Hypothetical
There have been discussions between the members of the polyphasic community about unexplored exotic sleep mechanisms and potential schedules, which have few to none attempts so far.
Longer naps
Extended naps, sometimes referred to as pronaps, usually have a length of 40-45 minutes. They were suggested first by Jelte to be used during the dawn hours, after needed SWS is met and REM is prioritized by the brain. It turned out to be successful, allowing to get more REM/LNREM, and is used quite often. Longer naps also proved to be successful on non-reducing biphasic schedules such as BiphasicX, having refreshing natural wakes. Other than that, pronaps aren't recommended on the reducing schedules, since they have mid-cycle wakes during SWS, which is not refreshing naturally and leads to sleep inertia or sometimes zombie-mode following by oversleeps. However, it was suggested that such mechanism as wake time programming might cause the adaptation of brain to insertion light sleep at the end of the sleep blocks, which means it's likely possible to start getting refreshing/natural wakes from pronaps even on reducing schedules and even outside of the REM peak. There is a couple of examples of this mechanism, which were suggested.
Metaman
Being a famous polyphasic schedule, Uberman is considered not doable for most people, since the total sleep time is much lower than the average bare minimum of sleep needed. Metaman was suggested by Sekvanto with the purpose of having a similar to Uberman mechanism, at the same time being theoretically doable for people with a bit lower than average sleep requirements (~7h monophasic baseline or shorter vital stages needs), therefore has a prefix "Meta-" opposing "Uber-" and "Every-". It has six 40-minute naps, equidistantly placed throughout the day, with a total sleep time of 4h. If confirmed, this schedule will belong to a new Pronap-only category. Worth mentioning, even though the total sleep time theoretically allows to get the needed duration of vital sleep stages, it is unlikely that the naps can be compressed much enough for having long uninterrupted chunks of SWS (30m or more) needed for the glymphatic system to finish a session of cleaning brain waste, so similarly to nap-only schedules, no conclusion about the health implications of waste products in the brain on this schedule can't be made yet.
Metamaxion
Similarly to Metaman, this schedule is the extended version of Dymaxion, another nap-only schedule with a low total sleep time. Metamaxion was suggested by Zandimna as an improved version of Metaman with less blocks of sleep needed, which is easier to schedule around the day. It has four 50-minute naps, equidistantly placed throughout the day. This length is on the borderline which divides cores from naps, so sleeps can be shortened to 45 minutes to ensure they are definitely naps. Nevertheless, the total sleep time on Metamaxion is less than 4 hours for both options, so one needs a bit lower than average sleep requirements for the adaptation. Longer naps duration means that it's more likely to reach the needed sleep compression for having long enough SWS episodes for the efficiency of the glymphatic system, however this is still extremely difficult for an average person, so the same question as about Metaman remains on this schedule too.
SPAMAYL-40
Basically has same characteristics as a regular SPAMAYL, except the naps are longer on this one. The amount of naps needed also can be decreased compared to SPAMAYL with shorter naps, which makes this easier to schedule around the day. Also, similarly to Metaman and Metamaxion, SPAMAYL-40 is a bit more double for regular people. This schedule was suggested by many people, partially done by Sporky once, who mixed it with shorter naps too though. Longer naps had an architecture of mini-cores, often containing both SWS and REM or one of this stage being dominant. Sporky's average sleep cycle is close to 90 minutes on monophasic sleep, which either was compressed so much or used a wake time programming method to insert some light sleep at the end of the naps, which made waking up easier. Similarly to the above mentioned schedules, SPAMAYL-40 doesn't allow for long uninterrupted SWS episodes, which likely is unhealthy for the glymphatic system process.
Modified regular schedules
Taking any regular schedule with extended nap(-s), a new schedule of this category will be the result. An example includes DC1-modified on a picture near this paragraph, which has a 40-minute nap outside of the REM peak. The mechanism of this likely differs from the pronap-only schedules above, since the total sleep time is much higher and the compression levels are much lower. Also all needed SWS should easily be placed in the cores, which possibly will allow longer naps have little-to-no SWS, thus making them more refreshing initially. It is unclear if the wake time programming will be applicable in this case too, but this is worth experimenting. Longer naps on the regular polyphasic schedules might also compensate for a bit shortened cores (e.g. a DC1 variant with 3h + 1.5h cores, or a E2 variant with a 4h core).
Short gaps
According to this research, the polyphasic sleep community has an established recommendation to leave at least 1.5h gaps between two blocks of sleep, preferably even longer (about 3 hours) to ensure brain doesn't count them as one interrupted block of sleep, decreasing their quality. It was found in the study that frequent awakenings followed by immediate returning back to sleep decrease sleep quality, leading to a higher percentage of light sleep. But recently a new idea was suggested by some members of the polyphasic community. In fact, it's possible that the main reason of the reduced sleep quality on schedules with short gaps was not the gaps by themselves, but rather SWS interruption, or mid-cycle wakes in general. Therefore, a new mechanism was suggested - full cores with a short gap (30-60 minutes) in between. This makes getting long uninterrupted chunks of SWS possible, and likely will lead to a normal sleep structure (similar to a one with longer gaps between cores). Also it might be possible to have a few REM naps close to each other during the dawn hours, with each of them having a high quality.
Zoidberg
A schedule, which was originally suggested by Dr. Zoid. It consists of naps, which are divided by short 20-minute gaps. It suggests the possibility to interchangeably nap for 20 minutes, stay awake for 20 minutes, repeating the cycle N times. Stacked by this method naps are called "z-cores". Extra naps can be added to z-cores or during the day if needed. This is a nap-only schedule, which usually has sleep mostly concentrated during the night. A similar method was suggested by Rasmus for the adaptation to SPAMAYL.
There is a known registered attempt of adaptation to Zoidberg. Two people couldn't reach the adapted state after sticking to the schedule for a few months, and it was suggested that the reason was the mechanism of interrupted sleep, which leads to unpredictable sleep structure if the gaps between blocks of sleep are too short. Sleepers had difficulties with falling asleep and waking up after Stage 1, presumably because of the frequent REM and SWS wakes. However, it is still not clear if the mechanism of interrupted sleep was the main reason of the difficulties. Zoidberg is Uberman-modified, and the regular Uberman usually isn't adaptable either because of the low total sleep time. Even having a high sleep quality, Zoidberg wouldn't become better for an average person by this criteria. Also there are no EEG readings of those who consistently attempted Zoidberg, so it is impossible to know, how high was their sleep quality. There are known attempts of regular schedules, when a sleeper had high sleep quality and still wasn't able to leave the loop of Stage 3/4 for weeks or even months, even though the vital sleep stages duration was not much lower than the baseline on mono. An extremely long wake gap during the day makes this schedule unreasonable as well.
Worth mentioning that one of the people kept waking up every 20 minutes for a long time even after leaving Zoidberg, so one should be aware of such possibility when attempting this schedule. Same warning can be applicable to any other nap-only schedule though.
Short gaps between cores
It was suggested that short gaps might be possible between cores if there is no SWS interruption. There were no attempts of adaptation to this schedule with the usage of EEG yet, so it's still unknown yet how the sleep structure would be formed. It might happen that the interrupted sleep theory will be confirmed, leaving the blocks of sleep with unpredictable messed up structure. However, it is also possible that cores sleep structure will take a normal form, similar to the one for longer gaps.
Short gap schedule usually have not much advantages, since for many people it's difficult to return to sleep after a short gap, as not much sleep pressure is built. Also short gaps are much less useful from the point of view of activities, as much less things can be done in a short period of time. They might have an advantage for those inclined to shorter wake gaps. In the past, adults often slept in two distinct phases at night, bridged by an intervening period of wakefulness of approximately one hour[1], which also suggests somewhat short gaps are natural for human.
Dawn REM naps
References
- ↑ Ekirch, A. Roger (2005). At Day's Close: Night in Times Past. W. W. Norton.
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