One of the stories about da Vinci was his remarkable sleeping habits - he supposedly took several short catnaps, totaling less than three hours slept per day. The obvious implication is that all this extra time allowed him to pursue his art and research to such a huge degree.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any real citation of this legend, Cecil hasn’t addressed it and searches on the net bring up nothing of substance.
Is there any proof that da Vinci actually used this sleep method, and even if he didn’t, would it be possible to at all? An extra five hours would come in mighty handy…
(I think a Seinfeld episode had Kramer trying this out, with disastrous results.)
The sources that I’ve seen suggested that Leonardo didn’t sleep for three hours straight, but that he slept for 15 minutes once every couple hours. Can’t help you beyond that.
I know someone who does the same thing, 15 minute naps totalling about 2-3 hours per day. Kinda freaky, but it works for him. Since I’ve observed him doing this, I believe it is possible.
Buckminster Fuller did the same thing. Evidently, it takes a while to get used to, but once you get the knack down, it’s amazing. Bucky got to the point where he could sit down, say, “I’m going to take a nap.” and be out so quickly that people thought he’d had a stroke.
The book “Sleep Thieves” says that 3 hours was probably an inflated (or I guess, deflated) number. That he had an unusual sleep pattern, but that he probably stretched the numbers a tad…
I’ve heard this before about Leonardo, but I’m not sure that it’s not an urban legend. I can’t find any references to Leonardo’s sleeping habits in Vasari’s “Life of Leonardo da Vinci,” which I thought might be the source of this story.
In Leonardo’s notebooks, there is a passage (1165) where Leonardo criticizes people for wasting time slumbering:
In other words, you’ll have plenty of time to rest when you’re dead.
On the other hand, further down (1173) he remarks: “As a day well spent brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death.” To really appreciate a “happy sleep,” I’d think that Leonardo must have at least occasionally taken a full night’s rest.
So there’s evidence Leonardo didn’t like to snooze too much, but I can’t find anything to substantiate this story of him only taking 15-minute cat-naps–though I can’t rule out the possibility, either.
And apropos of the topic of sleeping, you may want to consult Cecil: Why do we sleep?, which mentions the case of a 70-year-old woman who could sleep only one hour a night without taking daytime naps.
Well, I might have guessed that the guy with the Bucky quote in his sig would beat me to the punch with this story. But I will add that Bucky reportedly got by with a half hour nap every four hours (i.e. two hours sleep a day) for years or decades, IIRC. But I’m working from memory, here. Tuckerfan: do you know if he kept this up all his life? Did he ever sleep normally (four or more hours a day)?
I’ve gotten to the point where I can easily nap for exactly half an hour in the afternoon, but that’s in addition to the nightly 6-8 hours. The nice thing about my micro naps is that I awake refreshed, whereas if I nap for an hour or more, I’m groggy for a while after getting up.
From what I have read about those claiming to never or rarely sleep…its mostly BS. People tend to really inflate their claims in this area for some reason. For me if its less than 8 hours I’m feeling it all day.