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Reaching Your Alpha Level
Many of us have trouble falling asleep at night, or even truly relaxing when we'd like to.
Even when we're completely exhausted we'll be lying, wide awake, thinking of all the things we have to do the next day, and all the problems that need solving in the next few weeks. We try to shut out these thoughts, but when you're lying there in the dark with no place to look except inward, it isn't easy.
No matter how exhausted your body is, your mind must also be willing to settle down for the night. You must convince your Sub-Conscious to relax, and then your Conscious Mind will not be subjected to that all-night bombardment that so many of us know only too well.
This exercise, adapted from David St. Clair's 1978 book, Instant ESP (now long out of print, sadly), will teach you to go down to your relaxation level, or your Alpha level, as it is sometimes called, which is aligned with your Crown Chakra.
The technique you're going to learn works with colours, through a simple basic colour progression.
Is this self-hypnosis? Perhaps, but it's also just conditioning. You are setting up a system whereby your Sub-Conscious will know you want to fall asleep. Once you've done this a few times, you can just lie there, take a quick glimpse of red, and zoom right to the bottom colour.
It can be done by anyone, nearly any time, and in a large variety of places, circumstances, and surroundings. It can be used for falling asleep, as a starting point for other meditations, a simple relaxation meditation on its own, or simply as a quick way to center, calm, or refocus yourself as needed.
The Alpha level runs your body at a different rate of speed, slows down your heartbeat and breathing, and lowers your blood pressure.
If you get to the bottom colour and you are still awake and aware that you are awake (think about that one for a minute), then tell yourself, "I'm in my Alpha level. I will be going to sleep any minute now", but it's only on rare occasions that that will be necessary.
Let's
get started.
As with all the meditations found on this site, you should read all the way through this page at least once before you try to do the meditation.
Before you start:
• Turn off any unnecessary, extra noise generating items, such as the radio or television, if you can, or consider using headphones with the guided meditation track for this meditation.
If there is music or television or other such things that other people are using, don't worry about it. You will be able to tune it out as you listen to the track.
• Make certain the room or area you are using is at a comfortable temperature, if you are able. Again, if this isn't possible, it's alright.
The meditation will help you ignore that as well.
• Switch your phone's ringer and other notifications to silent or DND mode.
• If you are using this meditation to fall asleep, make sure everything is done for the night. You want to be able to drift off, knowing there is no reason to get up before your desired waking time. Find a comfortable position in your bed.
• If you are using it as a relaxation, or preparation for another meditation, then find a place to get comfortable. Is best to sit, cross legged, in lotus or modified lotus position or lie down flat on you back, on the floor/ground (use a mat or cushion if needed).
If you are mobility impaired, have circulatory problems which preclude sitting or lying on the floor, or are somewhere where sitting on the floor isn't an option, a bed, couch, bench, or chair is fine.
If you are using a chair or bench that doesn't facilitate sitting cross legged, or if other issues prevent such positions, place your feet flat on the floor or a stool, so that your knees are bent at a ninety degree angle, or as close to it as possible.
• Sit or lie with your back straight, tilting your head up/back slightly and tucking in your chin so that your neck and spine are aligned.
• Place your hands in a comfortable, relaxed position (on your lap if sitting, at your sides if lying down) with your palms up/exposed. They will probably naturally tilt inward, with your hands slightly cupped. This is fine. Do not force your hands into a a more open or flat position - just let them rest naturally. If desired, gently touch your index finger and thumb on each hand to one another, as in standard lotus pose.
• Should you have trouble picturing any of the above colours, find something around you that is that colour, stare at it, and then close your eyes and try to reproduce that object with its colour in your mind. After just a few tries you'll find it easy, and soon the colours will come just as flashes to you without needing to take the shape of the objects.
• Should you go to sleep normally and waken during the night, don't get angry with yourself (always keep your emotions at low ebb when you wish to sleep) and don't take a sleeping pill. Just get back into a comfortable position and start seeing the colours again, all the way down to the violet or lilac level.
• Do you want to take a quick nap in the afternoon and be refreshed for an evening away from home? Lie on the bed and go down those colours.
• Tired and need a few minutes just to relax? Lie down and say, "I'm only going to relax. I don't want to go to sleep. I just need to relax and regroup my energies." Then start the colour countdown. Ten minutes' rest like this is worth several hours of sleep at night.
• Are you in a situation in which you're becoming nervous and tense? Are you biting your inner lip in anticipation of whatever is coming? Close your eyes (you can sit up for this one) and visualize the colours. Just go down the colours and by the time you get to the bottom level, you'll be calm, cool, and collected.
• Naturally, something this easy and beneficial isn't going to be relegated to the back of your psychic medicine cabinet, to be used only when you're suffering from insomnia. We'll use this exercise several times in the exercises to follow.
• You should start the guided meditation track at this point, after you have read through this page once (or re-start it, if you have paused it to read this page).
Remember to make sure there is nothing else on your playlist that might jar you out of your relaxed state after the guided meditation track ends.
The guided meditation will take you through the rest.
Now, you are ready to begin...
• Start with a few deep, centering breaths, and close your eyes. Envision your sphere of white light surrounding and infusing you. (If you are unfamiliar with the "white light", you may wish to do the White Light Meditation before this one.) See the white light expand until it is all that you see. It is a blank canvas for your journey.
• RED
I want you to close your eyes and visualize the colour Red. It can be a Red anything—a red rose, a red car- nation, a red apple, a man in a red Santa Claus suit, the inside of a watermelon; anything that is Red. I want you to actually see this Red colour inside your mind. I want that flash of Red to be there inside you. I don't care if it doesn't remain and just flits in and out for a particle of a second. The important thing is that you actually see the Red colour inside your head.
Once you have seen it then go down to the next
colour, which is:
• ORANGE
I want you to visualize the colour Orange. Bring that colour into your mind and actually see it there, See Orange: a mound of fresh oranges piled high in a su- permarket, a freshly poured glass of orange juice, a Buddhist monk in an orange robe. Use whatever you need to visualize the colour, but see the colour Orange in your mind's eye.
Once you have seen it then go down to the next
colour, which is:
• YELLOW
I want you to visualize the colour Yellow. Actually see it inside your head. If necessary, picture a yellow egg yolk in the center of a white plate, the yellow center of a daisy, the yellow sun burning in a clear sky. I want you to actually see the colour Yellow.
Once you have seen it then go down to the next
colour, which is:
• GREEN
I want you to visualize the colour Green in your mind's eye. Choose what you need to make it come into you: a freshly mown green lawn, the green leaves of a full tree in spring, a plant with large leafy green leaves, the Irish shamrock, Use whatever you need to see the colour Green inside your head.
Once you have seen it then go down to the next
colour, which is:
• BLUE
I want you to visualize the colour Blue. That whatever object you need to bring blue into your mind's eye—a bright blue sky without a cloud in sight, the blue of the ocean, the blue of a lake stretching far in the distance. a whatever you need, but you must see the colour blue.
Once you have seen it then go down to the next
colour, which is:
• VIOLET
It can be any shade of Violet: a lilac bush all in thick bloom, the delicate blossoms of a potted violet, a mist of lavender smoke curling around you. Use whatever you need but you must see the colour Violet.
Once you have it, you are at your Alpha level, ready to drift off to sleep or deeper into a meditative state. Pleasant dreams and visions.
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