Are You Getting Enough Sleep? Sleeping properly?

[Gaby]

This whole thing of sleeping in the darkness is great. Now I can't picture myself going back to the old ways. In fact, a week ago I had a dream where I was telling to myself that the reason I was having such a bad night was because I left a light in the room. I waked up and sure enough, I forgot to cover the alarm clock!

 

[Gawan]

I'm sleeping much longer in my tent :), maybe 8-10 hrs per day. The dreams are intensified, more lucid (where at the morning I'm at some times confused did I really talk to the person this night, or was it just in a dream) and it also happened that I sweated pretty much during some nights and woke up several times about 2.30 am. Well, I really like it. :)
Also this new sleeping behavior has kind of anti-social tendencies, cause many parties, or just meetings with people start at nine or even later. :P

 

[Mrs.Tigersoap]

I still have a lot to read in Lights Out (almost half-way through) but I thought about this today and wanted to see if i understand correctly:

For us to survive and live 'well', we need to 'play ball' with nature (not only for our sake but for nature's sake, because of the feedback loop). We are after all dependent on nature and the planet around us and the planet find us useful for different reasons as well. Psychopaths, the 4D STS, however, because of their very nature, do NOT want us to 'play ball' with nature, they don't want us to survive, they don't want us to go back to the pre-fall state. So when we realign to nature's rules (go to sleep as close to dusk as possible, rise with sunrise, sleep in total darkness, eat carbs as nature intended, in season and locally and maybe also by seeing the world as it really is), we up our chances of survival and even psychopaths and 4D STS have no power over that.
Because if we don't 'play ball' with nature, nature herself will take us out of the game (as shown in the book, through mental illness, ill health, etc.). And in this case, the psychopaths/4D STS do not even need to lift a finger to destroy us. We literally do it ourselves.

 

[pete02]

I'm sleeping much longer in my tent :), maybe 8-10 hrs per day. The dreams are intensified, more lucid (where at the morning I'm at some times confused did I really talk to the person this night, or was it just in a dream) and it also happened that I sweated pretty much during some nights and woke up several times about 2.30 am. Well, I really like it. :)
Also this new sleeping behavior has kind of anti-social tendencies, cause many parties, or just meetings with people start at nine or even later. :P

My dreams have been even more vivid and frequent than before and I'm actually quite enjoying it. The sleep is deep and relaxing for me too however I did recently notice that I awaken with sweat whereas I never did before. None of my environmental conditions have changed so I'm a bit puzzled by this. Has anyone else noticed any sweating in their sleep?

 

[D Rusak]

Random question- back when the C's were telling Laura to create a "psychomantium"...and you guys made a big black tent-like thing...maybe they were meaning something like a dark room to sleep in and recharge/generate dreams/the body/the soul? A possible "hit"?

I apologize if someone already mentioned this here.

Of course I should really be doing this myself now...just so worked up the last few days. Maybe I will go to bed early tomorrow night, whoops.

 

[mcb]

Random question- back when the C's were telling Laura to create a "psychomantium"...and you guys made a big black tent-like thing...maybe they were meaning something like a dark room to sleep in and recharge/generate dreams/the body/the soul? A possible "hit"?...

For some reason a thought about the psychomantium crossed my mind the other night as well. I don't know why. What I am really wondering is whether the discoveries being made about sleeping in total darkness aren't the real find here. I am continuing to read the book, but I have mixed feelings about it. Some of the information seems like it could be valuable, and some of it just seems wrong.

The part I am reading now about mental illness is in that latter category. Artificial light might be making us slightly more crazy, but modern psychiatry and Big Pharma have far more to do with it. And while additional light may well create further problems with appetite, there are other forces also at work that are fairly well understood. Anyone here that has tried the USD and found their appetite settling down is well aware of this. Modern processed foods are deliberately designed to be addictive. The medical and food industries are both "growth" industries. The medical industry grows by making people sicker. The food industry grows by making people eat more. (The book The End of Overeating makes this last point clear.)

What's really happening is that we under assault in all ways, physically and mentally, from all sides. Artificial light is just one piece of the puzzle. I keep reading statements in this book that seem vastly oversimplified. If the long days of summer signal us to prepare for the freezing winter, what happens to people in the equatorial regions? In any case, many of us don't have freezing winters -- we heat our houses and our transportation, and we dress warmly. How does that factor in? Do we need less sleep since we aren't going to freeze? I sure don't know.

I do recognize from my own experience that lack of sleep makes me not feel well, that light in the room makes it hard to sleep, and that making extended use of artificial light has subtle side effects that may be undesirable. I think that Lights Out is pointing in the right direction. I am just not quite sure where the research leaves off and the speculation begins. I will keep on reading.

 

[loreta]

Than you Laura! Merci, gracias!

I try me too to work with my sleepling patterns. I used to supper very late and go to bed very late. So since I started the EE program, I take supper around 8 at night. Than around 11 I go to sleep. I am sure you think 11 is too late, I know. Little by little, I used to go around 3 or 4 in the morning! So little by little I will go to sleep earlier.

I saw a difference: I feel better if I supper earlier and go to bed earlier.

Again, thanks!

Loreta.

 

[Ollie]

Than you Laura! Merci, gracias!

I try me too to work with my sleepling patterns. I used to supper very late and go to bed very late. So since I started the EE program, I take supper around 8 at night. Than around 11 I go to sleep. I am sure you think 11 is too late, I know. Little by little, I used to go around 3 or 4 in the morning! So little by little I will go to sleep earlier.

I saw a difference: I feel better if I supper earlier and go to bed earlier.

Again, thanks!

Loreta.

You may like to aim to have supper between 5 and 6 in the evening and go to bed before 10.00. Then sleep in until 6 or 7 in the morning (UK winter now, dark at about 5.30pm), depending on the hours of darkness where you are. The idea is that you sleep whilst it is dark.

 

[loreta]

You may like to aim to have supper between 5 and 6 in the evening and go to bed before 10.00. Then sleep in until 6 or 7 in the morning (UK winter now, dark at about 5.30pm), depending on the hours of darkness where you are. The idea is that you sleep whilst it is dark.

Uy! This is really early! But today I will try to supper at 7. I will see. Here we have the same time schedule that in UK. This will be something really new in my life, a real change. I used to take supper around midnight! But as I said to my husband, if you want to survive when something big will happen, we have to be in good shape! So here we are.

Thanks for the counsel.

Loreta.

 

[Gertrudes]

I found a blackout roller blind on ebay that fits our huge window :) I'm going to order it and will put it inside the window frame, overlapping our venetian blinds.
For the sides of the window through which light can escape, my partner had the idea of using one of those trunking conduits one uses for electrical cables, attached on each side of the window. The idea is to have the blind passing through the conduit which would block out the light, although we don't know whether it will work.

I don't know if this helps but here in Italy it is very common to have these metal shutters on the outside of the window, usually they are manual. They are great, both for security reasons, to keep out the heat in the summer and to totally black out a room. I don't know how much they cost as they are in almost every house here.... but maybe worth a look for some of you ;)

We had these metal shades in Portugal too. In fact, I had never seen anything else then that in people's bedrooms before I left the country. They are great, because they completely block out all light.
When I moved into UK I had many sleepless nights and couldn't understand how people could sleep with a simple curtain or a blind. Eventually I got used to it but my partner still has problems with sleep, something he never suffered from when we were using the metal shades.

 

[loreta]

I have metal shades in my room, I'm correcto with this. I don't understand if it is very important for example the light of the interruptor. You know, a red light. A little tiny light. I ordered the book in Amazon.UK for 4 pounds! That's a good price.

I was thinking about people who are in the hospitals. In their rooms there is always light, during the night, that's coming from the corridor and they have always a little light in their room, so they never are in the total obscurity.

We are lucky to receive all this information from Laura and from all of you.

Loreta.

 

[rise]

I gave this a try this week and will continue to do so. I don't really have a means to cover the windows completely (yet) so I sort of made a tent over the bed. It isn't completely dark but it is much darker than without the 'tent'. I feel like I've been sleeping heavier and for longer and I recall dreaming but do not remember them when I wake up. I also feel like I took melatonin when I wake up in the morning, super/semi groggy depending on how well I slept.

Last night I woke up and freaked out because I thought something/someone was in the room, as some have said in this thread. I don't know if I got that because I read it or if I just freaked out or something was legitimately in the room. Once I removed the tent the feeling went away. I don't know if it makes a difference but it was the first night I did EE before going into my tent.

 

[loreta]

Hi everybody,
Since I take my supper earlier (7 p.m. instead of 12 or 1 a.m.) and since I go to bed earlier, I feel really better. I am very grateful to all of you and to myself also for this change in my life. I do meditation also every night and EE. I dream much more. And yesterday I almost understood why I had problems with my bed. Let me explain: my mother was a woman with psychological problems, she was chronically depress and was always very tired and very sick. I can say that 80% of the time I saw my mother she was in bed, and that was one thing that put my father hysterical. The notion of bed was very negative, and sleep and be in bed was in my mind a problem because I made a relation bed=sickness. So the less I was in bed, the better. I had no conscience that this notion would be negative for my health. The less I slept was for me the best thing to do, it prove that I was not sick. I don't know if you understand me. Maybe because I do meditation and EE I am more able to understand myself better, understand my negative patterns. Its a liberation. The beginning of a liberation!

Now I see my bed and the time of sleeping under another optic. Instead of sleeping just 5 hours per night I sleep my 8 hours. Its incredible, don't you think? To wake up, little by little like a flower. I just wanted to share this with you, my dear friends.

Loreta.

 

[Keit]

This week messed up with my schedule big time and it was a really bad idea. Even if most of the time I had at least 7 hours of sleep, I was going to sleep really late (3-4 am), and boy, did it have an effect on my system! Tiredness, various aches, inflammation, not to mention depressive mood and general feeling of being really miserable. So yeah, that's an example of what not to do ;), especially after trying to balance the system by sleeping in total darkness. Simply not worth it. :)

 

[Divide by Zero]

I have been working night shift the last few days and covering the window for total darkness has helped a lot.

Earplugs help too when sleeping during the day as my neighborhood can be noisy. Usually I don't remember dreams after working nights and wake up a few times, but today I slept solid and had a few random "everyday activities" dreams!