Meditation before sleep

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Hi everyone. I thought I'd share something with you that I do when I sleep. It makes me extremely relaxed and it helps me shut out the world around me and allows me to disappear into my own mind. An incredible feeling.

I tend to go to bed at around 11pm. I block out all light so the room is in complete darkness. I lie on my back and close my eyes. When my eyes are shut, I observe the flashing images and colours that are behind my eyelids. I don't concentrate on it, but I observe it passively. I believe this keeps my brain active as I'm slowly falling asleep. Eventually, my mind calms down and anything I can imagine or fantasise about becomes very vivid. It's almost like I'm actually there. I can find it easy to imagine smells, temperature, feeling surfaces (I find it helps to run my hand down the bark of a tree or to let sand run through my fingers and try to imagine how it feels). Because it's so vivid, it really helps to shut out the rest of the world and disappear into my own imagination. It helps to de-stress from the previous day. Another trick I've learned about is to set my alarm 4 hours after I fall asleep. When my alarm goes off 4 hours after I've gone to bed, my imagination is very vivid. I believe this is due to the mind being more susceptible and open. When I wake up after 4 hours, I lie awake for around 10 minutes with my eyes open and then close my eyes and let my imagination wander then I eventually fall asleep. Sometimes my imagination can lead into a dream which is really cool. It's a great way to relax.

Sorry if this sounds odd. Just thought I'd share it

EDIT: Actually, I've just realised there's a term for this...lucid dreaming

Thank you for sharing! I do something like this too...however I don't set an alarm for 4 hours later, instead I will set an alarm for maybe an hour or two earlier than I need to get up, and keep hitting the snooze button so that I keep drifting in and out of sleep. I have had some of the most incredibly long, detailed, and vivid dreams during a 5-10 minute snooze!

WP is my meditation before sleep. I guess I'm still a young materialistic Mod, after all.

I like the flashing lights idea. Maybe is sort of like how hypnosis works. Personally I try not to think of anything and just let my mind wander.