Posted on 16 Jun, 2011 -
How to sleep and dream more SWEETLY
If you need an alarm clock to wake you up then you’re probably at least a little sleep-deficient
It’s time for us to realise how wonderful and important sleep is.
Why it’s normal for dreams to contain negative emotions - plus a list of the most common ones…
Dear Reader,
A weird thing has happened to me this week.
I have been getting more sleep. Enjoying my sleep more. And this morning I was even woke up BEFORE the alarm clock went off! All thanks to a book THAT I HAVEN’T EVEN READ!
How does that work?!
Well… Although I don’t have a problem with insomnia myself, I know a lot of people who do - including my mother and eldest daughter. I’ve also been wondering of late whether there was something I could do to make the sleep that I do have a bit SWEETER.
The book that I bought myself on the subject is called ‘Counting Sheep - The Science and Pleasure of Sleep and Dreams’ by Paul Martin and I simply haven’t been able to get past the first 30 pages.
Not because it’s bad. Or difficult to read. But because the core message of the book - that we should take sleep more seriously, ENJOY it more and GET MORE OF IT - has sent me happily to my bed or slumber every time I pick it up!
All will be revealed… if I don’t fall asleep first…
It is now 10.30 in the morning and I’m sat here with the curtains wide open and the book in front of me… and even now I’m thinking that maybe it would be a better use of my time to just slip up to the bedroom and enjoy just a few more hours sleep.
Because that, perhaps, is the message in the book that has really made me think: So many of us live in a continual state of slight to serious sleep deprivation - to the detriment of our physical and emotional health, our performance and our personal relationships - because we somehow think that reading that last chapter of our book, watching that last TV programme or spending another half an hour on our computer might possibly be more important than getting enough sleep…
So! Now that I am awake (picture Tom from Tom and Jerry with matches holding open his eyes trying to type up an article...) I’m going to flick through the book and type up some of the most salient points:
If you need an alarm clock to wake you up in the morning then you are probably at least mildly sleep-deficient.
But we’re just too busy to spend time sleeping. “There is so much more to do in developed nations, and so much more wealth to do it with.” But “There are still only 1,440 minutes in a day. So, we opt for the immediate fix of pleasure and stay up late. We know deep down that we will suffer the next day in mood, alertness and performance, but the lures are too appealing and their pleasures are instant.”
Our ancestors would have spent more time in bed and thoroughly enjoyed it. After all, before electric lighting and heating, on a cold winter’s night… it would have been the best place in the world to be.
Meanwhile, our own “daily cycle of sleep and wakefulness is largely determined for us by clocks rather than tiredness.”
Why tiredness is SO bad for us. Tiredness is responsible for a large percentage of road accidents and accidents in general. “Tired people are emotionally less resilient and more prone to irritation or sadness.” They also become less capable of performing tasks that require concentration, thought, judgment memory or social skills… Oh, and they also seem to lose sight of the consequences of their own actions…
One of the reasons why we pay so little attention to sleep is that it is such a mystery. Billions of words have been written about the human mind and human activities in its conscious state. But what exactly is it that we do when we’re asleep?
During the REM stages of sleep, some regions of your forebrain are more active than when you were awake. Even though your body looks motionless, your mind is very active. Only - as opposed to wake time when your brain is bombarded by the outside world - all the stimuli is generated by your own brain.
REM sleep consumes a lot of energy - mainly in your brain. But there are also fluctuations in your breathing, heart rate and blood pressure. In NREM (Non-REM) your brain is much less active but you move around more.
Why DO we dream? We spend about two hours every night dreaming - whether we remember it or not. As I suspected, however, scientists are still not sure or in agreement about what purpose dreams serve. The closest we get to certainty is that it looks like it is important in helping the brain develop (children spend a lot more time dreaming than adults), in consolidating learning and in sorting out memory.
Dreams usually have an emotional content - often negative. In fact, numerous studies have shown that “unpleasant emotions, such as anxiety or fear, occur in the majority of dreams. In one major investigation it was found that “the most common negative emotions, in descending order or prominence, were ‘perplexity and hurry’, discomfort and helplessness, fear, anger, disappointment and shame.”
Many psychologists think that dreams can help to reveal our true thoughts and feelings. If we examine our dreams we may find there are things that we can learn about ourselves and our fears and desires from them.
Dreams are such a treat. The film-maker Luis Bunuel said that if he was told he only had twenty years left he’d like to spend two hours a day in activity, the rest in dreaming. “I love dreams, even when they’re nightmares, which is usually the case.” Or, as Paul Martin says himself, “If you are too tired or too indifferent to remember your dreams then you really are missing out on something rather splendid… Dreaming is a source of pleasure and a powerful engine of creativity.”
Why dreams are so wonderful. The psychologist Jean Piaget said that dreams are your brain having fun. Paul McCartney wrote the melody of ‘Yesterday’ in a dream. Mary Shelly (among many other writers who’ve been inspired by their dreams) was said to have got the idea for Frankenstein from a dream. Scientists have also reported making breakthroughs in their dreams.
How to remember and enjoy your dreams more. There are things you can do to make your dreams more lucid and remember them in the morning. First of all, it helps if you get plenty of sleep so that you can wake naturally in the morning as a full night’s sleep usually ends with an episode of REM sleep. Secondly, get in the habit of asking yourself if you’re dreaming when you’re awake and this habit will start spilling over into your sleep.
Sleep as a welcome break from daily life. Others have valued sleep as an escape from suffering into oblivion. “Soldiers struggling through the horrors of the First World War cherished the oblivion of sleep.” Sleep can offer us all a welcome break from all the pleasures, the over-stimulus and also the boredom of daily life.
Naps really are restorative and can make you more productive. To avoid grogginess on waking, limit naps to 20 minutes or less. And apparently, he says, with a little practice anyone can learn the art of napping…
“So,” says our author, “cast aside any lingering puritanical concerns you might harbour about unproductive downtime, and focus instead on the sensual pleasures to be harvested from luxuriating in bed, snoozing, napping, sleeping and dreaming.”
See what I mean?
