Life changes I had to make to dream

Biphasic sleep

Your consciousness has an ebb and flow to it. You might find yourself at peak performance at certain times of day and groggy at others. This is something to pay attention to.

My biphasic style began after an experiment, which was actually a fortuitous “mistake”.

I woke up one morning while it was still dark. Without looking at the time, I was glad I had gotten up before sunrise to get a jump on the day. I made coffee, had a smoke, and sat down to my work at hand. Soon I began to wonder why it was still dark, and no birds giving me a sign of morning. When I looked at the clock it was 3:30 a.m. and I had already been awake for some time. Suddenly I felt very tired. I wrapped up my work and went back to sleep.

Two valuable insights came from that. The first was that in returning to sleep I had the most fantastic lucid dreams. The second is that when I looked at the work I had done while awake for those couple hours I was amazed at the quality of it. I was astonished I had actually produced it.

History is filled with highly creative people with unusual sleep patterns. For example Leonardo Da Vinci would take a series of 20-minute power naps at regular intervals throughout the day. Over any 24-hour period he averaged just two hours of sleep. You can find a plethora of articles about highly successful people who sleep when they’re tired, as pointed to by the rhythm of consciousness.

Thus, I found the biphasic (2 sessions of sleep in a 24 hr. period totaling approximately 8 hrs.) to suit my life and provide me with the energy I need to be successful at my endeavors.

Take naps

Naps are part of my bi-phasic sleep pattern. You need to be an experiencer to really appreciate both the restorative effect of naps as well as the ease with which you dream.

Get really good at record keeping

Most people don’t realize that we dream constantly while we sleep, (and while awake but we will cover that another time). You are constantly shifting between dreams and checking on your physical body. This is what rapid eye movement really is; a return to the body to check in. If you invest in your dreams at all, particularly if you train yourself to wake up after each experience, you will quickly realize how many you have. You may even need to cut yourself off at some point.

I have thousands of dream recordings, and thousands of pages of dreams written. This probably seems crazy to you but I write the dreams that are recorded. I will sit down for a couple hours at a time and write the dreams. It can be a chore at times but it’s a labor of love. Part of why I do this is that it’s easier for me to see patterns and take notes, perhaps make some highlights of things I want to remember, things I discover, and patterns I recognize.

No Stress

Trauma, drama, worry, and full immersion into physical day to day life such as working 40 hrs. a week, driving in traffic, being responsible for a big family, and all other time consuming responsibilites can and does limit dream recall. Why? The moment you put on the glasses of physical reality; the dream world floats away into the background of the subconscious. Why? The ego, whose job it is to keep you safe and functioning in your world cannot be bothered with things that distract you from paying attention to the physical world, tangible concepts, and logic.

Stress and trauma are a dream killer. In fact, anyone who says that they don’t dream, or don’t remember their dreams is admitting to a life of stress. The truth is not easy to swallow. But I speak from experience. During one of the most harrowing times of my life I had no dreams to speak of. And from someone who had nearly 40 yrs experience and more than 20 dreams a night at times….reduced to almost nothing. This lasted for almost 2 years, until I realized it was stress. But not just that. I think everyone might say that during covid, dreams were scarce, and if you were having dreams they were uncomfortable.

I’ve had to be mindful and more intuitive about steering clear of stress, which translates to designing my life exactly how I want it.

Overall healthy constitution

I make a point to make sure that my home is a sancurary for things I love. I make sure that my bed is a sanctuary for sleep. All aspects of my life are regularly imbued with the wisdom of being safe, loved, never alone, capable, intuitive, and ready to face what comes without expectation as much as possible.

All of these things have become very easy. They are easy because I do them with love for myself.