What is the Uberman?

The Uberman is not Superman's German twin, it's an alternative sleep schedule. A typical sleep schedule would be your 8 hours asleep, 16 hours awake method. This is often called monophasic sleep since it's done all at once. The Uberman is a polyphasic sleep schedule, meaning one rests in several phases. In my opinion it's a fancy way of saying, "I take naps."

How many naps?
The Uberman involves taking a twenty minute nap every four hours. In a twenty-four hour period that's six naps totaling a mere two hours of sleep. Crazy huh?

How can this possibly work?
Sleep can be divided into five stages. The first four, where there is no rapid eye movement, are grouped by the term NREM. The fifth stage, or REM stage, is where the body gets it's valuable REM sleep.
http://www.dreamviews.com/sleepstages.php
Using the Uberman schedule effectively eliminates NREM sleep. The body is conditioned to "cut to the chase" and enter REM sleep extraordinarily fast.

What about the other stages?
Well to be honest with you, I don't know. =P Certainly the first four stages aren't useless. However, it also seems that they aren't necessary either. Necessary for survival that is. I have a feeling the body will have a much more difficult time repairing itself physically while on the Uberman. That is, things like sore muscles and sickness will linger around longer than normal. As far as I know, polyphasic sleep has never been studied scientifically, so who knows what will happen?

Why in God's name would anyone want to do this?
Curiosity. At least for me. Then there's the obvious benefit of being up and about for twenty-two hours a day. Interestingly, people on the Uberman are reported to get slightly more REM sleep than those who sleep monophasically. (Again, at the expense of zero NREM sleep.) Having the additional REM sleep, people have said to feel an overall better sense of well being.
Additionally, some people have reported that they have incredibly vivid, and often lucid, dreams during the naps. One journal I read said that the Uberman had effectively cured the person of several sleep disorders she had, such has night terrors and sleep walking.

The downside.
It's just plain weird! I'm prepared to be looked at like a weirdo though. =)
Naps must be taken every four hours, on the dot. It sounds like delaying a nap even an hour is very bad. Oversleeping and missing naps are big no-nos.
The long terms effects are unknown.
The adaptation phase will suck.
Boredom could set in if you plan to watch television for 22 hours a day.
I wouldn't particularly call this a con, but you need to a eat a lot more since you're awake a lot more.

So I think I'm just about ready to start it. I would like to make a list of things to do before I go into serious sleep deprivation though. That should be the next post.


Additional links:

A personal experience, and tips about Uberman
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720

Info about polyphasic sleeping in general
Uh oh: "...the medical establishment, including sleep specialists, do not recommend this technique."
http://www.sleepdex.org/polyphasic.htm