Falling Asleep

[DorianMask]

Over the last month or so I have been dealing with a small amount of insomnia. It has been getting better over the last couple weeks after resuming some before bed meditation and regular doses of melatonin. But something strange has been happening in my visual field during the hours of waiting for unconsciousness. I have noticed something while drifting in that in-between hypnagogia and the darkness. While many people say that mimicking the sleeping breath pattern helps assist the transition to WILD, I have found it equally helpful in just generally falling asleep. But there is a visual que that has become even more evident the more I focus on this transitory period. While laying there breathing and passively paying attention to my visual field I seem to notice a sort of elliptical 'white noise' that is the standard background to darkness of behind the eyelids. What I have noticed while purposely breathing the sleep pattern is this border around the field of vision itself. It seems darker and with every exhale the darkness becomes darker and swells inward consuming the shape of the 'white noise'. Only it pulses though, with each breath in the white expands, and each calming breath out the darkness grows inward until the white noise is almost all but consumed. This is by no means universal, at least I am unsure if it is or not. But I do know that the exact moment of the transition to sleep is lost to most of us not actively seeking a WILD transition. I guess my question is, does anyone else experience similar visual cues? I've yet reach the point where I witness absolute darkness. But I have definitely correlated the whiter or fuller my vision the more awake or further from sleep I am, and the darker my vision the more relaxed or closer to sleep I am. If anyone has any helpful falling asleep techniques or any similar experiences I'd love to hear them!

[michael79]

Sure I have this all the time, even in very bright room(if I relax long enough), I can make my vision field pitch dark through relaxation, after that I think I can see hypnagogia. BTW I also suffer from insomnia and I will be thankful to hear methods for falling asleep faster.

[DorianMask]

So I've been having some good success with a couple other techniques I'll share here. One being the points of awareness meditation. This is a relaxation technique I am certain many people have heard of, I read about it years ago but have only recently been going through it again. The basic gist is while laying still and focusing on your breathing. You go through certain points in your body one at a time, bringing your awareness to the point on a breath in, then intending that point to 'let go' or 'relax' on the breath out, then move to the next point. Everyone has their own map or order to go through these in but mine generally looks something like this Only I start at my bottle right great toe, breathe in call awareness there, breathe out relax, then move into my ankle, calf, knee, thigh, right hip, then back to the left great toe, ankle, calf, knee, thigh, left hip, then the sacrum, the naval, the sternum, the heart, right clavicle, shoulder, bicep, elbow, forearm, wrist, then I count my fingers one at a time, pinky, ring, middle, index, thumb, webbing between the thumb, palm, wrist, forearm, elbow, bicep, armpit, clavicle, back to center, and trace the other side exactly the same. To the throat, the chin, the mouth, tip of the nose, between the eyes, the forehead, the temples, ending on the crown, the top of the head. This may seem obvious to many, but every night I've honestly done this exercise with a deep breath on each point of awareness, I've yet to complete it before losing consciousness. Another great technique I picked up in massage school This one involves a brief few moments with yourself before laying down. I don't wear anything to bed so it's simple for me but may be somewhat hindered with layers of clothes on. The practice is a light form of effleurage, or light touch massage. Essentially you imagine you are rubbing oil over every square inch of your body, or rather dusting sand off of you if that is a more familiar sensation. It is similar to the motions you would go through while in the shower, only the intention here is to gently brush every square inch of your body in a sweeping motion. Almost as if you are brushing off the days accumulation before laying in bed. Focus on the main joints like shoulder girdle hips and knees as there are more lymph nodes focused in these areas. The theory being there are literally miles of capillaries within the body, most of which are just below the skin. Our arterial flow (that which moves blood to organs from the heart) has mini musculature to move the blood regardless of our movement. Venous flow (from the organs back to the heart) however does not. It relies on pumping action which is 100% body-movement based, this is one of main reasons massage is so therapeutic. It helps move the used and waste ridden blood, back to the liver and heart to be processed and cleaned. We can essentially do a quick flush, and assist our venous flow just by rubbing the skin in a sweeping motion generally starting at the head and moving your way down the body. It doesn't have to be long, less than a minute it usually takes, but it's all about personal preference. You shouldn't be in a hurry, as its a personal time to spend with your body before retiring for the night. The nights I do this compared to the nights I don't are markedly different. So I figured I'd share with hopes someone else can benefit from it! Sleep well fellow dreamers!

[Caradon]

In my younger days I had really bad insomnia I used the point of awareness method a lot too. What I found worked the best for me as I've discussed before is the visualizing drawing of numbers. I tried the whole counting, and counting sheep thing whatever. But what started happening was I could easily count while my mind wandered thinking about other things so I needed more focus. That's when I came up with the idea to visualize drawing out the numbers. Ether sitting at a desk drawing them big on a piece of paper in a note book and turning the page after each number, or drawing them on the wall or chalk board. Just something about the motion of my hand drawing the numbers really pulled me into sleep fast. And that is how I discovered VILDing. As I had my first visualization induced lucidity. I had never even heard of it before so you can imagine my surprise when one day I was visualizing sitting at my desk drawing numbers in a note book to suddenly find that I was no longer visualizing but actually there and looking around.

[mobwicket]

Picture a relaxing scene that involves sleep and build that scene in your mind.

[DorianMask]

Picture a relaxing scene that involves sleep and build that scene in your mind. Oh yes! This reminds me, I used to imagine myself laying in a larger me's hand wearing a weighted vest. Then I would "let myself go" and feel my sleeping self falling with the weight of the vest pulling me faster. That helps every once and a while, haven't tried it in a while, may do that tonight!

[Sivason]

The focusing on points of the body you mentions works very well for me. It is also a good WILD trick, as the focus keeps your mind aware while the process puts your body to sleep.

[Tiktaalik]

I’ve been experimenting with something recently that appears to be quite effective for me. It’s quite hard to explain but basically I lay in bed and breath in and out slowly and then I keep my mind blank. I don’t focus on the darkness behind my closed eyes, I don’t focus on my breaths, and I don’t focus on any particular thoughts that pop up I just remain blank and unfocused. Of course there is a very slight awareness that I am trying to be blank but I find this doesn’t keep me awake and if I do drift off into thought without realising it usually helps me fall asleep anyway. If I do this after a WBTB I can usually fall back asleep very quickly and I once had a WILD as well by doing this so I’m experimenting with that also. If I’ve had a long bout of insomnia though I can be too stressed for this to work. If this happens I’ve found getting out of bed and using the loo and then returning to bed can help me drift off quicker. Maybe give it a try and you may experience what I’m talking about.

[SealedOrion]

I haven't experienced any white noise but doing really heavy exercise an hour before sleeping tires my body out and makes it easier to sleep , it can also help to do a breathing technique where you breathe in completely and as much as you can while tightening up your entire body and then relaxing it completely , doing this 10 times as I fall asleep works well for me. If you are feeling agitated because your mind is filled with a lot of non random thoughts ( emphasis on non random thoughts like arguments , rants and a constant stream of opinions , random whacky nonsensical and abstract thoughts are good and indicate that sleep is about to come ) , its best to wake up for a while and do something to distract yourself . like when I find my mind full of arguments and can't sleep because of it I just wake up and play chess on my phone and then go to sleep a bit later when I am tired and ,mentally relaxed .

[FryingMan]

The 61-point relaxation method I find requires too much mental stimulation, at least if I'm in a situation where almost all drowsiness has vanished, like the 6hr waking, which is a really tough one for me since most of my good recall is at that waking and I usually spend time reviewing it to fix it into memory, which wakes me up a lot. Any sort of visualization or attention to my physical body keeps me awake. The only things that generally work are "getting out of my head" (hard to describe, but something like imagining flying) and the classic breathing relaxation: on every exhale, continually release all stress and tension both mentally and physically, over and over, without "trying" to do anything. Often I'll catch myself "trying to fall asleep," and this never works. I focus only on relaxing more and more, and cultivating deep feelings of satisfaction at this wonderful relaxation, without any idea that I'm trying to get somewhere (fall asleep) with it. I fall asleep really quickly at bedtime generally, and I sometimes try to "fool" myself into thinking it's the initial bedtime, mentally say "good night" to my wife, and then just totally let go of tension and all striving.