Chapter XIII: Your Subconscious & The Wonders Of Sleep

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Source page 108. Chapter XIII Your Subconscious & The Wonders Of Sleep You spend about eight out of every twenty-four hours, or one third of your entire life, in sleep. This is an inexorable law of life. This also applies to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Sleep is a divine law and many answers to our problems come to us when we are sound asleep upon the bed.

Many people have advocated the theory that you get tired during the day, that you go to sleep to rest the body, and that a reparative process takes place while you sleep. Nothing rests in sleep. Your heart, lungs and all your vital organs functions while you are asleep. If you eat prior to sleep, the food is digested an assimilated; also, your skin secretes perspiration, and your nails and hair continue to grow.

Your subconscious mind never rests or sleeps. It is always active, controlling all your vital forces. The healing process takes place more rapidly while you are asleep as there is no interference from your conscious mind. Remarkable answers are given to you while you are asleep.

Why We Sleep Dr John Bigelow, a famous research authority on sleep (Dr John Bigelow, The Mystery of Sleep, New York and London: Harper Brothers, 1903), demonstrated that at night while asleep you receive impressions showing that the nerves of the eyes, ears, nose and taste buds are active during sleep and also that the nerves of your brain are quite active. He says that the main reason we sleep is because “the nobler part of the soul is united by abstraction to our higher nature and becomes a participant in the wisdom and foreknowledge of the gods.”

Dr Bigelow states also, “The results of my studies have not only strengthened my convictions that the supposed exemption from customary tolls and activities was not the final purpose of sleep, but have also made clearer to my mind the conviction that no part of a man's life deserves to be considered more indispensable to its symmetrical and perfect spiritual development than while he is separated from the phenomenal world in sleep.”

Prayer, A Form Of Sleep Your conscious mind gets involved with vexations, strife and contentions of the day and it is very necessary to withdraw periodically from sense evidence and the objective world, and commune silently with the inner wisdom of your subconscious mind. By claiming guidance, strength and greater intelligence in all phases of your life, you will be enabled to overcome all difficulties and solve your daily problems.

Source page 109. This regular withdrawal from sense evidence and the noise and confusion of everyday living is also a form of sleep, i.e. you become asleep to the world of the senses and alive to the wisdom and power of your subconscious mind.

Startling Effects Of Sleep Deprivation Lack of sleep can cause you to become irritable, moody and depressed. Dr George Stevenson of the National Association for Mental Health says, “I believe it can safely be said that all human beings a minimum of six hours sleep to be healthy. Most people need more. Those who think they can get along on less are fooling themselves.”

Medial research scholars, investigating sleep processes and deprivation of sleep, point out that severe insomnia has preceded psychotic breakdown in some instances. Remember, you are spiritually recharged during sleep, and adequate sleep is essential to produce joy and vitality in life.

You Need More Sleep Robert O'Brien, in an article, “Maybe you Need More Sleep,” in an issue of The Reader's Digest, reports the following experiments on sleep:

“For the last three years experiments have been in progress at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, Dc. Subjects – more than one hundred military and civilian volunteers – have been kept awake for as long as four days. Thousands of tests have measured the effects on their behavior and personality. Results of these tests have given scientists astonishingly new insights into the mysteries of sleep.

“They now know that the tired brain apparently craves sleep so hungrily that it will sacrifice anything to get it. After only a few hours of sleep loss, fleeting stolen naps called lapses, or micro sleep, occurred at the rate of three or four an hour. As in real sleep, eyelids dropped and heartbeat slowed. Each lapse lasted just a fraction of a second. Sometimes the lapses were periods of blankness; sometimes they were filled with images, wisps of dreams. As hours of sleep loss mounted, the lapses took place more often and lasted longer, perhaps two or three seconds. Even if the subjects had been piloting an airliner in a thunderstorm, they still couldn't have resisted micro sleeps for those few priceless seconds. And it can happen to you, as many who have fallen asleep at the wheel of a car can testify.

“Another startling effect of sleep deprivation was its attack on human memory and perception. Many sleep deprived subjects were unable to retain information long enough to relate it to the task they were supposed to perform. They were totally befuddled in situations requiring them to hold several factors in mind and act on them, as a pilot must when he

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Joseph Murphy presents spiritual and self-help ideas, not medical, financial, or mental-health treatment. Treat claims about healing or outcomes as the author’s historical claims, not guarantees or professional advice.

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