How to create a more fulfilling life while you sleep
A part of you, your subconscious mind, never sleeps. It is always on duty because it controls your heartbeat, blood circulation, and digestion. All vital processes and functions of your body are controlled by it, and it knows the answers to ALL your problems.
What happens on your subconscious level influences what happens on your conscious level. In other words, what goes on internally, what you believe or expect, even unconsciously, eventually becomes your reality.
To quote Napoleon Hill:
“Your subconscious mind works continuously, while you are awake, and while you sleep.”
And further: “The subconscious mind will translate into its physical equivalent, by the most direct and practical method available.”
Consequently, your aim is to direct your subconscious mind to create the outcomes you seek. When you tap into your subconscious mind it can unlock connections and solutions to your problems and projects on demand.
Here’s a simple way to get started:
Just before you go to sleep
Many of the world’s most successful people practice habitually to intentionally direct the work of their subconscious mind while sleeping.
I would strongly endorse what Thomas Edison said: “Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” —
How can you do it?
A few moments before you go to sleep write down and then meditate on the things you’re trying to accomplish. Ask yourself questions related to that thing. In Edison’s words, make some “requests.” Write those questions and thoughts down on paper. The more specific the questions, the clearer will be your answers.
During your sleep, your subconscious mind will work on those things and seek the answers to your questions. For example, you might ask: "What is the ONE thing that right now will make me a happier, more fulfilled person?"
Or: "What is the best decision now in relation to x (x=work, my relationship etc.)?"
Keep your journal right next to your bed, so you’re ready to write down the answers in the morning.
When you wake up
The prefrontal cortex, a part of your brain related to problem solving, is most active and readily creative immediately following sleep according to scientific research.
While you were asleep, your subconscious mind has been loosely mind-wandering, and making contextual and temporal connections. Creativity IS the creation of connections between different parts of the brain.
Josh Waitzkin, a former chess prodigy and tai chi world champion explains his morning routine in an interview with Tim Ferriss. Waitzkin taps into subconscious breakthroughs and connections experienced while he is sleeping in this way (and it’s not the only way):
He remains in a quiet place, meditates and grabs his journal, unlike 80 percent of people between the ages of 18–44 who check their smartphones within 15 minutes of waking up.
{This would interrupt your connection with that “creative space” in the mind and erase those creative thoughts. It’s like you are dismissing the valuable content that your subtle mind is presenting to you – as a result it might feel unheard and undervalued, and even reduce making these subtle suggestions to you.}
In his journal, Waitzkin thought-dumps for several minutes. Therefore, rather than focusing on input like most people who check their phones, he focus is on output. He taps into his higher realms of clarity, learning, and creativity — through what he calls, “crystallized intelligence.”
If you’re not an experienced journal writer, the idea of “thought-dumping” may be slow at first. It can help to loosely direct your thought-dumping toward your questions and goals you wrote down the night before.
And don’t always assume that you’ve got your stated goals are the right and best goals too – Just to be sure, when you start this technique you could at first ask your subconscious mind more broad questions, like:
“What do I really need right now to feel more fulfilled and at peace?” Your thinking (conscious) mind is geared for survival and doesn’t always know what would truly make you happy, but your subconscious knows the answers to ALL questions ask with curiosity and an open mind.
Now, when you first wake up your creative brain is most attuned, after its subconscious workout while you slept. So start writing down whatever comes to mind about those questions. Perhaps you remember a dream – write it down, even if currently it may not make sense to you…
I often get ideas for things I’m working on while doing these thought-dumps. I get insights about how I can be a better person and live more happily.
Clarity about the goals I believe I should be pursuing increases, and I have insights about people I need to connect with, or how I can improve my current relationships.
To be clear, you’ll need to practice this skill. Before you become proficient at this, it will take a few attempts. This especially applies to making sense of your dreams, which have a symbolic language of their own.
However, with consistency and patience, you can become fluent and automatic at getting creative and intuitive bursts from your powerful subconscious.
Summary
James Allen says in “As a Man Thinketh” “A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.”
Mental creation precedes physical creation.
Whenever a building is physically constructed, first there is a blueprint. Your thoughts are the blueprint of the life, which you are creating one day at a time. When you learn to channel your thinking —consciously and subconsciously — you create the conditions to make the achievement of your goals inevitable.
You are the creator of your destiny. This easy and simple process can help you to get clarity about where you want to go, and how to get there.
