Bimaxion
| Bimaxion | |
|---|---|
| chart link
Legend
| |
| Total sleep | 4 hours |
| Proposed by | GeneralNguyen |
| Difficulty | Very hard |
| Specification | 2 cores, 2 naps, in dymaxion configuration. |
Bimaxion is a schedule that combines elements of Dual core and Dymaxion.[1] It is designed as a transitional schedule for a gradual adaptation route to Dymaxion, as well as a fallback schedule after Dymaxion becomes no longer sustainable. At 4 hours sleep total, it is considered to be the single most difficult schedule that is still achievable by an average person.
History
Originally mapped out to total only 4h sleep each day by GeneralNguyen, the schedule used to be called "Quadphasic" (4 sleeps per day of 1h each, but more focus on nocturnal sleep and less sleep during the day). It then became Bimaxion with 2 core sleeps of only 1 full cycle each, and 2 30m naps, resulting in the change in naming (2 naps = "bi") to clarify naming. Bimaxion is the schedule that gives a highest amount of sleep each day in the "-maxion" family of schedules (4h), to reflect on the idea of an "intense lifestyle with little sleep" from Buckminster Fuller, who created Dymaxion.
Mechanism
Because Bimaxion possesses 2 core sleeps that are concentrated around the night hours, it sparks the traits of Dual Core sleep, where one core is always scheduled before midnight to take advantage of the SWS peak, while the other core is around sunrise hours for REM sleep. At face value, Bimaxion coincidentally looks like a shortened DC2 schedule where the core sleeps only have 1 full cycle, and an overall low total sleep. However, at its heart, Bimaxion is often considered "easier Dymaxion", just like how E3 is to Uberman. Bimaxion's distribution of sleeps is made to closely resemble Dymaxion's - one sleep around midnight, another around dawn, late morning/noon and mid/late-afternoon hours. Bimaxion, therefore, is one of the two "-maxion" schedules that theoretically can pave the way for a transition to a Dymaxion adaptation. To make the schedule sustainable, the first core sleep now has to be placed in the SWS peak to get as much quality SWS as possible. The second core will be dedicated to REM sleep, and the naps provide different types of sleep. The first nap, being early in the day, is bound to give a lot of REM sleep, while the second nap can give only NREM2, or potentially some more SWS as the SWS core alone does not provide enough SWS for a regular 90m SWS requirements each day.
Difficulty Scale
Alongside DC3 and E3 (3h core), Bimaxion is a polyphasic schedule whose total sleep borderlines on the minimum sleep threshold that an average sleeper should be able to adapt to. However, compared to the aforementioned two schedules, Bimaxion is often considered far more difficult to adapt to, because of the SWS wakes that appear near the end of the naps, and the single-cycle core sleeps promote SWS deprivation symptoms and REM deprivation symptoms until an equilibrium of SWS and REM is reached in all the given sleep blocks, even if the wake gap between each sleep does not appear to be as long as on many other polyphasic schedules.
While Bimaxion's sleep distribution looks very similar to that of E3, adaptations are very rare compared to E3 itself. The 20m naps on E3 at least can delay the oversleeps from the rising sleep pressure over the course of even several days, while an awakening from Bimaxion's 30m naps can be utterly devastating with long-lasting sleep inertia in Stage 3. Staying awake during the graveyard hours between each core can become overwhelming with SWS wakes from the first core as part of the segmentation of the cores.
Adaptation Methods & Alternate Variants
So far, all successes reported on this schedule are done cold turkey. However, most of the successful adaptations are from sleep mutants (~5-6h monophasic) or heavy insomniacs (which is the patent cause behind a consistently low amount of vital sleep stage requirements). A gradual adaptation method to a polyphasic schedule with a 30m nap (e.g, DC1 with a 30m nap) may be possible, but it has not been an effective way to adapt to Bimaxion so far. Because of the difficult nature of the 30m naps, cold turkey method is the most recommended means for a successful Bimaxion adaptation.
Up to date, only the default version of Bimaxion is adaptable. Any other possible variants, including swapping the second nap and the first core's positions, or slightly shortening one or both cores down to ~70-80m to squeeze in a bit more wake time will only increase the hostility of the adaptation process. Bimaxion can be extended, with an extra cycle added to the SWS core, but then its higher total sleep causes it to lose the niche of the hefty sleep reduction amount and the extended version is still much harder than DC2. No one has succeeded with Bimaxion-extended, either. At this point, it is simply better to adapt to DC2 or E3-extended instead.
Lifestyle Considerations
Because Bimaxion contains 2 core sleeps to support SWS requirements, it is more flexible than Dymaxion after adaptation, but only to a small extent. The naps may be somewhat flexible, but it is unlikely that the cores will be as flexible. So far, only one sleep mutant has been able to make Bimaxion highly flexible as a pathway to adapt to Ducamayl. This sleeper also stayed on Bimaxion for several months comfortably without any health issues, proving that Bimaxion may be sustained for an extended period of time. It is then only reasonable that only a low sleep requirement would be able to enjoy a flexible Bimaxion.
Like other schedules with 4 sleep blocks each day, Bimaxion can actually fit into a consistent lifestyle with 9-to-5 work hours as long as a nap around noon is permitted. The short daytime naps provide alertness to help fulfill the remaining vital sleep stages while not being too long to be interrupted by certain events if there is room to schedule them. Compared to DC2, it offers an even more impressive amount of sleep reduction, at the cost of a grueling adaptation and potential inflexibility after adaptation. Light exercises are also forgiving on this schedule thanks to both deep core sleeps, but it is doubtful that the body can recover from a hard workout quickly enough, with normal sleep requirements.
The low total sleep can also deliver a lot of benefits for intense dreaming. Days on Bimaxion have been anecdotally reported to last twice as long as a normal day because of the highly condensed sleep blocks. This is further consolidated by an anecdote of a sleeper, who after adapted to Bimaxion, could still sleep through a whole strong fire alarm system at his apartment complex, and only woke up after a full 90m had passed in the SWS core.
Despite all the promising sleep reduction and the scheduling viability with regards to a standard lifestyle, the SWS core is still considered early for a lot of people, as sleeping at 10 PM is far from popular today, as it was in the pre-industrial era. This can effectively nullify a lot of social time in the evening. After adaptation, any events that interrupt or force any of the cores to be skipped can be very destructive to the schedule. One of the biggest motivations that one would adapt to this schedule would be to experiment with 30m (REM) naps or love the distribution of sleeps in a Dymaxion style.
References
- ↑ GeneralNguyen. "OFFICIAL! New Polyphasic Cycle Released! My Experience, Tips, Notes & a Proposed Adaptation Scheme to Dymaxion". Reddit. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
