You’re mixing things together. If I adapted a polyphasic schedule and also fixed real issues in the process, and have now significantly better sleep due to fixing those, then I am not “mildly deluded yourself and are avoiding disconfirming evidence.” [...] Instead, I am correctly observing better sleep and am just attributing it incorrectly. So those are different things.
You are correct. This is exactly what I meant by “I should have given these possibilities more consideration as well, and I do now.”. I should have also changed the earlier part of my post to back away more from the placebo and wishful thinking statements. The purpose of the elaboration was to explain my earlier statements in greater detail.
(note also that I am not avoiding any evidence because I have never encountered any evidence against p/s until today).
That is not what I meant. As an example, consider that you dropped a glass of water. Someone who was tired might attribute that to being tired, but someone who very strongly wanted to believe that polyphasic sleep worked would probably try to find an explanation other than that they were tired.
The argument is circular. You say that [...]
No, I think you are putting words into my mouth. My assessment of the weakness of evidence for short polyphasic sleep schedules is based primarily on the a) evidence that it does not work, including self-reported evidence (most people completely fail, and I see no reason to believe they all are “doing it wrong”, etc.) and b) the fact that the standard mechanisms by which it could work are not plausible. I actually started investigating polyphasic sleep thinking the idea was plausible, but the more evidence I encountered, the less I believed.
I believe I have discussed a in sufficient detail.
For b, polyphasic sleep proponents used to claim that polyphasic sleep allows you to go into REM quickly, and REM was all you need, therefore polyphasic sleep was more efficient. To be fair, some of this is true, but the general message is false. The studies I linked to in my posts from 2014 suggest that deep sleep is the most important, but there’s reason to believe all stages are important. With that said, as I recall (will need to dig up the study for this), certain antidepressants completely suppress REM and those people are doing fine best I can tell (at least compared against other folks on similar antidepressants without REM suppression). The technical term for a sleep period where one goes in to REM fast is SOREMP and it’s taken as a symptom of either severe sleep deprivation or narcolepsy, and not regarded as good thing.
So, a better argument would be that polyphasic sleep allows one to get the same or greater amount of deep sleep, while reducing time in less important stages of sleep. This by itself seemed plausible to me in 2014, so I looked more into it. Unfortunately, as I stated in my 2014 posts, in actual polyphasic sleep, you experience each stage of sleep in relatively the same proportion as you did before. Both REM and deep sleep decrease. (Please note that this is contrary to what the Polyphasic Society claims! Their claims: “The body can also change the first portion of a ‘core sleep’ from mostly stage 1 and 2, to mostly stage 3 (SWS)” and “Because you are sleeping more often and getting dream-full REM in your multiple sleeps, you will be dreaming more!”)
There are also some arguments like “this is how our ancestors slept, therefore it’s how you should sleep too”. There are a few things I think about this. First, it does seem that many of our ancestors did do some sort of biphasic sleep, either with a gap in the middle of the night or a nap in the afternoon. I don’t think this was done to reduce sleep time, so it’s not an argument for those sorts of schedules. Also, while evolutionary arguments are okay for generating hypotheses, they also need to fit the evidence, and as I said, the evidence really isn’t a point in polyphasic sleep’s favor.
Consider my perspective for a moment. Polyphasic Society prophesied a bunch if one does X , I estimated that they were credible based on presentation, I did X, I got pretty much exactly what was promised in about as much time as I thought it would take. Now you come telling me that all improvements are due to side effects and p/s has actually zero benefits. That’s not impossible, but clearly less plausible. Why should I believe it?
You should believe me because the Polyphasic Society’s arguments are based on faulty understandings of sleep, and are contradicted by empirical studies, many of which were conducted by someone they hold in high regard, Claudio Stampi. See here for additional details.
And what is it about the presentation of the Polyphasic Society that makes them seem credible? Their assertions generally have no citations. They seem like your standard alt-med website, which I don’t consider credible.
If polyphasic sleep worked, you would see it advocated by sleep doctors and researchers, and also used by the military. These people are not unfamiliar with the idea. As I recall, the military is very interested in optimizing sleep, but they focus on things that actually work, like good sleep hygiene and getting physical exercise.
The paragraph reads stronger than the arguments actually are. Let me untangle them [...]
There are a very large number of possibilities. I mentioned consolidated sleep as an example because I know many people wake up frequently and this prevents them from having good sleep quality. Look up sleep hygiene. Any number of those pieces of advice could have had a big effect. Personally, I find having a regular schedule to be of the greatest help to me, but that might not be the case for others. I can not pin down what’s happening to you other than that I do not believe polyphasic sleep by itself is helping.
Honestly, this just seems silly. The experience of tiredness is subjective. What matters is how tired I feel, and I feel significantly less tired than previously (except in the morning, as I’ve said already, and this is improving).
Experience is subjective by definition. Why being tired is bad is not necessarily subjective, however. Does it matter if you subjectively “feel” awake if you’ll fall asleep if you sit down for 10 minutes? Does it matter if you subjectively “feel” awake if your cognitive performance is reduced?
See, you’re assuming here that the number is lower than what should be expected, and that needs explaining. I don’t think that’s true.
In my 2014 posts, I used a success rate which was based on numbers from a major polyphasic sleep proponent. Personally, I think this number is very high (i.e., the failure rate is lower than I would put it at), but I have not done the polyphasic sleep census I think would be necessary to figure out it more precisely. I choose this number as it was the only one I saw available, and I thought it would be hard to accuse me of trying to paint polyphasic sleep in a bad light if I used a number from a proponent, but I guess I was wrong.
– Most people try harder ones first (that already gives you a majority that’ll almost unanimously fail)
I am unsure. My own experience suggests that people gravitate towards the less extreme forms, as you did. I’m not aware of any polyphasic sleep census which would allow one to determine this.
– Most people probably don’t do it correctly
I’ve seen a wide variety of reasons given for why people fail, and it seems to be to basically be variations of the No true Scotsman fallacy or even straight up cherry picking. Sure, I’d expect many people who attempted polyphasic sleep to have done it wrong. I, however, see no reason to conclude that almost everyone who tried it did it wrong. The procedure does not seem that complicated and I do not think it’s particularly sensitive to many variables. The base rate for success for these sorts of things in general seems to be higher. I need a better explanation than just asserting that the majority of people do it wrong. Evidence for this assertion would be appreciated.
– Most people probably don’t try that hard (more controversially, most people are lazy to begin with)
I definitely do not believe that most people who try polyphasic sleep don’t try that hard. I’ve skimmed blogs where people tried this and the overwhelming impression I got was that they tried really really hard. And usually they seemed to think it would work up until they quit. This was my impression. I’d like to see some sort of polyphasic sleep census to help answer these questions, as I’ve said, that doesn’t exist.
One person I know tried polyphasic sleep, and as I recall, they definitely tried hard, but ultimately failed.
(addressing the [[]]): Now that’s a really bold statement. Do you have evidence?
I do not think this is a bold statement at all. It comes from my reading about polyphasic sleep over the years. I got the impression from people who failed that they did do exactly as they were told (or nearly so) and did try hard. That’s what I meant. Again, absent a polyphasic sleep census, I can’t give stronger evidence than pointing out a few of the blogs I recall skimming through. I’d be happy to do a few minutes of digging if you are interested.
You are correct. This is exactly what I meant by “I should have given these possibilities more consideration as well, and I do now.”. I should have also changed the earlier part of my post to back away more from the placebo and wishful thinking statements. The purpose of the elaboration was to explain my earlier statements in greater detail.
That is not what I meant. As an example, consider that you dropped a glass of water. Someone who was tired might attribute that to being tired, but someone who very strongly wanted to believe that polyphasic sleep worked would probably try to find an explanation other than that they were tired.
No, I think you are putting words into my mouth. My assessment of the weakness of evidence for short polyphasic sleep schedules is based primarily on the a) evidence that it does not work, including self-reported evidence (most people completely fail, and I see no reason to believe they all are “doing it wrong”, etc.) and b) the fact that the standard mechanisms by which it could work are not plausible. I actually started investigating polyphasic sleep thinking the idea was plausible, but the more evidence I encountered, the less I believed.
I believe I have discussed a in sufficient detail.
For b, polyphasic sleep proponents used to claim that polyphasic sleep allows you to go into REM quickly, and REM was all you need, therefore polyphasic sleep was more efficient. To be fair, some of this is true, but the general message is false. The studies I linked to in my posts from 2014 suggest that deep sleep is the most important, but there’s reason to believe all stages are important. With that said, as I recall (will need to dig up the study for this), certain antidepressants completely suppress REM and those people are doing fine best I can tell (at least compared against other folks on similar antidepressants without REM suppression). The technical term for a sleep period where one goes in to REM fast is SOREMP and it’s taken as a symptom of either severe sleep deprivation or narcolepsy, and not regarded as good thing.
So, a better argument would be that polyphasic sleep allows one to get the same or greater amount of deep sleep, while reducing time in less important stages of sleep. This by itself seemed plausible to me in 2014, so I looked more into it. Unfortunately, as I stated in my 2014 posts, in actual polyphasic sleep, you experience each stage of sleep in relatively the same proportion as you did before. Both REM and deep sleep decrease. (Please note that this is contrary to what the Polyphasic Society claims! Their claims: “The body can also change the first portion of a ‘core sleep’ from mostly stage 1 and 2, to mostly stage 3 (SWS)” and “Because you are sleeping more often and getting dream-full REM in your multiple sleeps, you will be dreaming more!”)
There are also some arguments like “this is how our ancestors slept, therefore it’s how you should sleep too”. There are a few things I think about this. First, it does seem that many of our ancestors did do some sort of biphasic sleep, either with a gap in the middle of the night or a nap in the afternoon. I don’t think this was done to reduce sleep time, so it’s not an argument for those sorts of schedules. Also, while evolutionary arguments are okay for generating hypotheses, they also need to fit the evidence, and as I said, the evidence really isn’t a point in polyphasic sleep’s favor.
You should believe me because the Polyphasic Society’s arguments are based on faulty understandings of sleep, and are contradicted by empirical studies, many of which were conducted by someone they hold in high regard, Claudio Stampi. See here for additional details.
And what is it about the presentation of the Polyphasic Society that makes them seem credible? Their assertions generally have no citations. They seem like your standard alt-med website, which I don’t consider credible.
If polyphasic sleep worked, you would see it advocated by sleep doctors and researchers, and also used by the military. These people are not unfamiliar with the idea. As I recall, the military is very interested in optimizing sleep, but they focus on things that actually work, like good sleep hygiene and getting physical exercise.
There are a very large number of possibilities. I mentioned consolidated sleep as an example because I know many people wake up frequently and this prevents them from having good sleep quality. Look up sleep hygiene. Any number of those pieces of advice could have had a big effect. Personally, I find having a regular schedule to be of the greatest help to me, but that might not be the case for others. I can not pin down what’s happening to you other than that I do not believe polyphasic sleep by itself is helping.
Experience is subjective by definition. Why being tired is bad is not necessarily subjective, however. Does it matter if you subjectively “feel” awake if you’ll fall asleep if you sit down for 10 minutes? Does it matter if you subjectively “feel” awake if your cognitive performance is reduced?
In my 2014 posts, I used a success rate which was based on numbers from a major polyphasic sleep proponent. Personally, I think this number is very high (i.e., the failure rate is lower than I would put it at), but I have not done the polyphasic sleep census I think would be necessary to figure out it more precisely. I choose this number as it was the only one I saw available, and I thought it would be hard to accuse me of trying to paint polyphasic sleep in a bad light if I used a number from a proponent, but I guess I was wrong.
I am unsure. My own experience suggests that people gravitate towards the less extreme forms, as you did. I’m not aware of any polyphasic sleep census which would allow one to determine this.
I’ve seen a wide variety of reasons given for why people fail, and it seems to be to basically be variations of the No true Scotsman fallacy or even straight up cherry picking. Sure, I’d expect many people who attempted polyphasic sleep to have done it wrong. I, however, see no reason to conclude that almost everyone who tried it did it wrong. The procedure does not seem that complicated and I do not think it’s particularly sensitive to many variables. The base rate for success for these sorts of things in general seems to be higher. I need a better explanation than just asserting that the majority of people do it wrong. Evidence for this assertion would be appreciated.
I definitely do not believe that most people who try polyphasic sleep don’t try that hard. I’ve skimmed blogs where people tried this and the overwhelming impression I got was that they tried really really hard. And usually they seemed to think it would work up until they quit. This was my impression. I’d like to see some sort of polyphasic sleep census to help answer these questions, as I’ve said, that doesn’t exist.
One person I know tried polyphasic sleep, and as I recall, they definitely tried hard, but ultimately failed.
I do not think this is a bold statement at all. It comes from my reading about polyphasic sleep over the years. I got the impression from people who failed that they did do exactly as they were told (or nearly so) and did try hard. That’s what I meant. Again, absent a polyphasic sleep census, I can’t give stronger evidence than pointing out a few of the blogs I recall skimming through. I’d be happy to do a few minutes of digging if you are interested.