My first step is to split up my sleep into two times of day: 3 - 8 am and 7 - 8:30 pm. To that end, I slept six hours the last two nights, from 2-8. Today, I'll take a nap from 7-8:30, and then stay up until 3 from now on.
For a long time it seemed to me that polyphasic sleep would be impossible for me. I can't afford to sleep-deprive myself too much, or else I'll do poorly at work. But then, something occurred to me: everyone else has moved into polyphasic sleep by falling behind on sleep. What if I did it by getting ahead of sleep?
That is the true intent behind my strange method. Two days of 6 hours of sleep won't kill me at work, but it will help me fall asleep for my first nap. I won't have 1 1/2 hours of sleep debt just from that - but I'm betting that I'll stay asleep until my alarm goes off. And then, *bam*. I go from being 45 minutes behind on sleep to being 45 minutes ahead.
The idea is to nap for slightly longer than you actually need to, so that rather than staving off collapse with naps, you're actually sleeping before you feel the need to. I freely admit that I have no idea if this is biologically possible. That's why it's an experiment. I have strong doubts that it would be permanently sustainable, at least for someone on a regular schedule - sooner or later your body is going to get used to falling asleep at an established time no matter what - but I'm not absolutely certain of that.
I do realize that almost all my methods fly in the face of established wisdom on polyphasic sleep. That's because I simply can't afford to do things that way, so I'm going to do them my way instead. If it works, fantastic, if not, well, I'm no worse off than I was before.
I'll post again after my first attempt at a nap tonight.
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