What Disturbs Sleep?

This is Day 4 of my experience of following the instructions in Paul McKenna's book I Can Make You Sleep, which I hope will soon cure me of insomnia for good. If you'd like to read some more you can scroll down to the bottom of this blog to follow my progress so far. In each post I have also included some information about the program or about sleep issues.

Day/Night 4
I can't actually remember much about last night after I switched out the light. I remember doing a relaxation exercise from I Can Make You Sleep, where you focus on each part of the body in turn and allow it to relax. I don't remember getting to the end of the exercise, nor do I remember if I listened to the CD. From where my iPod was lying beside the bed in the morning, I probably listened to it at some time, either then or in the night.

I did wake twice in the night. The first time was at 1.30 am, when the noisy neighbourhood dog barked. The second time was around 3 when my husband did something such as pull the covers off me or snore loudly - I can't remember what it was. I  got up at 1.30 to make sure the window was fully closed - partly because of the dog and partly because the room felt cold and could get even colder as the night wore on. (This is not something that usually bothers me since I'm more inclined to feel too hot than too cold in bed, but last night there was a deep frost.)

External Disruptors to Sleep

So it seems that some of the disruptors to my sleep are external. I know some people who sleep with earplugs, but I have tried that and found them too uncomfortable. Although I Can Make You Sleep does suggest reducing our exposure to variable noise it also says the CD contains suggestions to help the mind filter out distracting noises. I also know my mind can sometimes do it because there is a train track near our house and I very rarely wake because of a train going past. I hope that as I sleep better external noises will disturb me less often. I'm dreaming of the day when my husband can snore loudly, the dog can bark right outside our window and the foxes who live nearby can shriek and the owl who lives in the trees can hoot  - and I will hear none of it.


Hypnagogia
My inability to remember the details of the night seems to suggest things are going in the right direction. I didn't sleep through, but at least I didn't have to get up or do any exercises to get back to sleep. I did have a vague sense of being half-awake for part of the night, particularly between awakenings. McKenna says that often people observed in sleep labs think they have been awake when in fact they are asleep. I've noticed this before anyway, both in myself and others, so I assume this is what was going on for me last night and that I did get a reasonable amount of sleep.

I've been looking around the internet to see if there's anything more written about this. The state of being half-awake and half-asleep is called hypnagogia and when in it, people are more suggestible, which is partly why it's a good idea to listen to a CD like McKenna's as you fall asleep. It means you are more likely to absorb the suggestions and to let go of beliefs that might hamper sleep.


Something I find interesting is that even though I've only been following this program for a few days, and even though I already do a lot more inner exploring than probably most people do, I am discovering things about myself I didn't know before.  Last night, as usual, I did McKenna's visualisation exercises. I still find these difficult, but I've only been doing them a few days. I've always thought of myself as a visual person, but I find the aural exercises easier. Much, much easier in fact. I wonder who I will be by the time two month is up?