It never occurred to me to write about sleep issues and their correlation with spirituality until a kind reader, Blake, prompted me with his questions. This post is a dedication to him, and everyone else who is curious to understand how the two subjects overlap.
Of course, there are many reasons why you could be experiencing sleep issues, which science explains with great depth and complexity. For instance, the book Why We Sleep is a great resource to dive into the understanding of our biological needs for sleep.
However, I want to explore the idea that your sleep patterns may have a common denominator for where you are in your spiritual journey.
Take the following observations as an opportunity to investigate the starting point to a much deeper subject.
#1 – A lack of sleep is directly associated with how energy moves through the body.
We have two kinds of energy designated to us on Earth – mental and physical.
These energy types depend on the type of soul contract we have opted for. For example, someone fulfilling the role of a labor-intensive human, like a farmer or construction worker, might naturally come with a bigger stock of physical energy. On the other hand, you and I, who have been raised in the computer era, are more likely equipped with more mental energy. So, the distribution will vary from individual to individual.
And when we don’t exhaust our daily ‘quotient’, being restless is very common.
I have seen this happen personally too, where even years after my awakening, and working towards my purpose, I still had energy buzzing inside of me at the end of every day.
My mind would be exhausted, but I would toss and turn in bed.
It only became better when I learned about these two distinct energy types that we are required to spend, and I made it a regular practice to maximize the use of my physical energy every single day.
So, if you are having sleep issues yourself, see what you aren’t balancing, and then consciously try exhausting both energy types before bedtime. Find a form of movement that works for you and doesn’t feel like effort. For me, crazy dancing is the go-to method to regulate sleep because, through free dance movements, I feel energized and tired all at once. You could try that too!
#2 – Sleeping a lot, or very little, might have a spiritual meaning too.
Sometimes, the opposite of the previous point is happening to people who sleep a LOT. And there are two causes that I am aware of:
The first is when we aren’t doing much in Earth life, so the soul may work in other realms while we sleep, to ascend faster. When you read profound books like Journey of Souls, you learn more about the evidence of this, and how our soul has multiple lessons that it works through in parallel.
However, in contrast to the soul working in other dimensions for its growth, the other reason you could be sleeping a lot is that you might be rapidly ascending in your journey. It’s normal to experience a lot of fatigue and exhaustion from all the healing you are undergoing in such a short span of time! This is also why I often talk about the importance of knowing your window of tolerance, and not pushing your physical body more than is required.
Either way, know that it isn’t a pure coincidence and that you are still healing in your sleep. I’ll talk about how in the next point. But let’s talk about the scenario where people struggle to get a good night’s sleep during their spiritual journey.
In other cases where people feel themselves constantly waking up through the night, or getting little to no sleep – our soul may have been trying to get us to work here, in this lifetime with more involvement.
As a result, your higher self could be declining sleep.
My experience is that as you awaken and align to your higher calling, your sleep should get better. Back in the day when the blog had just started, the Universe would stir me awake at odd hours to get my attention to write about one thing or the other!
Even if you don’t sleep more, you should sleep more peacefully. So if there’s something keeping you up at night, don’t try to push it back down anymore. Work with it!
#3 – You are still healing in your sleep.
I’ve always been a vivid dreamer and maybe once every few years, I would have a prophetic dream. But I didn’t take them very seriously. However, there’s so much we’re missing if we don’t know about the spiritual power of dreams. For instance, in my initial year of awakening, my soul guides would often use the sleep state to send me guidance through my dreams.
Similarly, sometimes, you might see glimpses from a previous lifetime, or heal old karmic debts with your past relationships while you’re sleeping. But typically, we might not always understand how we are healing. This is because the information that is not relevant to this lifetime is omitted from us. Just like the amnesia we have for our past lives.
So don’t look at your sleep as an interruption in your spiritual journey (especially if you sleep more than ever now) – awake or not, you are still healing. Here is an article I wrote with different types of spiritual dreams you might see.
And if you would like to learn how to become lucid in your dreams, so that you can accelerate your healing, I highly recommend taking the course on Lucid Dreaming by lucid dreaming expert, Charlie Morley.
As I worked my way through his 30-day course, not only did I notice my dreams intensify and bring me much more guidance in daily life, but I also experienced a different depth of self-awareness in my waking state. The practices help you to track your dreams, interpret them, and try on different ancient practices to heal while asleep (Buddhist, Toltec, Shamanic, etc), among many other teachings.
The image below will take you to his free masterclass. See if this is for you!
#4 – You can have a higher quality of sleep through your meditation practice.
I briefly told you how butchered my sleep was, but what worked for me right off the bat was meditation. I used to doze off at night while meditating on one of the binaural beats or Celtic songs on YouTube. And I would wake up better rested, less overwhelmed by my dreams.
There are innumerable benefits of meditation already spoken of across the internet! But speaking firsthand – meditation definitely does support your sleep by helping you process old thoughts and creating space for clarity in the conscious state.
A lot of people also enjoy listening to Yog Nidra meditations on Youtube, which you can consider trying too.
The point of meditation to better sleep is that when you do finally sleep, your mind has less to deal with because it has consciously processed some of the pervasive thoughts.
If you haven’t already found out how to create a meditation practice that works for you, you can enroll in this power-packed workshop with me.
#5 – The transition into sleep (hypnogogic state) can also be used for healing.
When someone is new to meditation, it can be difficult to stay awake for long periods. While it can seem like that person is not made for meditation, the truth is that it’s about building our muscles to enter the gate to our subconscious mind.
So if you’re quick to become sleepy, know that there’s nothing bad about that – in fact here’s how you can heal even then.
The state right before we fall into light sleep is called Hypnagogic State. In this phase, our logical brain begins to quieten and we are more receptive to anything we hear.
Related Read: How Your Logical Mind Can Sabotage Your Healing
Using positive affirmations in this state can really help you bypass the overactive logical mind, and reap rewards for pretty much anything: from confidence building to healing your body. Even manifesting more money!
If you’re new to the world of using affirmations, I highly encourage you to read the book Power of Your Subconscious Mind which beautifully explains how using affirmations when you’re drowsy, right before bed, can help you change your life.
Concluding Thoughts
I hope looking at all those pictures of sleep helped induce some for you! And at the same time, this article ‘awakened’ you with new insights.
Over the years of exploring the different effects of a spiritual awakening, I often notice that sleep issues and spirituality are closely linked. And for many people, simply being more aligned with their true nature has taken these issues away.
What other observations have you made that could help other readers understand their sleep issues in the context of spirituality? Do share in the comments below!
Vasundhra is the Founder & Writer of My Spiritual Shenanigans. After seeing 11:11 on the clock one fateful night, her life turned around. Ever since, she has been blending modern psychology and ancient spirituality, to help herself and people around the world elevate the quality of their lives.
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