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I did manage to adapt to polyphasic sleep by the end of September 2009. It wasn't easy, and there were times I thought I would jsut throw in the towel and quit. Mostly it was because of difficulties with getting my naps on time and dealing with other people - societal pressures to conform to the "normal" lifestyle schedule. One thing I've noticed is that this social aspect is the most difficult part of living polyphasic. So much so, in fact, that I have decided to go back to a more normal routine (at least for the time being). Another thing that hurts is being sick. I caught the flu (H1N1, actually). And I slept for up to 20 hours in a day during the week that I had it. It screwed me up such that I will have to go through the whole process of adapting to polyphasic again. That and having my kids for the holidays (they really don't like me to nap twice a day while they are awake - they are 3 and 5, after all). My daughter's not too bad about it, and would nap with me for my noon nap most days. But my son was a real grump about the evening nap and would disturb me most of the time. And so, because being sick recently and not wanting to deal with the issues at work and with me kids are big issues, I have decided that until I am self employed full time, I am not going to go back to polyphasic sleep. I loved it! I felt better (no sore back, not as tired during wake periods, and I got more done). But the other issues revolving around dealign with other people just don't make it worth it at present. Hopefully in a year or two this will change. By then I also hope that my kids will be better able to deal with a father who naps.  I am a big advocate of polyphasic sleep. I spoke with my mom about it, too. I know that she has a strange sleep schedule, because she works nights and my brother is a teenager still living at home (he's 15). She told me about her sleep schedule, and it's quite intriguing. She sleeps about 5 or 6 hours as a core sleep (although she doesn't call it that, and has one or two naps every day, depending on how long her main sleep is. She's been doing this for 10 years. Most days she has a short nap early in the morning, that she says is no more than 20 minutes, and has another nap three or four hours later that is usually 15 or 20 minutes (so she says). And then she has her core sleep. I watched her over the few days I was there recently and noticed that she does nap twice a day and only sleeps a few hours otherwise, sometimes as little as four hours. Yes, I'm still mostly polyphasic, so I do wake up at the times that my polyphasic schedule programmed me to. But last night was my first fully monophasic night (not counting when I was sick) - I slept for seven-and-a-half hours straight, without waking. That's the first time in nearly 3 months. We'll see if my body switches quickly back to monophasic sleep or not. I suspect that it will within a couple of weeks or less, since I'm kind of half ways there already thanks to the holiday schedule and ebing sick at the same time.
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Polyphasic Sleep