HOW TO SLEEP: LEARN HOW TO CONTROL THOUGHT
What are thoughts, and how do we control them? If we can control thought stimulation in the cerebral cortex, the sleep centre will take over. In other words, if we can control thoughts, we will shift into the THS and sleep will follow soon.
Thoughts are like a big theatre stage
Thoughts are ideas, images, and conversations that are presented to the conscious mind. There may be a lot of thinking going on in the mind, but those thoughts that are conscious to us at one single moment are very limited. For example, right now you are reading this book, and your mind is conscious only of reading this sentence. You are less conscious of the last paragraph or of the last chapter. You are even less conscious of your surroundings, such as what clothes you are wearing, and, furthermore, you are even less conscious of the activities outside your room; unless your attention is drawn to them. At one single moment the mind is only conscious of a limited amount of information.
The mind is very much like a big stage in the theatre. There may be a lot of activities on the stage. The theatre is normally dark, and you can hardly read the programme, but the stage is bright and you can see and be aware of what is on the stage. This is like the fully awake state of your mind. You are aware of most of the events on the stage and you can be very easily distracted from one part of the stage to the other.
Thought control is like activating a spotlight
In the THS, or in any hypnotic state, the stage is dim and you cannot see what is going on. Hypnosis is like using a single spotlight to focus on a small part of that big stage in the theatre. The concentration is maximized by the spotlight, so that the rest of the stage is ignored and the mind is only aware of the limited activities focused on by the spotlight. The change from the awake state to any hypnotic state is like the theatre stage beginning to dim and the spotlight beginning to form and focus on a particular part of the stage. This spotlight can focus on any part of the stage suggested by the hypnotist. Hence the focus can be on our memory bank-some of us have the ability to regress back to childhood and experience things we thought we had forgotten. This spotlight can be focused on some of the anxious moments in our lives, but can also be focused on some peaceful non-threatening parts of our lives.
Spotlight and self-hypnosis
How do we make use of this spotlight to control our thoughts? Our mind has an anxious area as well as a relaxing area. If we focus on the anxious area, we feel anxious, but if we actively focus on the relaxing area, we feel relaxed. When you feel anxious, do nothing about it, just direct the spotlight back to the relaxing area. Present repeatedly to yourself relaxing ideas, and ignore the anxious feelings. We cannot focus our single spotlight on relaxing and anxious ideas at the same time. In other words, we cannot feel relaxed and anxious at the same time. Remember, thought control is an active exercise; you have to put that spotlight repeatedly on the relaxing ideas. Do not reject anxious ideas, as the mere thought of rejection means focusing on them. Ignore them and they will disappear spontaneously.
In highway hypnosis, your focus is on the highway. Even if you take your eyes off the highway for a moment, you have to focus your attention back on the highway repeatedly. This is like darkening the theatre and the stage, so that the surrounding activities are ignored and the spotlight is focused on the highway alone.
The shift from the awake state to the THS is quite natural for many people, but not for those who suffer from chronic insomnia. During the THS, the stage is dim and the spotlight is on some non-threatening and non-anxious part of the mind. Arousal messages are no longer sent to the sleep centre. The sleep centre takes over, and we drift into sleep.
Relaxation techniques
There are many kinds of techniques that promote relaxation and stillness of the mind. In 1957 the physiologist Dr W. R. Hess, the Swiss Nobel Prize winner, demonstrated the existence of a physiological relaxation response brought about by meditation and similar techniques. This relaxation response includes slowing of respiratory rate, decrease in oxygen consumption, and reduction in heart rate and blood pressure. In certain meditation techniques, an increase in the intensity and frequency of alpha waves is also seen in EEG measurement, these waves being characteristic of the resting state in adults.
These relaxation techniques include Transcendental Meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, Jacobson’s progressive relaxation, Schultz’s autogenic training, and hypnosis. One thing common to all these techniques is that they aim to detach the subject away from his environment and to allow the mind to become still. I sometimes use the analogy of a basketball game to illustrate the beneficial effect of relaxation exercises on our busy lives. By the middle of the basketball game, the players are tired; they commit more faults, their shooting is less accurate, and they are not enjoying the game as much as before. The coach signals time out, and the players stop playing. They come away from the game and do just nothing. They are having time out. After a while, they resume the game; their accuracy improves and they enjoy playing the game again. Relaxation exercise is similar; it allows us to have time out away from the game of life. During relaxation, we completely detach ourselves from our busy lives. We learn to have time out, we learn to let our mind ‘do nothing’.
In Transcendental Meditation, a mantra is used. This is a sound, a word, or a group of words that are rhythmically repeated in the mind. This repetition of the mantra allows the mind to be insulated away from our unwanted thoughts. Both yoga and Tai Chi involve breathing techniques and an emphasis on body posture or movement. The mind is focused on breathing or body position constantly, so that the mind becomes insulated away from unwanted thoughts. Dr E. Jacobson’s progressive muscular relaxation technique involves the subject actively tensing a group of muscles and then letting that same group of muscles relaxing completely. The subject practices this tensing and relaxing progressively upon each part of his body. This is extremely useful in helping the subject appreciate what relaxation really feels like, as there is a considerable contrast between the feelings of tension and relaxation. Dr H. H. Schutz, a German physiologist, devised another method called autogenic training. This involves five exercises, each dealing with a certain feeling of some part of the body. Exercise one trains the feeling of heaviness in the limbs; exercise two the sensation of warmth in the limbs. Exercise three deals with heart regulation; exercise four concerns passive concentration on breathing; and exercise five trains the feeling of coolness in the forehead. This is practiced several times a day and can effectively elicit the relaxation response.
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