Even though I don't suffer from chronic insomnia anymore, I still often use this visualization technique before I fall asleep because its so much fun.
As mentioned in the article on relaxation therapy techniques, the visualization lesson for insomnia has two main parts: the Journey and the Destination. The first step is to create your destination so you know exactly where you're going.
Visualization Lesson #1: Creating Your Destination
The first step in creating a good visualization is to imagine a very peaceful and tranquil place, one where falling asleep and staying asleep is simply the most natural thing in the world. It's a place where, in spite of any efforts you make to try to stay awake, you just can't. You may remember a place like that from your past experiences, or you can make one up.
It could be...
- a lakeside cabin,
- a hammock on a tropical beach,
- a soft, fluffy bed in a luxurious room,
- a tent on a mountaintop,
- your car's front seat in full recline at a rest stop after a long, tiring drive...
There's no right answer, the main thing is that the image feels right to you.
Once you have settled on that image, make it as real as you can, using all of your senses.
Imagine the color of the lake, the smell of the water, the sound of birds singing or water lapping up against the shore, the slow swaying of the hammock or the soft warmth of the pillow...
...just keep adding details until you have the ultimate sleepy experience.
Now you might be thinking you're done, but you are far from done. Let me explain why:
A peaceful, sleepy image is nice, but usually it's not enough.
If you are tossing and turning at night with thoughts or worries circling around in your brain, and you call up this peaceful visualization with the lake and the hammock and so on... your brain might say "hmm, that's kind of nice," but then will immediately revert back to its previous wanderings... it just won't focus long enough for the image to do anything for you.
Then, of course, you'll try harder to force yourself to concentrate on your visualization, and where do you think that will get you?
You've probably already had this experience many times. It will get you nowhere, and maybe even to a more frustrated, upset place than you were before. As we well know, the brain has a mind of its own in the middle of the night!
That's why we need the Journey part.
Visualization Lesson #2: Creating Your Journey
Your Journey is the method by which you reach your Destination. The Journey part of your visualization is not peaceful nor tranquil nor even pleasant.
It is a hard, difficult process, with lots of anguish, monotony and discomfort.
It can be a slow, arduous trek across cold, frozen tundra... an agonizing hike up a rocky peak... a slow walk up a slippery hill in the rain... an exhausting row-boat trip across a lake at night (with you at the oars)...
It can be a breathless trudge up eight flights of stairs in a dark, decrepit old castle... a long cross-global trip running for airplanes in dreary airports... a tiresome bumpy train ride through endless industrial cities...
It can be whatever you want... as long as it resonates with you and you understand the nature of the Journey.
The Nature of the Journey
The Journey is the price we must pay for getting to our desired destination. It works in both a literal and symbolic sense.
The Journey is the method by which you exhaust yourself both physically and mentally. The Journey makes you very tired. To be really effective, it should cause you some type of discomfort, frustration and hardship in the process.
This is what engages your brain and distracts it from its typical nighttime thinking. If you think of the last movie you saw, you understand that it was the conflict, difficulties and anguish that really sucked you into it, even if it was a comedy. That's the Journey part.
It's essential for your own nighttime "movie" to be really engaging to your brain.
Visualization Lesson #3:
To be really effective, your journey should include a couple of scenes where you are fighting sleepiness or tiredness.
In other words, you must stay awake to complete the journey, but it's a real struggle.
This is a sort of reverse psychology that often proves useful in every day life. To deprive yourself of something you want usually intensifies the desire. Deliberately depriving yourself (in your fantasy) of sleep by forcing yourself to stay awake and alert helps to increase the tendency to let go and give into the feeling of drifting off...
In fact, I have found this technique works better in fantasy than in real life. (Don't ask me why!)
Visualization Lesson #4:
Your visualization should also include a steady, rhythmic, tedious activity, such as...
- walking
- rowing
- paddling
- swimming
- riding in a train or bus
- climbing stairs
- trudging up a steep hill
- or even working on an assembly line...
Visualization Lesson #5:
You should also put in a struggle with the elements, whether it's cold, wind, rain, fog or snow.
I have found that cold elements work better than hot ones, as the process of getting warm after being cold is more conducive to sleep than being hot and cooling off. However, if trudging across a hot desert in full sun does good things for you, go ahead with that!
Visualization Lesson #6:
Finally, having to continue on in your journey despite exhaustion, hardship, discomfort and emotional anguish ("I'll never get there... this is taking forever," etc.) also seems to be an important factor.
Ahhh.... Finally Here
When you reach your destination, you are so relieved just to be there. You can collapse into a warm bath, a warm bed, a waiting hammock, a soft recliner... well, you get the idea. But if you want, you can also add on to your Destination with various fringe benefits...
You can add magical qualities to your Destination....
You can watch as all your worries and care float away like leaves in the wind.
You can lie under a big machine that sucks out all your problems and then injects you with a tranquilizing elixir.
Who knows what nice things can happen there? Just make sure they are all things that make you overwhelmingly sleepy and calm... no excitement whatsoever (you can save that for another time).
The Destination can be more than just a place to sleep, if you like. It can also be a place where other life problems are instantly solved, where pain is healed, where bad habits are replaced by good habits, and any other process that appeals to you.
These might come in handy especially if your chronic insomnia involves worries and concerns that are keeping you awake at night.
Visualization lessons seem to work best for people with active imaginations who tend to worry and visualize a lot anyway. It may give people like this an outlet for their imagination that can help them get drowsy rather than keep them awake at night. Try it and see how it works for you!
For more info on visualization lessons and stress relaxation techniques for insomnia, click here.