3 ms·

+1 - imagining myself in some sort of benign make-believe world and what I'd be doing rapidly sends me to sleep. Personally not dwarfs for me, but could be anyt

+1 - imagining myself in some sort of benign make-believe world and what I'd be doing rapidly sends me to sleep. Personally not dwarfs for me, but could be anything - e.g. if I were a living in a TV show/movie's world how would I act?, or if I won the lottery tomorrow what would I spend it on?, or if I could just snap my fingers Magic Genie-style to do things what would I do with that power? I guess it is the introspection part that concentrates the mind on something totally frivolous and non-productive that allows you to just drop off. Whatever the root-cause, usually it is a matter of just rolling over, shutting my eyes, then I get maybe 30-90 seconds of make-believe time and I am off and asleep. Probably works about 90-95% of the time - there are off days where I really cant sleep and now I just get up and do something instead. Doesn't seem to work on planes though! :(

bradknowles 8y ago
Going back as far as I can remember, to about 5 or 6 years old, it has always taken me a very long time to fall asleep — like, at least an hour or two. It just takes a long time for my brain to shut itself off. I have to hold myself as perfectly still as possible, not scratching any itches that might come up, or letting anything else cause me to move a muscle. Or, if I do have to move, get it over quickly and then go back to being still. After a long enough time, I can sometimes notice that I have lost awareness of where certain parts of my body are located. I know that I still have an arm, but it’s not tingling or anything and I don’t have a somatic sense of where it is. Same for other parts of my body. Sometimes I have this awareness multiple times in a night, and it’s like someone is slowly dimming the lights on all those circuits until they finally extinguish, one by one. By the time I was in high school, I discovered Dungeons & Dragons, and it was easier for me to fall asleep by imagining what my favorite characters would do in various scenarios. And over thirty years later, I continue to use that same basic concept — different RPG characters now, but the same concept. One of the best things I discovered recently is the “Stillness Moves You” class that my friend Ariana Armistead taught a few years ago. She later developed that into the “InStill Movement” method (see http://instillmovement.com http://instillmovement.com). It is simultaneously the most relaxing AND the most energizing thing I have ever done in my life.

bradknowles 8y ago

Going back as far as I can remember, to about 5 or 6 years old, it has always taken me a very long time to fall asleep — like, at least an hour or two. It just takes a long time for my brain to shut itself off. I have to hold myself as perfectly still as possible, not scratching any itches that might come up, or letting anything else cause me to move a muscle. Or, if I do have to move, get it over quickly and then go back to being still. After a long enough time, I can sometimes notice that I have lost awareness of where certain parts of my body are located. I know that I still have an arm, but it’s not tingling or anything and I don’t have a somatic sense of where it is. Same for other parts of my body. Sometimes I have this awareness multiple times in a night, and it’s like someone is slowly dimming the lights on all those circuits until they finally extinguish, one by one. By the time I was in high school, I discovered Dungeons & Dragons, and it was easier for me to fall asleep by imagining what my favorite characters would do in various scenarios. And over thirty years later, I continue to use that same basic concept — different RPG characters now, but the same concept. One of the best things I discovered recently is the “Stillness Moves You” class that my friend Ariana Armistead taught a few years ago. She later developed that into the “InStill Movement” method (see http://instillmovement.com http://instillmovement.com). It is simultaneously the most relaxing AND the most energizing thing I have ever done in my life.