Imagination Works

Awake at Night, Alone and Afraid.

You don’t appreciate a good night’s sleep until you can no longer take it for granted. You long for a good quality of sleep and will settle for staying asleep longer than three hours. Once you feel awake, you either push yourself fully awake, or try to get back to sleep. Most often, you fall into a tossing, churning place of half-sleep and weird dreams.

Monkey mind keeps you distracted and awake
The instant you push yourself awake, monkey mind starts listing the things you need to get done, the dwindling amount of money in your bank account, the stupid thing you said, on and on until you are awake, far from sleep.

As a woman of a certain age, I am familiar with nighttime monkey-mind—the chattering, nerve-wracking, topic-hopping self-talk that won’t let you rest. The anxiety-filled dreams aren’t any better. They won’t let you wake up and won’t let you sleep deeply.

Using insomnia in a creative way
What’s a creative person to do? Rest is so important to creativity (and sanity) that waking up at 2 a.m. creates stress in the realization that you will feel pulled through a keyhole the next morning.

After spending too many nights punching pillows and plucking at sheets, I decided there had to be something better than trying to force myself to sleep (doesn’t work) or running to-do lists through my head (not productive). What could I do that engaged my mind, calmed my nerves and ended up contributing to something creative?

Start simply, add creativity
I started small. Using an exercise from my creativity coach mentor, Eric Maisel, I find a comfortable position and say (in my head) the word “Hush,” dragging out the ‘sh’ sound for a breath. After a little practice and concentration, it quieted monkey-mind. First step accomplished.

Next, I added visualization. While keeping monkey-mind quiet with ‘hush,’ I imagined walking down a long garden walkway. I concentrated on details—the kind of plants, the slant of the sun, the color of the blossoms. I imagined coming to a fountain in an open space. Next to the fountain, on the broad, stone edge, is a beautiful wood box. I become curious. “What’s in the box?” It could be anything wonderful—an idea, a symbol, an amulet, a design. I deliberately touch the box, feel the pattern in the lid, spend time in wonder. When I feel totally aware, completely present, and filled with curiosity, I open the lid.  What do I see?

The first few times, I saw things that belonged to me and were in the bedroom. No matter what it is, I lift it out of the box, hold it, wonder about it.  I remember it  for reflection the next day. Then I put the object back in the box, close the lid and walk back down the path.

It’s not always brilliant, but it’s always interesting
Often, by the time I walk back up the path, I’m asleep. But here are some other things that have happened:

1. Someone else comes into the garden. This isn’t a planned part of the visualization, but I let it develop. He says he can’t see his reflection in the fountain’s water. The next day, I reflect on the meaning, “What am I not seeing?” and “What part of me is not being seen?”  The answers helped clear up an old problem that I had been wrestling with.

2. When I opened the box, I found a small paper scrap, like an old postage stamp, but with raised writing that I couldn’t read. Eventually, this idea developed into silver Talistones, a part of my jewelry business that touches a deeply spiritual place in my clients.

3.  While in the garden, the season changes from warm to cold. I’m cranky because it just turned warm, and now it’s cold again. I suddenly jerk awake to discover my husband has wrapped himself in all the covers.

Sleep thinking makes an interesting dream journal
In most cases, I fall asleep during the visualization. The next morning, I write down what I remember of the visualization or resulting dream. Dreams evaporate quickly, so I write it down as soon as I wake up.

Sometimes, although complex, I feel the dream means nothing. Sometimes I feel it does, and I try to focus it into a meaningful action or idea. Sometimes the ideas take months to develop. Occasionally, I’ll go back and read dreams from months ago, and have ideas that are new.

Sleep thinking isn’t hard or a lot of work. Your brain has more downtime at night, so you can make the most of it. And getting back to sleep is a nice side effect of putting your brain to work.

(c) 2007. Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 at 11:47 pm and is filed under New ideas, creativity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.