Salvador Dali - Alright, he was more of a famous napper.  He would sleep in a chair, and hold marbles, or a spoon, in one hand, over a metal bowl. As soon as he would hit deep sleep, these things would drop and the noise would awaken him.

Leonardo Da Vinci - Several research projects have been based on the sleep of this man. He was a true renaissance man, working in the areas of mechanics, mathematics, ballistics, medicine, botany, anatomy, astronomy, geology and biology. He is credited with being the first to think up possible designs for many things, including the helicopter. He made many paintings, sketches, sculptures and inventions. It was said that he would sleep just 15 minutes of every four hours. If he truly did this, it would have added about 6 hours of productivity to his day.... Some experiments by Claudio Stampi have demonstrated that this 4 hour work-rest cycle can be sustained for as long as 2 months. But the longest experiment of this type was undertaken by Giancarlo Sbragia, a playwright and actor. He tried it for 6 months, and found that he was a wreck psychologically within a few months. His creativity and quality of work suffered, and eventually he went back to a normal sleep cycle. He found his dreams returned, he felt more peaceful, and his work improved.

So how did Leonardi Da Vinci do it?  He probably didn't! There are notes written later in his life that allude to him spending much time in bed.

Thomas Edison - He felt that 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night could make a person unhealthy and inefficient. While he was known as a great inventor, inventing over 1,300 inventions, he was also a social engineer. He was hopeful that he would be known as the man who made it possible for humans to not need to waste their time in sleeping. He claimed to only sleep four or five hours a day, but some of his assistants have said he slept a bit more than that.

Napoleon - He also claimed that he only slept 4 hours a night. But the people with him said he underestimated the time he spent sleeping, and historians have said he may have made many important mistakes because of his fatigue. He was a frequent napper.

Winston Churchill - It was claimed he only spent 6 hours in bed every night. However, he wrote that one needs to take a complete nap every afternoon, to get fully undressed and really go to bed. No "halfway measures". He claimed the reward was to "get two days in one - well, at least one and a half, I'm sure." He claimed this nap was absolutely neccessary to cope with his responsibilities during the war. His naps were 1.5 to 2 hours long, for a total of about 8 hours a day!

Nikola Tesla - He is said, by some of his followers, to only have slept 2 hours a day. He was definitely a night owl. But his staff has told of him taking many naps during the day. And it seems he may have been narcoleptic, and able to sleep with his eyes open.

Albert Einstein - He felt that naps "refreshed the mind" and that they helped him to be more creative.

John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush - All these presidents are known to nap frequently.

Joseph Stalin - He claimed to the Russian people that they should follow his example and work very hard. He claimed that the lights on in his office late at night in the Kremlin showed he was working very long hours. The reality is that he merely left his light on, and went home for a normal nights sleep.

What can we learn from all these legends about these famous sleepers? We all need sleep, and 9 1/2 hours of sleep is probably optimal. He helps if most of the sleep is in one block, but some can be taken in the form of naps during the day. It seems that either naps of 15 minutes, or of 1 1/2 hours in length (to allow for a complete sleep cycle), are the most refreshing.

Fairy Tales

King Tut - He's been sleeping for a long time....  Gotcha! Sleep is reversible, as you'll learn in the "What Is Sleep?"

Movies

Sleeper