I’ve done this. I was kinda sorta trying out polyphasic sleeping, but the real driver was that I wanted to learn how to fall asleep because I was pretty bad at it. It turned out to be very very interesting and useful.
The single biggest thing I learned from that experience is what it feels like to be “asleep”. My thoughts would slow to a stop during the 20 minute naps, but I’d often retain awareness the whole time. I’d lose my sense of time because there was just nothing happening to count as the tick of a clock. At first I thought “I didn’t fall asleep” because there was no gap in consciousness, but after a couple days doing quite well on “no sleep” I realized that my model of sleep wasn’t adding up. At a LW meetup one time I had heard an experienced meditator describe having the same experience while asleep and I couldn’t imagine it at the time, so it was neat to experience it first hand.
The interesting thing about this is that having the thought “Ugh, I’m still not asleep” isn’t actually proof that the thought is correct. If you take “I’m aware of my surroundings” to be proof of being awake, then you can actually wake yourself up by falsely concluding that you’re awake. This cuts through a lot of self-fulfilling insomnia, because instead of stressing about not being asleep yet, it’s “I don’t really know if I’m asleep, and there isn’t really a hard line anyway” and “Worrying about this is actually the action of waking up, so that’d be dumb, lol”. So you can just lie there without generating additional thoughts about how you’re not asleep yet, and that can be a big help.
The other thing that it gave me is an explicit understanding of what falling asleep is. I’m just letting my thoughts spool down. Instead of opening 1.2 new tabs per tab on your mental browser and dealing with a tab explosion, open 0.8. That doesn’t mean it’s easy if you’re excited and have much to think about, but also, sometimes there are things worth getting excited about and thinking about instead of sleeping. Facing this question directly at least gives you a handle on the problem and a way to pull on the lever towards sleep, when there’s reason to motivate it.
If you have difficulties falling asleep and the slack to burn a week doing this, it might be a good investment. But I don’t think it’s necessary in order to put in deliberate practice falling asleep. You do it every night anyway, so every night you can track what’s keeping your mind racing. You can notice if it’s driven by anxieties that turn out to be false, or by not making an explicit decision about what’s worth thinking about when, or what. You can notice which emotions, if any, start to bubble up once you stop distracting yourself, and whether that might be a driver for these incessant thoughts.
And when things are sorted out, just practice lying down noticing that you don’t have to think anymore. No need to worry about not sleeping. The exciting projects can wait for tomorrow. For now, you can just rest. You don’t have to do anything. And notice how nice that can feel :P
Also, melatonin. I’m not sure how much credit to give to melatonin vs learning better how to sleep, but my sleep latency used to be close to an hour or more and now my Oura ring says I average ten minutes and there’s basically zero struggle anymore.
I’ve done this. I was kinda sorta trying out polyphasic sleeping, but the real driver was that I wanted to learn how to fall asleep because I was pretty bad at it. It turned out to be very very interesting and useful.
The single biggest thing I learned from that experience is what it feels like to be “asleep”. My thoughts would slow to a stop during the 20 minute naps, but I’d often retain awareness the whole time. I’d lose my sense of time because there was just nothing happening to count as the tick of a clock. At first I thought “I didn’t fall asleep” because there was no gap in consciousness, but after a couple days doing quite well on “no sleep” I realized that my model of sleep wasn’t adding up. At a LW meetup one time I had heard an experienced meditator describe having the same experience while asleep and I couldn’t imagine it at the time, so it was neat to experience it first hand.
The interesting thing about this is that having the thought “Ugh, I’m still not asleep” isn’t actually proof that the thought is correct. If you take “I’m aware of my surroundings” to be proof of being awake, then you can actually wake yourself up by falsely concluding that you’re awake. This cuts through a lot of self-fulfilling insomnia, because instead of stressing about not being asleep yet, it’s “I don’t really know if I’m asleep, and there isn’t really a hard line anyway” and “Worrying about this is actually the action of waking up, so that’d be dumb, lol”. So you can just lie there without generating additional thoughts about how you’re not asleep yet, and that can be a big help.
The other thing that it gave me is an explicit understanding of what falling asleep is. I’m just letting my thoughts spool down. Instead of opening 1.2 new tabs per tab on your mental browser and dealing with a tab explosion, open 0.8. That doesn’t mean it’s easy if you’re excited and have much to think about, but also, sometimes there are things worth getting excited about and thinking about instead of sleeping. Facing this question directly at least gives you a handle on the problem and a way to pull on the lever towards sleep, when there’s reason to motivate it.
If you have difficulties falling asleep and the slack to burn a week doing this, it might be a good investment. But I don’t think it’s necessary in order to put in deliberate practice falling asleep. You do it every night anyway, so every night you can track what’s keeping your mind racing. You can notice if it’s driven by anxieties that turn out to be false, or by not making an explicit decision about what’s worth thinking about when, or what. You can notice which emotions, if any, start to bubble up once you stop distracting yourself, and whether that might be a driver for these incessant thoughts.
And when things are sorted out, just practice lying down noticing that you don’t have to think anymore. No need to worry about not sleeping. The exciting projects can wait for tomorrow. For now, you can just rest. You don’t have to do anything. And notice how nice that can feel :P
Also, melatonin. I’m not sure how much credit to give to melatonin vs learning better how to sleep, but my sleep latency used to be close to an hour or more and now my Oura ring says I average ten minutes and there’s basically zero struggle anymore.