Is 6 hours of night sleep enough if you take 2-hour naps?

the Stuff Dreams are made of...
1

I took a nap between 2 PM and 4 PM today (obviously as a LD attempt, although it was chiefly a bunch of extra vivid ND’s :tongue:) - how much do you think I would need to sleep during the nights if I take these naps everyday?
I consider sleeping for 6 hours during the nights with these naps included, will that work?

2

I don’t see why it wouldn’t. The recommended amount of sleep is 7-8 hours. If you’re getting 6 hours with naps, that should be enough.
I sleep 7 hours every night, and if I get any less, I take a nap.

3

I’m just jealous right here and now! :tongue:

I can’t get naps to work for me… I guess the problem is in amount of sleep that I get EVERY night and that’s more then 10 hours… I’m just curious how would LD look like in nap time… I thought about changing my sleep schedule but that’s a bigger step in my life at the moment… Anyway good luck with naps!

4

I’m not sure…I suppose that’s correct in theory, but I always thought consistent sleep was better. But whatever works for you!

5

Polyphasic sleep! Well, actually biphasic…

It’s a very individual dependent thing, mainly because people tend to nap differently. As the theory of biphasic sleep schedules (sleeping twice every day) goes, it’s 6 hours at “night” and a 20 minute power nap sometime during the day. So, a 2 hour nap is probably overkill :tongue:

I’ve experimented with biphasic sleep schedules before, when I first got to college. I would sleep 4-5 hours at night, get up for my morning class, sleep 3-4 hours in the late morning/early afternoon, and get up for my evening classes. This let me take 8am Calculus and still do homework (read: hang out) till 3 am every night.
It worked for me, but only for one semester. The key to it was to wake up exactly after a rem cycle (around 4-4.5 hours). Too early and I’d fall asleep in Calculus. Too late and I’d fall asleep in Calculus AND have trouble “napping” afterwords.

[EDIT] Wiki article that may be of interest. (Polyphasic Sleep)

6

Naps can have a big effect on your dream cycle, so also on LD’s. From my own experiences I’ve noticed that after a nap in the afternoon, you can get a long REM-cycle in the beginning of the night as if you’ve done a WBTB.