Insomnia Cures: The Skill of Falling Asleep

Introducing: The “Skill of Falling Asleep”

In researching cures for insomnia, I found that people that meditate, are very creative, or are athletic, have an easier time going to sleep naturally.  By studying what happens around the moment we fade off… I’ve found that it’s very similar to a meditative, creative state.

When you actually fall asleep, it can be identified by some thought that just goes on out into the abstract, and you don’t realize you’re having it, and you follow it into sleep.

Being able to do this first requires a “tired” state of mind… learn more about how to get into this state by reading about “Wired vs. Tired”.

What you’re effectively doing when you exercise the skill of falling asleep is choosing to alter the chemicals in your brain - as opposed to choosing to go to sleep.  Remember how I said “Sleep is not a choice”?  It’s not - but you CAN choose to alter your brain activity in a way that causes your brain to go to sleep.

So here’s something you might try tonight: meditate for about 5 minutes - and then follow it by telling your subconscious to think of a something.

What something? The key is to think about something that is interesting enough to watch frame by frame, like a movie, but isn’t related to your life.

That sounds funny to most people, but it’s actually very interesting.  Your subconscious is simply the part of your active brain that’s just under the surface of what you can consciously detect - so it’s constantly helping you think of things.  You know how thoughts seem to come out of thin air?  That’s just because you can’t see how they’re being assembled.

By telling the subconscious to think of something that it just sorta likes and can take off with, you trigger it to begin the process of dreaming, so to speak.  A vision turns into a stream and this prepares the mind to cross over.

So tell your subconscious to think of a something, and then leave it be.

You can try it right now.  If you mention something you want to picture in your mind, and then just sit there (without trying to picture anything), your subconscious will bring up something.  Ask it directly.  It helps to give your subconscious a name. Once again, it sounds funny, but it’s really quite interesting. Your subconscious is kind of like a child. You can ask it to bring up a thought about something and it’s surprising how it just sort of comes up with something. Sometimes it’s fast, sometimes it’ll play around or won’t bring up anything, and sometimes it’ll seem to get excited… like a child. Your subconscious should pick it up after a while.

Just say anything you think it would find interesting to picture.  It can’t be something you really care about, because you’ll associate it with other things in your life and that’s pretty much the opposite of the creative state we’re looking for.

What you’re going to do, is say something… it can really be anything… and then let you subconscious have it.  As in, you don’t do anything - except say something and see what happens.

It’s very important that you don’t interfere - don’t make a single correction, don’t think about what’s going on, just watch.  That might sound a little strange, so let me explain.

There are two parts of your brain.  One is the editor, it’s the part of you that wants to correct things and moderate things.  The other is the creator, and it’s only job is to create, and it’s constantly being attacked and controlled by the editor.

I think this directly correlates with the wired and tired kind of thinking.

What’s happening is that your subconscious will do something with what you give it.  It’ll start seeing whatever it was you said in some way - in a scene, a picture of it, or whatever happens without you consciously taking part in what’s going on.

The skill of falling asleep is a visual activity in which you see things without any kind of editing - the split instant you see something, that’s what it is and you don’t change it in any way, you just look at it, as from a distance.

It’s an activity you have to do without trying to do it - you’ve just got to let it come, which, when you do it right, is very easy to do - it’s actually the very definition of easy (except for the fact that you’re in an addictive habit of messing with it!)

To kill the editor and habit of editing, you must be in a tired state.

You know when you’re *trying* because of indicators - like repetition of any visual or getting stuck.  Wired feelings (heat, restlessness, uncomfortable), emotions (worrying, doubt), and logic (messing with the picture) are all indicators that you’re trying. Remember, this activity isn’t something you can try to pull off… it’s just something that happens and you get better at letting happen. It can be hard to start because, well, you don’t usually do this on a conscious level.

If you are doing it right, you’ll end up being very meditative and creative - and then, very possibly, about 30 minutes later you’ll notice you’ve completely gone off course and remember what you’re supposed to be doing (or you’ll have passed out from the tired state.)

And if your subconscious brings up something relevant to your life, it’s very easy to end up thinking about something else for a long time - because memory works by association.

If you’d be interested in helping me test this, get in contact with me and let me know how it’s going.  I don’t have enough data to know exactly what kind of insomnia problems this works best with, although it works really well if you have anxiety or something distracting you and keeping you awake, like pain, apnea, hormonal problems, or others.

If you’re interested in helping me develop the skill, or if you don’t understand something, shoot me an email at thecahoon@gmail.com. This is a hard concept to put into words, so I’m always trying to refine it, and I’m very interested in figuring out more about what actually triggers the switch from “awake” to “asleep”.

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