In order to gain more time awake in the day, Buckminster Fuller reportedly advocated a regimen consisting of 30-minute naps every six hours. The short article about Fuller’s nap schedule in Time in 1943, which also refers to such a schedule as “intermittent sleeping,” says that he maintained it for two years, and further notes “he had to quit because his schedule conflicted with that of his business associates, who insisted on sleeping like other men.”[17]
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“Dymaxion Sleep”. Time Magazine. 1943-10-11. Archived from the original on 2013-10-08. Retrieved 2013-12-27.Closed access
The Time archive isn’t accessible via SciHub. Can someone gave me the article through another way?
The article is available on various websites by exact phrase searching, but there are some minor transcription errors in these copies. I’ve transcribed it below using Google’s copy of the scanned article to correct these errors. There seems to be a relevant captioned figure (maybe a photo of Fuller?) on p. 63 of the magazine that is missing from the scan.
Dymaxion Sleep
Sleep is just a bad habit. So said Socrates and Samuel Johnson, and so for years has thought grey-haired Richard Buckminster Fuller, futurific [sic] inventor of the Dymaxion* house (Time, Aug. 22, 1932), the Dymaxion car and the Dymaxion globe. Fuller made a deliberate attempt to break the sleep habit, with excellent results. Last week he announced his Dymaxion system of sleeping. Two hours of sleep a day, he said firmly, is plenty.
Fuller reasoned that man has a primary store of energy, quickly replenished, and a secondary reserve (second wind) that takes longer to restore. Therefore, he thought, a man should be able to cut his rest periods shorter by relaxing as soon as he has used up his primary energy. Fuller trained himself to take a nap at the first sign of fatigue (i.e., when his attention to his work began to wander). These intervals came about every six hours; after a half-hour’s nap he was completely refreshed.
For two years Fuller thus averaged two hours of sleep in 24. Result: “The most vigorous and alert condition I have ever enjoyed.” Life-insurance doctors who examined him found him sound as a nut. Eventually he had to quit because his schedule conflicted with that of his business associates, who insisted on sleeping like other men. Now working for the Foreign Economic Administration, Buckminster Fuller finds Dymaxion working and sleeping out of the question. But he wishes the nation’s “key thinkers” could adopt his schedule; he is convinced it would shorten the war.
Intermittent sleeping was not originated by Fuller, has respectable scientific backing. [sic] Last week the Industrial Bulletin of Arthur D. Little, Inc., famed Cambridge, Mass. research firm, which published Fuller’s sleeping plan, noted a strong point in its favor: most sleep investigators agree that the first hours of sleep are the soundest. Some pro-Fuller evidence:
Photographs and electric devices to record movements show that the average sleeper, who changes position at least 40 times during an eight-hour stretch, is quietest in the first two hours, then grows progressively more restless.
At Colgate University sleep investigator Donald A. Laird found that people awakened after four hours’ sleep were just as alert, well-coordinated physically and resistant to fatigue as those who slept eight hours (but they did lose in accuracy and concentration).
* A Fuller word representing “dynamic” and “maximum service.”
Given that the Wikipedia article about polyphasic sleep recounts the story, it’s important for people debunking polyphasic sleep to respond to the story of Buckminster Fuller. That’s easier when the article is available.
The article is more of historical interest to me. I don’t think Buckminster Fuller’s claims are more trustworthy than those of other people, and from what I’ve read they aren’t any different from what others claim. So the basic criticisms seem to hold against his claims. And the evidence for polyphasic sleep is quite bad, so bad in fact that I am surprised and disappointed that so many rationalists take it seriously. I suppose it comes from wishful thinking, but I’m not sure. (My intention is not to be mean to people who take these ideas seriously, but rather to check if there’s anything I’m missing. It seems to me that I know considerably more about sleep science than polyphasic sleep proponents, though I’m still not an expert.)
I’m intersted in polyphasic sleep.
Wikipedia notes:
The Time archive isn’t accessible via SciHub. Can someone gave me the article through another way?
The article is available on various websites by exact phrase searching, but there are some minor transcription errors in these copies. I’ve transcribed it below using Google’s copy of the scanned article to correct these errors. There seems to be a relevant captioned figure (maybe a photo of Fuller?) on p. 63 of the magazine that is missing from the scan.
Dymaxion Sleep
Sleep is just a bad habit. So said Socrates and Samuel Johnson, and so for years has thought grey-haired Richard Buckminster Fuller, futurific [sic] inventor of the Dymaxion* house (Time, Aug. 22, 1932), the Dymaxion car and the Dymaxion globe. Fuller made a deliberate attempt to break the sleep habit, with excellent results. Last week he announced his Dymaxion system of sleeping. Two hours of sleep a day, he said firmly, is plenty.
Fuller reasoned that man has a primary store of energy, quickly replenished, and a secondary reserve (second wind) that takes longer to restore. Therefore, he thought, a man should be able to cut his rest periods shorter by relaxing as soon as he has used up his primary energy. Fuller trained himself to take a nap at the first sign of fatigue (i.e., when his attention to his work began to wander). These intervals came about every six hours; after a half-hour’s nap he was completely refreshed.
For two years Fuller thus averaged two hours of sleep in 24. Result: “The most vigorous and alert condition I have ever enjoyed.” Life-insurance doctors who examined him found him sound as a nut. Eventually he had to quit because his schedule conflicted with that of his business associates, who insisted on sleeping like other men. Now working for the Foreign Economic Administration, Buckminster Fuller finds Dymaxion working and sleeping out of the question. But he wishes the nation’s “key thinkers” could adopt his schedule; he is convinced it would shorten the war.
Intermittent sleeping was not originated by Fuller, has respectable scientific backing. [sic] Last week the Industrial Bulletin of Arthur D. Little, Inc., famed Cambridge, Mass. research firm, which published Fuller’s sleeping plan, noted a strong point in its favor: most sleep investigators agree that the first hours of sleep are the soundest. Some pro-Fuller evidence:
Photographs and electric devices to record movements show that the average sleeper, who changes position at least 40 times during an eight-hour stretch, is quietest in the first two hours, then grows progressively more restless.
At Colgate University sleep investigator Donald A. Laird found that people awakened after four hours’ sleep were just as alert, well-coordinated physically and resistant to fatigue as those who slept eight hours (but they did lose in accuracy and concentration).
* A Fuller word representing “dynamic” and “maximum service.”
My opinion of polyphasic sleep as a way to reduce sleep requirements is negative, so I recommend not tracking this down.
Given that the Wikipedia article about polyphasic sleep recounts the story, it’s important for people debunking polyphasic sleep to respond to the story of Buckminster Fuller. That’s easier when the article is available.
The article is more of historical interest to me. I don’t think Buckminster Fuller’s claims are more trustworthy than those of other people, and from what I’ve read they aren’t any different from what others claim. So the basic criticisms seem to hold against his claims. And the evidence for polyphasic sleep is quite bad, so bad in fact that I am surprised and disappointed that so many rationalists take it seriously. I suppose it comes from wishful thinking, but I’m not sure. (My intention is not to be mean to people who take these ideas seriously, but rather to check if there’s anything I’m missing. It seems to me that I know considerably more about sleep science than polyphasic sleep proponents, though I’m still not an expert.)
Google Books shows a small part of the article.