da Vinci had already been established on the Web (see below), so it's possible that Dr. Stampi's "anecdotal reports" are based on reading about polyphasic sleep on the Web, or hearing of such Web reports second-hand. As an Italian, he might have been more inclined than most to credit Da Vinci with virtually inventing the practice. [Cancel this if his 1992 book also mentions Da Vinci.]
[Biographical sources Claudio Stampi, M.D. Ph.D.: Sleep Consultant for Rich Wilson , Claudio Stampi, M.D. Ph.D.: Chronobiology Research Institute ]
The story of polyphasic sleeping as an idea propagated through the Web is tangled, and might be considered a textbook case of how the Web can both bring information to the surface and distort it at the same time.
On Feb 29, 2000, an entry called "Uberman's Sleep Schedule" appeared at the site, everything2, which rapidly became a source of information and misinformation on the subject. The author of this entry claimed to have gotten by, even thrived, on 20 minute naps every 4 hours. It is not clear whether the writer was influence by Stampi's book.
On Apr 15, 2002, an entry referencing the above everything2 entry appeared at the site kuro5hin, itself entitled "Uberman's sleep schedule", Some of the misinformation (especially regarding REM sleep and various historical personages) was further propagated by both the entry and the followup comments.
On April 26, 2004, the first Wikipedia article on polyphasic sleep appeared. It was very brief, containing what seemed to have become the obligatory mentions of famous geniuses who purportedly used polyphasic sleep schedules.
On Sep 1, 2005, blogger Glen Rhodes wrote an entry, The power of the sleep cycle", outlining a theory of multiples of 90 minutes being the key to sleeping without grogginess, supporting his assertions with quotes from reports at the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies and The Sleep Foundation. Glen Rhodes reported on his biphasic schedule of 3 hours per night with a 90 minute evening nap. Some misinformation was propagated in this entry as well, including his claim that "Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Buckminster Fuller used this exact technique." In fact, relatively little is known for certain of the details of any variant nap schedules employed by these geniuses.
On Oct 15, 2005, an entry entitled 90 minutes sleep cycle appeared at the site lifehack.org caught the attention of game-programmer-turned-self-help guru Steve Pavlina, and on Oct 20, 2005, he wrote an entry entitled "Polyphasic Sleep", citing the Lifehack entry and the Wikipedia entry for polyphasic sleep. The appearance of this Pavlina article and his subsequent periodic reports on his success with Uberman Sleep apparently prompted an increase in subscriptions to the Uberman mailing list at Yahoo.com.
From the beginning, various bloggers have reported their experiments, with varying degrees of success. The Wikipedia article on polyphasic sleep is frequently updated.