Getting good, regular sleep is so important for having a healthy and happy life, but some people have not yet learned how to do this. In this post I share some new ideas about getting to sleep that you can apply to your own life.

The Three Stages of Getting to Sleep

Stage One - The Active Mind

In the first stage, the mind is active, and the constant flux of thought and emotion attracts our attention.

This is the stage in which fools use sedatives to enter a shallow sleep which offers mental and physical restoration of a lower quality than that of deep sleep, which must be attained without using external stimuli. Examples of sedatives include alcohol, watching videos, marijuana, food, and male orgasm. If these people knew how to quiet the mind and move onto stage 2 by themselves, they would love much healthier and happier lives.

In this stage the mind will want to grab onto things like entertainment, since it has not been told firmly that the time for activity is over and the time for maintenance has begun. When it‘s obvious that the higher mind wants to sleep, while the lower mind wants to be entertained, one should surrender to the higher mind and firmly prioritise entering Stage 2. This is because the higher mind‘s intelligence knows that this is the optimum time to begin it’s restoration such that one shall awake feeling perfectly refreshed. Those who are in their lower mind, feeeling anxious to be entertained instead of going to sleep, should surrender willingly to the the higher mind, for it knows what is truly best for us long-term so it wants us to follow it, while the lower mind protests.

How to move from Stage 1 to Stage 2 by ourselves, without sedatives, is an important lesson to teach to our children.

The fear of going to sleep may be remedied by inquiring into the nature of sleep, and what it means to go to sleep. Exploring sleep in our direct experience is necessary to learn what we must in order to grow. The possibility that we may disappear when we go to sleep may have been believed by our younger self, and perhaps remnants of this belief are still with us today, which may cause fear, which may cause restlessness of mind. There are no answers in the form of words that will suffice- it is up to us to each explore sleep as it is in our experience, with a child-like fascination. This is how we will learn what we must in order to grow.

Stage 2 - Drowsiness

This is where we want to be- it’s the peaceful zone we enter when we feel ready to go to sleep at any moment. Nothing appears to be important at this stage- we don’t feel the need to do anything, and the deeper we go, the more peaceful our mind becomes. The mind is finally, after a long day of hard work, allowed to rest and be still. Aim the mind on the theme of stillness. The mind will rise again in the morning, but for now, allow it to rest and restore itself.

The body and mind are going to sleep in the same way our computers go to sleep- and this is healthy for our system, since maintenance is done in this time.

You’ll know you’re at Stage 2 when you feel at peace, comfortable, and relaxed- as if you could fall asleep at any moment. Let the worries of the day fade away, as well as any worries about the future. In Stage 2 the mind calms to a comfy stillness. After using the mind all day, this is the stage when we let it rest and restore, just like we let our body rest and restore.

The Third Stage - Sleep

Congratulations, you are now asleep.

Dealing with one’s own petulance

It is well-known by the new parent that children can be petulant when it comes time to sleep. This is so for the adult, too, who has not learned how to submit to their higher mind. That is, the ‘supervisor’ of the mind- the benevolent leader- the one who knows what’s truly best for us.

I have experienced protest in the mind while trying to get to sleep, as if getting to sleep isn’t the best thing that I could currently be doing right now.