Sleep and insomnia

Last night I slept soundly. I don’t think I’ve slept so well for a few months. I used to think that this was because I was not involved in a heavily creative project at the moment, such as writing a book. That had seemed to be the pattern in the past; when I spent my creative energy during the day on such a project and felt fulfilled, I would always sleep deeply right through the night.

I now suspect that the answer is even more simpler than that. Recently I’ve been involved in several different writing projects and it seemed that I didn’t have a clear sense of direction or purpose; my energy was divided; I was not sure which direction I should be heading in, because I was on several different paths, all at once. But yesterday, I had a clear vision of the single project that I should currently be focusing on, and I realized that, at the moment, all the other projects were not important and I could leave them aside. This then gave me a clear sense of purpose, a single direction that I should be heading in, and I slept soundly. This is pretty much common sense. But my previous confused direction was only a subtle awareness in me; in fact, I was not even consciously aware of it. Anyhow, it is obviously that if there is something troubling you, then you are not going to sleep well. But why is this?

Previously, I was waking around 3am. This is the time that the Liver energy is at the end of its peak; its time of greatest energy is between 1 and 3am. On the mental level, the Liver is concerned with planning, foresight, vision, creativity. This morning, I realized that it was the fact that my vision for my future, my sense of direction, was previously confused that had caused the mental aspect of my Liver to be overworking; and when this faculty needs to work at its best, it will do it at the time of day that its energy is at a maximum. Hence, towards 3am, the mental/spiritual aspect of my Liver (the Hun, as it is called in Chinese medicine) was in overdrive mode, trying to plan my sense of direction, to produce a clear vision for my future. And now, once that vision is clear, the Hun will no longer need to work overtime, and my sleep will not be disturbed.

For me, this was a valuable insight into these processes. The other pattern that my insomnia had taken recently, was that I was waking at around 5 or 6am. This portion of the day falls between two organs, the energy of the Lungs and the Large Intestine peak at these times. On the mental/spiritual level, these are both concerned with letting get—amongst other things. This pattern was the one that was predominant recently; previously it was the other pattern, waking at around 3 am, that had been the pattern of my insomnia. This suggests to me that the last part of the processing that I had to do to sort out my sense of direction, was to finally let go of the inappropriate paths that I had been pursuing.

Having clearly noticed these things in myself, is a valuable insight that will hopefully enable me to more quickly help my patients to spot the source of any issues in their own lives that might be causing similar patterns of insomnia. Though in my patients, this process usually happens on a subconscious level; I stimulate the energy of any organs that are struggling and that then enables them to gain such insights as the above ones but without having to consciously be aware of the processes; all they would be aware of is having a clear insight, and then sleeping more soundly. They would probably not even make the connection, and many people would not even be aware of the insight—and they would not need to be. They would simply be aware that they feel more at peace, more calm, and with some people perhaps the issues that were troubling them would have been so subtle that they might not even notice the absence of those issues—and they may not even have consciously noticed the presence of them. Which is fine; acupuncture works on these deep levels without the patient having to even be aware of the issues; there is no need to go through the torture of years of psychotherapy in order to resolve such issues.

 

12 December 2008