FUNDAMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ( FP )
Part I
HYPERphysical MATERIALISM
(The nature of PSYCHE)
Chapter 6.
SLEEP, DREAM, SLEEPLESSNESS
6.2. The NATURE of routine phenomena
6.7. TO FALL ASLEEP? – NO PROBLEM! (SLEEPLESNESS)!
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Is sleep absolutely necessary?
Yes – as a process of an astralum body (AsB = SA = AS) norm restoration, elimination of its distortions, exhaustion.
Not – as a special procedure, if a person lives (can live) so harmoniously that he does not get tired, that his AsB remains constantly in norm borders. The history knows cases of long-term (during years) wake, when a person required merely undurable periods of only physical rest.
As a rule, however, a dream is the necessary (especially at a nervous exhaustion, depression), and sometimes even sufficient factor of health improvement. The Russian proverb Dream is the best doctor is correct, though excessively categorical, especially in comparison to so categorical Ciceron's/Öèöåðîí's (I century B.C.) statement Starvation is the best doctor.
An artificial (compelled) sleeplessness leads to a state most likely anti-, than discomfort. These distortions of AsB are similar those of famine and thirst, of itch, of those which an addict has at deprivation of his habitual drugs. All those can turn into torture: though the concrete semiology is individual, various, even unique, but in general the state is typical (up to full loss of working capacity, to headache or stenocardia pains etc) – the soul itchs.
Meanwhile, the task to fall asleep is internally inconsistent:
• solving of a problem – any of them – demands effort, mobilization;
• to fall asleep demands rest, relaxation.
Struggle against a sleeplessness, troubles because of the sleeplessness existence as a fact – can turn into a serious source of additional exhaustion.
Áîðüáà ñ áåññîííèöåé, ïåðåæèâàíèÿ ïî ïîâîäó ôàêòà åå ñóùåñòâîâàíèÿ ñàìè ìîãóò ïðåâðàòèòüñÿ â ñåðüåçíûé èñòî÷íèê äîïîëíèòåëüíîãî óòîìëåíèÿ.
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B.L. Pasternak/Á.Ë. Ïàñòåðíàê notes [Doctor Zhivago]::
To wish meaningly to fall asleep is a certain sleeplessness. Consciousness is poison, if it's used for one's own. Consciousness is a light beating outside, consciousness is the shines before you to not stumble on a road. Consciousness is the headlights ahead of a going locomotive. Turn them inside, and there will be an catastrophe.
M.M. Zoshchenko/Ì.Ì. Çîùåíêî warns of self-examination/introspection dangers too [ 42 ].
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Thus, what to do, if a person has for any reasons unlearned to fall asleep without somnolents, has forgotten how he did it earlier?
Somnifacients (as far as the author knows, any of them, if certainly they are not placebo) upset a sleep structure, reduce a share of a fast sleep; sleep becomes not quite valuable, it stuns more than refreshes; efficiency of time spent for a dream decreases. But if you decide to refuse somnifacients, do it better gradually.
We'll not speak here about cases, when sleep is upset by objective circumstances – external (inconveniences, anxieties) and/or internal (maladies). In such cases it is necessary primary to eliminate these sleeplessness sources and only after that – a sleeplessness itself, if it isn't still eliminated as by-action.
We'll especially note a boundary case when a cause and effect are mutually dependent: a state of internal discomfort. The discomfort does not allow to fall asleep, the sleeplessness strengthens discomfort. The psi-technique allows to break off this vicious circle.
If the sleeplessness itself is an original cause, it is better to eliminate it acting/operating in all three Being/hyperphysicum levels simultaneously: in fact there is enough to tear one link of a chain that all circuit has torn. However, it is a physical (even mechanical) reinsurance approach. Still the wider metaphysical approach allows to explain, why a success of even one action (in one level) is capable to solve the whole task. Thus:
The mentalum level –
is – as always and in everything – the leader and, accordingly, the major one. It is important to know (to understand) that it is possible to have a perfect rest without sleeping. It can allow not be nervous, not get tired still more because of this nervousness itself, but on the contrary can get rest. So, the state of supervision of sensations which are remained on ears (on auricles), entire or only the øýíü-ìýíü points (spirit gate, À·55 by P. Nogier [ 119 ]), after their massage can give forces and working capacity not worse, than a deep sleep. However, any point of a body can be used for such concentration – a navel, a tip of a nose, and up to the left heel...
If such a rest state is broken, if one cannot get rid of anxiety, so it is better not to remain in a bed, not to strengthen the association the bed ÷ the sleeplessness, but to rise and, after the short period of activity, to begin a new preparation for sleep. A mental part of this preparation can be the purpose: to wake up in proper time without an alarm clock. Any way to go to bed is better with the mood I mustn't oversleep than I must fall asleep.
But to begin is expedient with household factors.
The physical level.
A person with the normal, not broken sleep can sleep in any circumstances. But at painful breach/infringement of sleep, conservatory conditions of physical comfort is desirable – of rest, silence (or monotonous noise like rain), cleanliness, fresh warm air, without a draft, without sharp or unpleasant smells. It will be possible to bear discomfort later, when sleeping is already restored.
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The next care is a comfortable bed, which is in principle not obligatory too: it is possible to relax enough well on any place (as a cat does it) and in any pose (so, performance of many yoga asana/poses – even much complex – ends by a relaxation). But, for a period of sleep restoration, the attitude to bed should be so exacting, as to a chest baby bed. It should be horizontal that the body did not roll down to a side, flat, smooth (a child can shout because of a casual, tiny and imperceptible mote or fold until it is shifted or swaddled), moderately soft/hard. The special attention should be given to a pillow – to its size, form, density. A head should lay not ON it, but IN it – as in a cradle, then it is easier to weaken a neck.
To learn to relax is better not in bed, but on a floor or other the same rigid surface. So it is easier to feel, for the beginning, that (or: ostensibly) not the whole body is lying on the floor but only a skeleton, and how muscles hang down – heavy – from bones. At that warm and/or pulsation can be felt in them. These sensations can be remembered and then reproduced at falling asleep – already in bed.
Temperature. The more difficult to be warmed in bed, the more difficultly to relax too. To be too warm is, maybe, not bad in itself [: vapour doesn't break bones]. But it can provoke problems. It isn't a comfort nevertheless. Therefore, if in a cool room be covered too warmly, so one can already during a sleep, not waking up, to uncover oneself so, that it will turn into troubles like neuritis, myositis, etc.
Different means can promote to fall asleep. It can be a walk before sleep, a warm shower, an easy meal (like a kefir glass), a warm tea, etc. All this is well-known. But unfortunately, the better something is known, is obvious, the more likely it is perceived as a banality, as something boring, not very interesting – and it is neglected.
The astralum level
It is possible to allocate here two stages: : preparatory one which can be combined with a preparing at the physical level, and direct one, when a head is already on a pillow.
" Take a collection of puzzles, chess problems or books of mathematic problems from the elementary and up to competitive (for university entrants), invent your own specially to yourself...
" Take a scientific article on a unfamiliar topic. Imagine, that it is the dissertation, and you are an opponent, that your task is to make an estimate. Or easier: take popular scientific article or even any newspaper note, but with a task not merely to read it but to give a review about it, to indicate its strong and weaknesses - both on its scheme, and on the scheme realization, and on design etc...
• Take the textbook on a subject unfamiliar to you...
• Read with a dictionary something in a language new to you...
Intellectual work will allow to reach quickly LN (the Limit level of Novelty). It is not improbable, that you will fall asleep already sitting at these pastimes (whether you, my reader, will doze off above these texts too?). Such sleep, even superficial and in snatches, freshens not worse, than a long sleep under a blanket. But it would be better (when you feel, that are ready to fall asleep) to pass in bed, to switch light off, etc. - in order to get used at once to fall asleep in normal conditions, instead to have to retrained then.
Rise of a new serious, vital interest, inspiration can become unexpected, but pleasant by-effect of such work. Nevertheless its true purpose is not to solve a puzzle (or other task), and not even to fall asleep, but to learn to fall asleep (or to recollect, how you were able to do it before). Therefore some problem can remain not solved during weeks at daily returning to it, but it can be a reliable fulcrum (reference point, a >lullaby puzzle) for transition from mentalum space of wakefulness into sleeping space.
" Do not refuse a sleep in daytime if you want to sleep and if circumstances are convenient, only because of fear, that you'll not be able to fall asleep then, at night. On the contrary: fall asleep, remember the pleasant sensations at that, and use (recollect) them later, at night.
Do not suppress a sleep/doze, do not dispel it, do not destroy its natural mechanism. Do not suppress yawning. On the contrary: yawn specially; use that yawn is catching. While sneezing is a physiologically perfect exhalation, yawn is a perfect inhalation; it is both an evidence of exhaustion (readiness to fall asleep), and a compensatory reaction of SA to the exhaustion. As a good start of any business means already a half of its successful finish, so a good yawn means already a half of good falling asleep.
Blocking of consciousness, switching-off it of, absence of thoughts is an indispensable (and, practically, sufficient) condition for falling asleep. It is inaccessible to obtain it suddenly and at once. A useful auxiliary consciousness state is attention concentration upon a certain (any) internal sensation. We'll note some of many possible variants:
• warm in an auricle after its massage; it is expedient and beyond any sleeplessness: sleep efficiency raises, time necessary for sleep is reduced;
• imagine, that the Moon - full and bright as in frosty winter night - shines (not into your eyes which all are equally closed, but) directly into your head inside; notice, what its place is better alighted, warmed;
• when eyes are closed, eyelids become the dark screen; but it is not absolutely black;observe, how it looks, what varies on it;
• if you are a believer, it is a convenient moment for your pray;
• look in your mind through a card index. There is a serial number on each card.
it is unacceptable to mix them. This is very responsible and important for you. If you have distracted on something extraneous, return to that card of which you are assured, that there is no mistakes before it;
• recollect, how it used to be - perhaps very long ago, in the childhood: imagine, that now is not evening and time to sleep, but is morning and time to get up; and that you don't want to wake up awfully; so you compromise with yourselves: I'll remain in this sweet bed no more than five minutes and then I'll get up
Certainly, and fortunately, this list can be continued. What is about consciousness blocking, so it demands special trainings (see s-n 16.10).
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