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| This tree smells amazing, oh the scent of pine! |
Anyway, I have a question for today that I hope you can help me out with. I am a notoriously light sleeper, the moment there is a noise in the building or from the street, I would often wake up and sometimes it takes me a while to fall back asleep. I thought, oh a week in the countryside in Scotland would be blissful, nothing like noisy London. No, I am still waking up like twice a night still and I am disappointed! I thought, if I can't even get peaceful sleep without waking up in the middle of nowhere in Scotland (well, it is a small town)... then what hope is there for me to sleep properly back in London?
I understand there are five stages of sleep and it was suggested to me that if I can sink into a deeper level of sleep (stages 4 and 5) rather than stay within stages 1 - 3, then I would be less easily awoken say by noise in the street. Is this true? If it is, then how would I achieve that? I was told to try everything from melatonin to alcohol to exercise to herbal remedies but nothing really works. If I get awoken in the night, I would go, "damn not again?!?" I would then get upset and when I have to wake up in the morning, I would be grumpy and not well rested.
After the 15 km trek today, hopefully I am so tired I would fall asleep very quickly tonight. The question is, would I stay asleep and dream of Scottish hills? Oh and for those of you who did see Skyfall, yes this is the kind of barren Scottish mountain landscape that is quite common here in Scotland.
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| Skyfall country |
Hi Lift,
ReplyDeleteJust following up with your hair situation. I was told that using hair products containing silicon/silica could be cause for hair loss, so you may wanna check out our shampoo, conditioners (esp with Proctor and Gamble products), etc for silicon contents.
Yeah, deep sleep is vital for our health =)
Hope this helps!
Best,
gordon
Hi Limpeh,
ReplyDeleteone cannot control how one goes through the various stages of sleep.
I am also a light sleeper and can get awaken easily. but i can always go back to sleep by relaxing with a buddhist mantra.
but since you are an atheist, you can try doing yoga position that can helps with sleep. you can consult a good yoga teacher about it.
The following information about segmented sleep might be useful to you.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783
Hi and thanks for that - I have actually read it before when it was first published but I have re-read it.
DeleteI also tend to awake from my dreams often - it may not be as dramatic as sitting bolt upright in bed or shouting in my sleep, but often, when I dream, I would wake up from it. I dreamt last night that I had a terrible experience - I had gotten out of a taxi and realized that my wallet was in my coat, my coat was still in the taxi and it had driven off and I was in blind panic. Then I saw my sister but she told me that she was very ill and needed help and I was at that point thinking, why is everything going so wrong all at the same time - then I woke up and thought, phew, that was all a dream. But still, do most people always awake from their dreams when they get emotional/stressful - or is it just me?
Hi LIFT,
Delete> do most people always awake from their dreams when they get emotional/stressful - or is it just me?
I would automatically wake up with tachypnea, tachycardia and cold sweat when dreams get too emotional/stressful. But that does not happen to me often, and usually there is a co-related issue that happened in real-life to trigger such dreams. My solution is to solve or let-go of the underlying real-life issue -- or let time works its magic.
Cheers, WD.
interesting. the brain is fully functioning in a dream, so we will experience all the emotions and feelings and movements. only our muscular systems has been switched off, that's why we can't actually move our physically body. but our eye ball still move around as if we are looking at the scenes in our dreams, that's why it's call REM sleep - rapid eye movement. That's our dream stage of the sleep.
Deleteyes, any shock to our systems will wake us up, movement, loud noise, including a stressful dream, probably due to an adrenaline surge.
interestingly, there's a branch of studies that involves us controlling our dreams, ie if we can be conscious in a dream that we are dreaming, then we can control our dreams and do stuff there.
modern psychology uses that to free us from certain stressful recurring dreams, eg panic at being chased by a monster into a dead end. The psychologist will advice us try to confront that monster instead of running away, and if we have that awareness to confront the monster, then that monster will not harm us, cause it's only a dream, and our mind created that monster.
but the key is how to develop that awareness in the dream to know that we are dreaming. then you can do a lot of stuff in the dream, eg my wife loves flying in her dream.
in tibetan buddhism - it's call dream yoga, the practitioner develops that ability so that they can also do buddhist practices in their dreams (and not just sleep and do nothing). For normal people, we can practice that very difficult break dance step in our dream, fly to paris, swim with the dophins etc
once there was a yoga movement that i couldn't do in reality due to a balancing problem. but one night, i managed to do that in a dream. the next morning, when i remembered that dream, i went and tried that movement again, it worked!
this is not magic, it's just that in our dreams, our brains are still functioning and still capable of learning and memory. and without the hindrance of a physical body, it's actually easier to learn and do certain stuff.
check it out if you are interested.
Thanks all, i will check it out when I get back to London later today, I am due to leave Scotland in like 3 hours, I need to pack and get stuff ready for the journey etc. I appreciate your suggestions. Thanks so much everyone :)
Deletekampongboy > interestingly, there's a branch of studies that involves us controlling our dreams, ie if we can be conscious in a dream that we are dreaming, then we can control our dreams and do stuff there.
DeleteJust to extend on what kampongboy wrote, when I wake up from dreams that I don't like, if I have the time, I would make myself go back to sleep and "re-write" the dream. Sometimes that works, and after "resolving" the negative dream, I move on to other dreams and wake up feeling happy/contented.
kampongboy > key is how to develop that awareness in the dream to know that we are dreaming
On the esoteric side, those who practice yoga would know that as developing the "astral body". One method is through regular meditation. That said, one has to learn how to set limits (e.g. for demands made on one's time) in both real-life and dream-life. Otherwise one ends up "working" in both real-life and dream-life. Not quite the best use of dreams, I'm afraid. I am speaking from experience, hahah.
There are various phone apps which are supposed to help. I can't vouch for them personally though.
ReplyDeleteHi LIFT,
ReplyDeleteSaw this BBC article on FB. Maybe your interrupted sleep is not an issue at all.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783
Cheers, WD.