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How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

artofmanliness.com

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Re: How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

#41

Post by jwdunne »

p0ints wrote: post #18

Regarding falling asleep - I've noticed an interesting phenomenon in myself. Usually it takes me around 30 minutes to fall asleep, during which period I seem to gradually mellow, my internal narrative becomes weaker until I finally fall asleep. During the final stages of that process, I sometimes imagine beautiful and quite complex music or art that I like a lot (unfortunately, I'm nowhere skilled enough to try to cr…

Same for me. Sometimes on bad nights it can be hours but I need that time to "unwind".

The music is awesome. I sometimes get hypnogogia. I can imagine the music and then, as I get closer to sleep, I actually hear the music.

If I don't imagine music and I get hypnogogia, I'll hear people chatting next to me. That was quite scary before I understood what was going on.

If I don't get hypnogogia, I'll start imagining odd scenarios. Sometimes I'll recognise that it's a sign I'm about to drift off and then bang I'm awake.

From what I've read, this comes from straddling wakefulness and light sleep phase.

I believe Thomas Edison and others took advantage of the creative power. He drifted whilst holding a ball bearing above a plate so when he went, the ball would clatter on the plate. He'd wake up and note everything down.

Me, I just wanna sleep. I struggle as it is and I cannot nap. The idea of purposefully preventing sleep sounds like torture.

Re: How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

#42

Post by cryptonode »

p0ints wrote: post #18

Regarding falling asleep - I've noticed an interesting phenomenon in myself. Usually it takes me around 30 minutes to fall asleep, during which period I seem to gradually mellow, my internal narrative becomes weaker until I finally fall asleep. During the final stages of that process, I sometimes imagine beautiful and quite complex music or art that I like a lot (unfortunately, I'm nowhere skilled enough to try to cr…

Sounds very similair to Dali's process. Where he would meditate holding a kitchen utensil on top of a pan. And when he would fall asleep it would fall making a sound and wake him up with i inspration for his next painting.

http://www.creativitypost.com/authors/profile/33/mmichalko

Re: How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

#43

Post by mratzloff »

I've never been good at taking naps except when exhausted, so I'll have to try this next time.

I'm very good at getting a good night's sleep, though. I fall asleep within a minute of my head hitting the pillow. The key for me is to go to bed at a consistent time (plus or minus 30 minutes or so) every night, get 8 hours consistently, limit light exposure before bed, eliminate caffeine entirely, and generally adopt a stress-free mental attitude. I can deviate slightly from this, but if I deviate too much I start having sleep issues.

As a result I consistently wake up without an alarm at the same time every day (plus or minus 30 minutes) feeling refreshed.

Re: How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

#44

Post by kqr »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #32
kqr wrote: post #26

I'll mention something related, just to see how widespread my experience is. Sometimes when I am just about to fall asleep, I suddenly become very aware of my receding consciousness. It's a strongly uncomfortable feeling accompanied by a rush of energy that wakes me up instantly. It feels almost like my body thinks it's about to die, so it does a desperate hail mary to stay alive, or something. Very unsettling. Does…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk

I have always mentally separated what I described in my first comment from what I have come to associate with the term hypnic jerk.

The first is more of a mental, physically still thing. The other is, for me, a sudden motion of a large body part, usually linked to dreaming about falling off something. More importantly, the latter is emotionally neutral. I wake up going "oh, I didn't really fall. It was just a dream."

When the former happens, it is very emotionally uncomfortable. It's a feeling of pure dread, but sort of wrapped in cotton.

Re: How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

#45

Post by Fnoord »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #15
bryanlarsen wrote: post #8

I'm one of those that can fall asleep anytime, anywhere. The technique I use is to work on my "novel". I guess my mind knows I've been "working" on it for over twenty years, it's not important. At this point it's just a fantasy environment in my head I can drop into where the stresses of the real world don't exist.

But there's another important part: this only works if I've been away from screens for at least 30-60 minutes and if I haven't had any caffeine in the last 6 hours. f.lux et al reduce the amount of time necessary to be away from the screen, but don't eliminate it. The only screen that's "safe" for me is a small black AMOLED screen (aka no backlight) with dim text.

Kobo e-reader with e-ink and night mode does it for me.

Re: How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

#47

Post by BlackLotus89 »

The technique described in the article is the common autogenic training [0]. I was taught this when I was a child, althought it was never of much use to me, because it didn't seem to help when I tried to use it before tests or when trying to relax. But it is effective for many people and I was even warned not to do it while bathing, because of a risk of drowning.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogenic_training

Re: How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

#48

Post by huffmsa »

huffmsa wrote: post #35

I've been thinking about my sleep a lot more as of late. I have no trouble being awake and activity 18-19 hours a day, but unless I'm trying to keep going, around hour 18, I naturally do what Mr Winter describes. It's lights out for 5-6 hours. However, I'm told that I'm a frequent sleep talker and have a habit of standing up, surveying the room, and then lying back down (of which I have no recollection). As well it's…

A fun extension of this I just associated was that in my school years, I'd fall asleep in class, but my auditory processes would keep piping information into my brain in such a way that when the teacher thought they'd have me "caught" by asking me what the answer to the problem on the board was I could more often than not answer correctly without delay.

Re: How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

#49

Post by Kenji »

p0ints wrote: post #18

Regarding falling asleep - I've noticed an interesting phenomenon in myself. Usually it takes me around 30 minutes to fall asleep, during which period I seem to gradually mellow, my internal narrative becomes weaker until I finally fall asleep. During the final stages of that process, I sometimes imagine beautiful and quite complex music or art that I like a lot (unfortunately, I'm nowhere skilled enough to try to cr…

You can trigger and even control this state. It's caused by deeply letting go and avoiding structured thoughts. I used to spend 2 hours per day on the train, for 5 years. I always kinda napped in the train, usually with ambient music in my headphones. At some point, I was able to go exactly between the waking and sleeping state, or lucid dreaming. It's an incredibly powerful experience, you can control anything, you are dreaming while your consciousness is fully awake. I also had one experience that could be described as spiritual or religious (though I'm none of that) that was very powerful.

Re: How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

#50

Post by tigershark »

zwischenzug wrote: post #22

I have two 'tricks' to falling asleep (but this article looks better). The first is to play the 'unrelated words' game, where you think of a word as completely unrelated to the last word as possible. The second is to count up and work out whether the current number is prime. Both occupy the mind while minimizing stress, allowing the body to relax into sleep. I'm definitely going to try the techniques in the article t…

How determining if a number is prime is not stressful? O_o
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