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Home > Anxiety > Dream Induction – A fun way to beat insomnia

Dream Induction – A fun way to beat insomnia

Posted on 10.20.15 No Comments

dream induction - shutterstock_306407768

Do you have insomnia just because you can’t turn off your mind?  Dream induction allows you to turn off the TV and turn on a movie in your mind instead.

Step 1 – Generate an emotion. Allow yourself to recall a positive memory. Vividly relive the memory using all five senses and then go to the most positive moment in the memory. Notice the positive feeling that you are experiencing and note just how you are experiencing the emotion physically (a warm feeling in your stomach, a relaxed feeling in your chest, etc.).

Step 2 – Focus on the physical center of the emotion. Now, concentrate on the physical center of the feeling and let the memory fade but allow yourself to maintain the emotion.

Step 3 – Watch the inside of your eyelids.  Make believe that the inside of your eyelids is a a movie screen.  As you concentrate on the physical feeling, allow images to float through your mind. They don’t have to make sense – they may be polka dots and rainbows, squares or triangles, or hippopotamuses in tutus.

Step 4 – Let the images change.  Just notice whatever image is there and then let it change into whatever it wants to change into. As you continue to watch this internal ‘show,’ the images generally will get more and more complex.  Colors may turn into shapes, shapes may turn into objects and objects may turn into mini-scenes.   Finally, the mini-scenes may change into a full fledged dream as you fall asleep.

NOTE: You have to be experiencing an emotion for Dream Induction to work.  It doesn’t matter what the emotion is, it can be positive or negative.  So if you don’t have en emotion when you go to bed then you can generate a positive feeling by reliving a positive memory (step 1).  If you have an emotion already you can skip step 1 and just start focusing on the physical center of the emotion (step 2).  Don’t worry if you have a negative emotion, the negative emotion usually reduces as the images become more complex.

CategoriesAnxiety Insomnia & Sleep Problems Self-Therapy

David Russell

David Russell

Dr. Dave Russell is a clinical psychologist who specializes in intensive individual and couples therapy using 90-minute and 3-hour sessions – where client’s can achieve up to 3 month’s worth of therapy in each session – to fully resolve emotional baggage, hot buttons and trigger points. He has his doctorate in clinical psychology from Rutgers and did his internship at Yale. Before going into full time practice he was a clinical instructor at Yale and the director of outpatient services at Klingberg Family Centers. His practice MCH/Russell Associates, LLC in West Hartford, CT has clients who come for face-to-face sessions from as far away as New York City and Boston, clients who come for week-long intensives from all over the United States and clients who work via phone or Skype from as far away as Australia, Canada and the UK.

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David Russell, Ph.D. MCH I Russell Associates, LLC I 1001 Farmington Ave. Suite 304 I West Hartford Center, CT 06107 I 860-561-4841

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