I was complaining to a friend about my insomnia a few months ago. (I've had it ever since I can remember)

My friend said he used to suffer from insomnia but is now cured. He told me a method for falling asleep that I thought I'd pass on, because it seems to be working for me, too.
I thought it might work well for SP'ers. So, I pass it on. Here goes:

As your falling asleep, pretend your going down a spiral staircase. Along the wall there is a door. Open the door. Imagine your looking out over a landscape - a field of tall grass, the waves crashing on the beach, the snowy mountains, a meadow, a glacier stream - anything. (This part should be easy for Sp'ers!) When your done looking at the scene, close the door, go down the staircase and open the second door. There you will find a whole different landscape. Rarely do I get past 3 doors.

-Good Luck
TL

Huh?

So, you're saying it's like a spiral stair case going down a cylindrical type building, and about every story there is a door opening to a different world? Interesting.

tigerlilly wrote:...Imagine your looking out over a landscape - a field of tall grass, the waves crashing on the beach, the snowy mountains, a meadow, a glacier stream - anything. (This part should be easy for Sp'ers!) When your done looking at the scene, close the door, go down the staircase and open the second door. There you will find a whole different landscape. Rarely do I get past 3 doors.

-Good Luck
TL

Criminy, if I did that, then the next thing I know, I'd be downstairs again looking at this dang computer again for a couple hours....

Ya, all right. So, the spiral staircase in this exercise isn't one of those free standing tightly curved spiral staircases with railings on both sides.

I'm talking a huge, very wide, magnificent sweeping wooden staircase that curves gently. Your standing at the top of it. One side of the staircase has a wall and the other side has a side rail that you could look through. Now, go down a few stairs and on the the wall side there is a door. Open the door. What do you see? Stay as long as you like, go into the scene, or just look at it. When your done, close door. Go down a few more stairs, open the next door. Repeat.

Honestly, it works. It relaxes your mind and gets you to stop thinking.

It's fun too, because you get to revisit all those cool places you've been or seen!!!

tigerlilly wrote:

Honestly, it works. It relaxes your mind and gets you to stop thinking.

So, in order for it to work .. you have to be THINKING !!! ???

For crying out loud, no wonder I have a healthy history of always getting plenty of sleep!!!

I work out trigonometric-substitution integrals. In all fairness I keep the domain to within the first quadrant

Huh - I tried this and it worked.

math geeks...always going off on tangents.....

It's because of MATH that I can't sleep! I'm still trying to figure out why ln(k2/k1) =Ea/R so, um,...can you help me with my chemistry homework?! I have a test next Monday.

Auto - woohoo! Glad it helped.

z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z

Beats me, should be ln(k1/k2) = ln(A1/A2) + (Ea2-Ea1)/(RT). Maybe the forward and backward collision rates are the same in the conditions of choice. Maybe I should drink some brandy, whadya think?

I just take a few mg of melatonin. Boom. Sleep city.

pass the brandy - - I slid off that slope (pretty badly) and now I'm trying to manipulate Kp=Kc(RT) ^delta n

mad maximus wrote:I just take a few mg of melatonin. Boom. Sleep city.

Tried melatonin a few years ago. Spent the entire night laying awake, sweating like a pig even though it was 50 degrees in the room. I think I will stick with tigerlilly's suggestion.

A busy mind before sleeptime doesn't help. Leave aside the hassles and busy stuff an hour before. It will assist all the other remedies.

I find that Olympic ice dancing helps.