I’ve been under the notion that I need to sleep 8 hours a night every night at the same time in order to be healthy. But I just can’t do it, therefore I’ve assumed have insomnia and need to correct it.
But my whole life I consistently have the experience of sporadic sleep….Of nights where I’m rolling down tunnels of exciting thoughts and visions, creative insights, and openings into psychedelic experiences the send me into All kinds of favors of bliss and shifts of perception.
So I’ve accepted the fact that I cannot control my sleep, it comes and goes when it wants.
For example, one night I may sleep three hours, the next I may also sleep three hours, and then I may sleep twelve hours.
But lately I’ve been experiencing profound psychedelic shifts during the day. Generally the world starts dissolving away, including connection to my body, and all time and space drops. I’m pure awareness without a body or a self or a world… Its all behind this glass wall I can’t access… And I’m dropping deep into this void, like falling into a dream, minus any dream happening. So I could be standing in the kitchen holding a glass of water one moment, and forget I’m holding the glass the next, and it drops to the floor. Or Forget I’m in the kitchen altogether. I phase in and out of whatever is happening around me, to the point of being beyond it entirely. It’s like reality is flickering on and off more sporadically, and the slides to the movie are not smooth.
So I thought something is horribly wrong with me, I need to start sleeping eight hours a night to fix it.
So then I try forcing myself to stop the flow of blissful thought and insight, force myself to do nothing but just lay there to sleep. But my experience is profound resistance to stopping my flow, feeling of disconnect from the beauty I wanted to feel, and restlessness and insomnia anyway! No matter how much I try to force myself to sleep, it doesn’t work.
I want to lean into being curious about what really truly works for me… And release any shoulds. Forcing myself to do any thing has never really worked in the long run.
And so, I’m leaning into my patterns curiously, to see if maybe my system keeping me up at night and dropping into absorptive world dissolving states during the day is a signal. Maybe I’m more like a polysleep person, and the psychedelic states are cues to rest from the world and Absorb within, whether awake/sleep or literally take a nap.
Ive never really been mono anything anyway.
I’m going to experiment with my rhythms and not doubt them. Pay attention to what really feels good. Allow myself to explore at night, and rest during the day as needed.
Granted, there may be times where force sleep or rest is relevant, like before a film shoot.
I have tried and it usually comes with a lot of resistance, and often I don’t sleep anyway and am still sleep deprived on the shoot.
So what is the key here? Can I willpower intention my sleep before a shoot, and translate the excitement into my sleep? And then the rest of the week allow my sleep to be sporadic as it feels good?