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I have a friend who recently mentioned having trouble falling asleep. I came up with this method long ago, and have previously shared it verbally with various people, but he and I chat online, so I wrote It up. I told him, “I hope this works for you, but of course we are all different, and nothing works for everybody. “

And then I thought, I probably have other friends who are having trouble sleeping, and since I wrote it up, I should share it wider. So I hope you enjoy reading this, and if you are having trouble falling asleep, I hope it helps you.

And if you have a different method, I’d love to hear it.


Deirdre’s Meditation for Falling Asleep

The first step is to remember some day or days when you were very deep asleep and had to wake up. Pick a time where the process was slow, rather than the sudden adrenaline boost of an alarm or emergency. Remember it as clearly as you can, with all your senses. For me, it can feel like being all warm and safe, in a friendly, dark, quiet, restful state. Gravity is cradling me and I’m warm and comfortable. The call to wake is reaching me through a soft foggy darkness.

But you probably experience sleep and waking differently than I do, and knowing your own process of transition between waking and sleep is the key to this meditation. So just take a little time to remember what it was like for you be still mostly asleep, and then how it felt as you slowly woke up. Remember those sensations, feelings, textures, whatever your experience has been, as clearly as you can. Remember, also, the sequence of whatever happens as you wake up slowly.

Once you have that memory or those memories clear in your mind, the next step is to relax. Do anything you have to do at night (like take meds) if you haven’t already done so. Get comfortable in your bed. Set the lights and sounds of your room appropriately.

Be aware of your intention. Know that the goal is to allow yourself fall asleep, to allow this particular meditation to be a temporary guide. That may be very different from other meditations you have done, where the goal is to relax but not fall asleep, to consciously focus instead of letting that focus gently go for a while. So set that intention in your mind in whatever way works best for you. Say it aloud if that will help. Know that if you lose track of this meditation and fall into sleep, that is a complete success.

Once you’re comfortable, take those feelings and experiences you remembered, and do your best to be inside the memory. Make them as real as possible in your mind—but do it backwards. If you felt like you were climbing, let yourself drift downward instead. If you became aware of the sensations of your covers or your pajamas, imagine letting those sensations fade. And so on.

This isn’t a meditation where you follow someone else’s words. Only you have experienced the metaphorical lands between your sleep state and your waking state. So take what you learned from remembering your own experience, and let yourself do it backwards, traveling not from deep sleep to wakefulness, but from wakefulness to sleep. You are gently guiding yourself, until you don’t need a guide any more because all you have to do is let it happen. And when you get to that point, let it happen.