Wow, never thought this sort of technique could be the key out of insomnia. I have heard about it before when reading and trying out lucid dreaming, but I haven’t really tried it.
There is one problem though, that I do find the hypnagogic imaginery kind of scary and disturbing sometimes, the more tired I am the more scary and vivid they seem. That might be one reason I get anxious around sleep when I am too tired.
Sometimes, like last night for example I jerked out of that state a few times going: “woaah, what the hell!” I am talking about monsters with their mouths upside down talking nonsense, a flying dishwasher in warped space, etc.
And then fell into the next and the next wave of weirdness, before finally falling asleep, I remember that at last they started to become more mellow.
Anyway, I will give your technique a go, perhaps it will take a lot of effort not to get freaked out, but it might be worth a try. Thank you for sharing it.
Yeah, disturbing imagery like that can wake you right back up in a hurry. But at that stage of falling-asleep, that imagery is going to arrive whether you’re using this method or not. This method just helps you get as far as that stage more quickly.
At this point I’m being extra-speculative, but it may be that above-normal levels of anxiety in ordinary waking life bleed over into the hypnagogic imagery and make it more likely that you’ll be presented with disturbing images. It could be that more attention to pre-bedtime calming (pleasant nature videos, meditation, chamomile tea, turning off the phone, or whatever works for you to put aside the stresses of the day) could help.
And then there’s my pet theory that the mind sometimes gives us nightmares to jolt us out of sleep when our sleep has become dangerous (e.g. tongue threatening to block the airway) so that we’ll change sleeping position. If you find yourself frequently jolted into wakefulness in this way as you’re falling asleep, maybe talk with a specialist about the possibility that you have obstructive sleep apnea or something like that.
Wow, never thought this sort of technique could be the key out of insomnia. I have heard about it before when reading and trying out lucid dreaming, but I haven’t really tried it.
There is one problem though, that I do find the hypnagogic imaginery kind of scary and disturbing sometimes, the more tired I am the more scary and vivid they seem. That might be one reason I get anxious around sleep when I am too tired.
Sometimes, like last night for example I jerked out of that state a few times going: “woaah, what the hell!” I am talking about monsters with their mouths upside down talking nonsense, a flying dishwasher in warped space, etc. And then fell into the next and the next wave of weirdness, before finally falling asleep, I remember that at last they started to become more mellow.
Anyway, I will give your technique a go, perhaps it will take a lot of effort not to get freaked out, but it might be worth a try. Thank you for sharing it.
Yeah, disturbing imagery like that can wake you right back up in a hurry. But at that stage of falling-asleep, that imagery is going to arrive whether you’re using this method or not. This method just helps you get as far as that stage more quickly.
At this point I’m being extra-speculative, but it may be that above-normal levels of anxiety in ordinary waking life bleed over into the hypnagogic imagery and make it more likely that you’ll be presented with disturbing images. It could be that more attention to pre-bedtime calming (pleasant nature videos, meditation, chamomile tea, turning off the phone, or whatever works for you to put aside the stresses of the day) could help.
And then there’s my pet theory that the mind sometimes gives us nightmares to jolt us out of sleep when our sleep has become dangerous (e.g. tongue threatening to block the airway) so that we’ll change sleeping position. If you find yourself frequently jolted into wakefulness in this way as you’re falling asleep, maybe talk with a specialist about the possibility that you have obstructive sleep apnea or something like that.