Technique 2 : Three sights , three sounds , three feelings
Part of the success of this technique stems from the fact that , ultimately , we ' re never going to feel terribly motivated to get up and do tedious work . And so our unconscious builds the motivation to just drift into sleep as a way of getting out of the boring work .
We have to consider motivation in all therapy – and how we can harness it . Often the first step to sleeping well is to make it okay not to sleep .
Technique 2 : Three sights , three sounds , three feelings
I ' d also set Tom a task to do while he was in bed between work sessions . I taught him the self-hypnotic technique of the ' three things induction '. I suggested he could relax deeply not to get to sleep , but to just get some of the benefits of slow-wave sleep while he was awake . There was something important Tom needed to learn about sleep .
Sleep is an activity Sleep isn ' t passive .
The brain can be highly active during sleep ( especially during the initial stages ) so I reassured Tom that he didn ' t need to ' switch off ' to go to sleep his brain simply had to become active in a different way .
As we drift into sleep we have dream fragments flashes in which our creative , imaginative mind takes over from our conscious mind . Now , normally this happens unconsciously but , it doesn ' t have to .
If we consciously start to prompt these imaginative flashes we can ' kickstart ' the process and set the scene for sleep . Visualization mirrors the brain ' s natural process of entering the mythic doorway to slumberland .
So I taught Tom to focus , without moving his head and with his eyes open to start with , on three things he could see . He was to inwardly list to himself such statements as :
1 . " I can see the outline of the wardrobe ." 2 . " I can make out the bookshelf ." 3 . " I can see shadows around the door ."