hi friends.
i've been wallowing for quite some time in the netherworld between A&P and equanimity as i see it.

historically i've never been a world class sleeper but lately i find myself at a new level of insomnia that is really inducing suffering.

i can usually fall asleep relatively quickly but find myself after an hour or so awake. when i do manage to drift off again it seems very shallow and unsatisfying. a newer more recent twist, perhaps related to the accumulated sleepless nights, is that while lying awake i feel extremely restless physically.

i have re-skimmed MCTB, this forum and the Jhana / Nyana charts for any posts or references to this problem. aside from the references in the charts to "sleep need reduced" my search has been in vain. so here is my question to the forum:

has anyone here had relatively strong and persistent insomnia that they would attribute to an part of the progress of insight?

if i get few or little positive responses to this query, i'll start dosing with melatonin and take the usual non-dharmic advice as to how to get a handle on this.

thanks

tom moylan

Not per se, but like you I'm hardly a world class sleeper either.

Just wanted to alert you to something I've just started that I think you may like to try also: I've been doing 20mins or so metta practice lying in bed at night before sleep. It gives me a nice warm fuzzy / snug feeling and seems like good stuff although it's too early to really draw any conclusions yet.

I've also been doing it when I wake up. Usually 40-50mins before everyone else. Rather than lie there reading the Dh0 or letting the mind loose... metta practice is a great way to start the day. (i can't seem to do anapanasati for love nor money first thing, but this I find very easy!)

As you no doubt know, physical exercise is a must if you're restless...

hey BTG,
thanks for the grounding tips. excercise is excellent basic advice and although it has been an everpresent factor in my life for some time i have been considering just recently of doing more formal yoga again. curiously, metta practice has been a large gap in my practice which i have also recently come to believe needs much more attention. so again, thanks loads.

tom

This might be a bit far out and speculative for most people to comfortably consider, but there seems to be certain interesting correlations between the bio-neuro-physiology (just made that up ) of a body going through a kundalini awakening and a body going through the stages of insight. What might be useful for you is to dig through some of the vast amounts of information, new and ancient, on how to deal with the die-off/depression/exhaustion phase of a kundalini awakening, and specifically research some nutritional quick tips/fixes.

Biology of Kundalini (EDIT: Changed link so that it points to nutrition-specific information)


Good stuff!

hi Stian,
thanks for your thoughts and unique take on this. i just breezed your link. while i don't think that your speculations are "far out" i don't think its the direct experiential answer i was craving :-)

my general take is that there is much woo woo to all aspects of our bio-neuro-physiological (i just stole that) which is in essence nothing more than masked ignorance and so thrown in the mystical schmistical basket. 100 years ago tv would have been magic. in 100 years what we nowadays call mystical will be the old science of neurophysiobiology.

as i'm focusing on a self-retreat in two weeks i'll put off stuffing my grey matter with anything but the essentials until after SE.

thanks a million

tom

(edited for stupidity)

Awesome.

hi stian,
i had some time to read your lik(s). very interesting..do you also know about aypsite.org ? a similar attempt to reduce the fallout by grounding progress to the physical...i like it. thanks again for your help!

Good stuff, np. Yes, I'm quite familiar with aypsite.org. Good luck on your retreat!