Sleep Suggestion Experiments Pt. 1

May 18, 2009 at 10:50 pm · Filed under Sleep, Uncategorized, goals, life hacking, self mastery, the mind

Sleep is something we’ve discussed before on the blog and how using relaxation and mindfulness techniques can help you doze off for a better night of rest. This time I want to talk about another aspect of sleep which is slightly different in aim than the techniques of the last sleep post. I want to talk about sleep programming.

So Sleep Programming is a common idea found in many different self improvement and psychology books as well as plenty of historical anecdotes. It’s basically the process of focusing intently on a certain goal or image just before you fall asleep at night. The idea is that something strongly visualized, maybe even a little obsessed over before sleep will work its way into the subconscious mind, programming your deep belief systems while you snooze away.

I would imagine nearly everyone has had some kind of experience with Sleep Suggestion in their own lives. Falling asleep with the television on, just to wake up from a terrible nightmare about getting chased by vicious dogs. You open your eyes to find a t.v. show about police dogs with angry german shepards biting the arms of bank robbers. Or maybe you needed to be up a half hour earlier than usual the next day for an important meeting at work that you’ve been preparing for. Worrying about the possibility of waking up late at the usual seven o’clock you set your alarm for six thirty and fall asleep. Six thirty… six thirty… six thirty….
and when do you wake up ? six twenty eight… just before the alarm.

This isn’t much different than the work and ideas of Emile Coue, who we discussed in the auto-suggestion post, but with the emphasis being on the unconscious sleep state as a back door to the underlying mental activity that occurs even beneath the awareness of the self.

Training the Subconscious Mind with Autosuggestion – Click here for this week’s top video clips

I’ve been experimenting a little over the last few days… Trying to use auto-suggestion just before I go to sleep at night to help smuggle commands deeper into my consciousness. I’m far from a sleep suggestion master at this point but I do feel like I’ve already managed to gain a few interesting insights.

Sensory Modality:
The first night I tried, just as an experiment, to repeat the experience I mentioned a moment ago, only this time intentionally. Mentally setting a time to be awake and allowing your body to wake itself up on your pre-set command.

I usually hit the sack fairly late for someone who writes a self improvement blog but managed to get in bed at an early (for me) 11:30 and spend about ten minutes laying there repeating six thirty… six thirty… six thirty…. and dozed off into a well needed rest. Unfortunately I woke up the next day at seven thirty, well past my designated wake up time. So attempt one was a failure and I spent a bit of my morning mindfulness walk conjuring up ideas for why it didn’t work.

What was it about the type of excitement, the type of state I’m in on those nights when I do manage to unintentionally set my mind with a command? Maybe it was the WAY I was repeating it. In the past I’ve found that I can generate a positive state in myself through auditory mental suggestion, but going for the visual modality as they say in NLP, visualizing in the first person what I want to happen is much more effective for me personally.

So Saturday night I chose to VISUALIZE myself, in the first person, looking out my own eyes, rolling out of bed and looking at my alarm clock… the little red LCD numbers displaying in my minds-eye a really clear 6:30

I went through this mini-visualization journey maybe five or six times, from the beginning to the end, allowing the images to merge into the usual mishmash imagery of the hypnagogic state and gently drifting into unconsciousness.

To my surprise… I was awake the next morning at 6:22, rolling over, looking at my alarm, and realizing that the experiment had at least SEEMED successful. Of course it’s always possible that I just happened to wake up that morning around six thirty. Sunday night I repeated the practice and managed to wake up at around 6:20 again…

Visualization vs. Auto-Suggestion

I’m still experimenting with the process and plan to write a good bit more on the topic since I find it so fascinating. My next plan is to start visualizing certain goals and objectives for the next day while I’m falling asleep and explore the most effective ways of programming myself to accomplish them. My only conclusion about the whole process of self-programming at the moment is that the more vivid it is to the mind’s eye the better. Auditory suggestion is great for when your in the car, or to use as a mantra perhaps while practicing meditation, but engaging as many modalities i.e. visual images, movement, sounds, smells, feelings makes the command sink into the mind that much easier.

I’d love to hear from some other folks about their experiences with sleep suggestion and how its impacted their life. Look forward to some more updates shortly…

-Chris

Other reading on the web:
‘How to record a pre-sleep suggestion tape’ on Ehow

‘Suggestion and Autosuggestion’ by Charles Baudouin on Google Books

‘Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion’ by Emile Coue

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The Art of Auto-Suggestion

April 17, 2009 at 8:02 am · Filed under Uncategorized, anchoring, attention, focus, meditation, mindfulness, neurolinguistic programming, self development, self mastery

“Every day in every way, I am getting better and better”

This is the mantra of late nineteenth century doctor and creator of his own brand of autosuggestion Emile Coue.

Every night before he went to bed and every morning when he just woke up he would repeat this to himself, gradually instilling new optimism in his unconcious mind.

The way we talk to ourselves internally is often treated as second importance to building will power and doing what we ought to be doing anyway. Its not uncommon to hear someone say something to the effect of:

‘Just put one foot in front of the other and learn to do it even when you don’t want to.’

While this is good advice in some sense, it doesn’t take into account the fact that most people aren’t ever going to do it. They simply won’t. When you have a meeting to go to and your fellow co-workers are all there waiting, you have a certain negative social leverage to motivate you to get dressed and show up. I.E. if you don’t they will all be very very upset with you tomorrow.

However, if your goal is to do something for yourself, such as hitting the gym more regularly or starting to write that novel you’ve been thinking about in your spare time… then the outside motivation of other people holding you accountable isn’t there. You’re going to need something more than just pure willpower.

In this instance having the right self talk is critical.

Self Talk Golf Lesson – The funniest home videos are here

Heres a few easy ways to get started with Auto-Suggestion:

-Set a timer on your watch to go off at various intervals during the day. Take this moment to become aware of your thoughts and internal voice taking careful note of the tone, volume, and attitude you normally speak to yourself with.

-Repeat the same ritual that Coue performed every morning and every night. Laying in bed repeat to yourself ‘I am getting better and better every day’ or a mantra specific to your goals. The key here is to say it like you really believe it. Smile to yourself and don’t be cynical, let the idea creep in little by little that you really are getting better.

-Place written positive affirmations/mantras all over your house or apartment and repeat the statement three times every time you see it. This is a very effective method I highly recommend to everyone who struggles with self-motivation.

-Check out the theory of Autogenic Training, a type of auto-suggestion created by a German psychiatrist named Johannes Schultz.

Hopefully with these starting points you’ll be able to get a feel for the power of autosuggestion and the difference it can make when it comes to self mastery. Start to talk to yourself like you would a friend, like someone you care about. Who knows… before you know it… you may start believing the things you tell yourself.

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.-Oscar Wilde

-Chris

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