Spirit and Science: The Yin and Yang of Sleep and Dreams
Balancing Sunlight by D Sharon Pruitt
Science vs. Spirit, Nature vs. Nurture, Yin and Yang
The Magic Nights sleep programming technique strikes that balance between science and spirit. It also can open the door to your evolution and give you a threshold from which to leap forward into your future – a better future.
Both science and spirit are essential to us as modern conscious and self-conscious human beings, and we can draw from both to create new ideas and new possibilities in our lives.
However, in our current society, acknowledging both can be problematic. As much as many of us attempt to maintain a balance between the two, the extremes can pull – or try to push – us toward either pure science or pure spirit. Because the Magic Nights approach can fall outside of the credibility system of purists at one end of the spectrum or the other and can feel unfamiliar, it is just a new technique that draws from and is supported by current wisdom and practices around sleep and the brain. As a new idea, it can feel unfamiliar, but I have found that there is often a point of reference for many – perhaps a dream or an intention set at bedtime that was successful, that lights a spark of curiosity. Fortunately, there are those out there like me who strive to strike that balance. Deepak Chopra and Rudolph Tanzi’s new book Super Brain is a wonderful example of this new evolution of thought and process, of science and spirit harmoniously melded for a better now and a better future.
The Argument of Science
Some scientists seem to want to dismiss anything that they haven’t figured out yet as superstition, quackery or hucksterism (not that there isn’t plenty of that out there – just follow the money) but on that edge of research and scientific knowledge, “new” things are being “discovered” all the time; things which were, not that long ago, loudly dismissed as fantasy or simply deemed stupid.
And though we would like the comfort of a scientific reason and proof for everything, we don’t have it. To act like the only thing worth knowing is the thing that has scientific proof is egotistical and extremely short-sighted. To operate solely within that box of scientific safety would be ultimately hypocritical and, if instituted on a larger scale, outright dangerous. We are still not anywhere close to being as smart as the forces that created us and sustain us.
Wasn’t it not that long ago, in the history of mankind, that the world was seen as flat, and that we were surely the center of the universe? Weren’t great scientists on the leading edge of discovery frequently afraid for their lives over a few ideas that were at the time seemingly nonsensical, but later proven factual?
The Tradition of Spirit
On the other extreme, these Magic Nights ideas have also been summarily dismissed by those with more established religious belief systems, in that it dares to offer a door to a deeper spiritual connection that does not fit established frameworks and use established dogma. Who are we to receive direct communication from our inner and greater wisdom or perhaps that of highly evolved spiritual beings, and who am I to have the audacity to suggest that anyone can do it with relative ease. I have gotten, from time to time, a fearful, flat look from those of religious authority I have proposed this method to that, in other times, might very well have resulted in some form of untimely demise involving fire or martyrdom.
Creating the Balance
So, in this transitional time, we still try to create this big divide between science and spirit, when the line is actually quite mobile and frequently difficult to contain. And it should be if we want to evolve and survive as a species. Our lives depend on working with the world and our universe in a way that will sustain us, whether science has caught up or not. Perhaps it’s not a comfortable place to be – on the leading edge – but here we all are.
However, science does give us that firm foundation from which to leap forward. And I welcome it as such. I welcome those very scientists to do their thing and study this new idea, this easy and potentially powerful technique.
Thankfully, who I am and what I am doing and presenting is not dependent on the judgements or disbelief of others. I am right where I want to be. I am simply enjoying creativity and the idea of helping a lot of people in a fun, fundamental and practical way.
And, by my choice, I infuse my work with color, joy and movement. As a visioneer, I am mapping out the Magic Nights technique so that the yin and yang of it balance, and therefore spin freely to create a new possibility. I am dancing on that balance point, flowing with the harmony and motion of it, enjoying the mystery of the science not yet discovered, and enjoying also how science keeps rising up beneath my feet to give my dance a foundation and a place to leap higher from
Come, dance with me…..
How to Have A Brilliant Idea
Einstein' s Hair by Rafael Robles
What if Everyone woke up one morning with Einstein’s Hair?
And a Brilliant Idea.
What a great day that would be. Maybe we could save the world! Small ideas, grand ideas – they would all work in their own unique ways, inspire smiles and create a vision for a new and better world. Just think of the buzz in the local cafes and bars.
This is actually not so far-fetched. Having a brilliant idea is not as hard as it sounds. Let me tell you why, tell you my brilliant idea story, and show you how you can do it, too:
First, a brief on the Serious Science of it:
Our brains are more powerful and more responsive than we understand (Neuroscientists know a lot less than they will usually admit). Luckily, with just our intention and focus, we can tap into this power. There is evidence in Neuroscience and Physics that backs this up. My “Serious Science” blog post has a bit more information and more links.
Now for My Story:
Years ago, I had been told from a number of reliable sources that I should consider writing as a way to “really make it” in this world. I started by dabbling in screenwriting, resulting in one very long and epic script. I found out what an amazing rush creative writing could be. That was and continues to be great fun, but selling a screenplay is about as likely as winning the lottery. So I needed a new idea. I need to write something that was marketable, easy and fun for me to write, would be accessible and useful to a broad audience; old and young, rich and poor. I wanted it to be a fun experience and a launch pad for other fun experiences and products – maybe even a film!
The first Brilliant Idea:
A few days later, I was taking a walk in a beautiful park pondering this. Suddenly, I heard that wise voice in my head say, “Write about how you program your sleep.” Brilliant! That was perfect. It was something I knew well, having done it for years already. I had worked out a system and had lots of experience and stories to tell. All I needed to do was write it up, throw in some fun personal stories and things to do in between the how-to bits and get it out there.
Then I began the process. And each step of the way, I had that wonderful wise voice guiding me. In fact, the presence of that voice was the result of all my nights of sleep programming. I had opened a door to inner and outer wisdom every night and had developed a level of trust and ease with that connection that I no longer needed to ask at night. I could ask any time and get answers after, not weeks or even days, but almost immediately.
The next Brilliant Idea:
When I had gotten far enough into the writing process, I realized I needed some kind of metaphor, some kind of visual image to tie all the material together harmoniously. So I took a walk, sat under a tree by a river and opened my mind. A few minutes later, a vision came to me. A pirate ship, like the one in Pirates of Penzance – fun, full of colorful images, costumes, dance, song and happy endings.
Brilliant again! I saw all the pieces of the book falling into place. How fun would that be. My mind was racing and I was happy to get back to work on my book.
I went to town with the pirate ship idea, obviously. I just couldn’t help myself. Some people think my site should be more serious – play up my doctor credentials and credibility. But to me, that would be boring. Despite that fancy diploma, series of licenses, white doctor’s coat and huge student loan, it’s just not who I am, and writing is all about being authentic.
So, like sailing off into an ocean of adventure, I chart this course to be under the pure blue skies of authenticity. A brilliant idea can’t be truly brilliant any other way.
How you can have your own Brilliant Ideas:
I love the idea of a brilliant idea being easy, fun, deep and mind expanding all at once. I think the best ideas are that way. And then I thought about asking for brilliant ideas. Everyone could ask for one, just as I did. Everyone – no matter their circumstances, could have their own brilliant idea and we could, together, save the world, each in our own way! All they have to do is ask, and then sleep on it. How exciting!
So get on your Magic Nights ship tonight and put on your Captain’s Uniform of inner wisdom, brilliance and authenticity. Invite your crew of wise ones from the universe of your dreamtime and ask for a brilliant idea! Do this every night for a week and let me know how it goes. Buy my book Magic Nights to learn just the right magic words and have a good understanding of how it works, and discover lots of other possibilities for nighttime adventure, too.
What if we all woke up with Einstein’s hair! – how fun would that be….
Have a Magic Night!
Dr. Katie
Sleep ‘Green’, Sleep Well
Til the End of Time by Akshay Moon
‘Green’ Sleep is Good Sleep.
They call it ‘sleep hygiene’ in the medical community: those simple things you can do to get better sleep.
And most of them, not coincidentally, are also ‘green’ things to do.
Clean your world, your body and your mind. Then enlist the powerful, free and renewable resources of your brain and the universe with the Magic Nights technique to help you get just the kind of sleep you want.
‘Green’ your Home and Your Sleep Environment:
Air pollution:
- Sleep in a room which has good circulation and air free from toxins. Buy a HEPA air purifier to have on hand to clean the air before bedtime, especially if you have pets.
- Minimize toxic fumes from artificial scents. If you like scents, use pure organic scent oils such as lavender oil
- Many cleaning solutions can also emit toxic fumes. Clean your bedroom, your bedding and night-wear with non-toxic, unscented, biodegradable products.
- Formaldehyde and other toxic gases can be emitted from newer rubber (including memory foam), new plastics and glues (pressboard furniture and synthetic carpets).
- For lots of ideas to help make your bedroom, home and life more ‘green’ and healthy, go to my friends Lia and Jason’s Green Living and Building Center site and store in Lambertville, NJ. Also Norman’s Green with Envy Home Store in Hillsborough, NJ has lots of good products and another place to visit might be Your Organic Bedroom in Doylestown, PA
Electronic Pollution from appliances, radio waves and EMF:
- Turn off and unplug as many electronic appliances as you can while you are sleeping.
- Turn off radio frequency emitting devices if possible, or keep them as far away as possible from your sleeping room – this includes WiFi antennas.
- Keep anything you must have switched on, such as an alarm clock or cell phone, at least four feet from your body when you are sleeping.
Noise Pollution:
- Don’t sleep with the television on! If you must have sound, use a nondescript sound generator designed for sleep.
- Don’t watch disturbing or violent news or television in the hours before bedtime. Instead watch something uplifting like romance or humorous shows or listen to soothing music.
‘Green’ your Body and Your Mind:
Food and Drink Pollution:
- Don’t have alcohol, coffee, tea or other stimulants in the evening.
- Drink pure water or decaffeinated digestive or calming teas instead.
- Eat whole, organic, raw foods if possible. They are easier to digest.
Body Energetics:
- Gentle and balancing forms of exercise are good before bed, such as Chi Gung or Yoga for relaxation orAcu-Yoga. They will help your sleep have a deeper healing effect.
- Taking a bath or shower before bed will not only help you feel fresh and relaxed, but clean the body’s energetic system as well. Let all the stress from the day go right down the drain.
- Use the techniques in my blog post “My Cure for Insomnia” for more healthy body balancing before bed.
‘Green’ your life using the Magic Nights Technique:
Use the powerful, free and renewable resources of your brain, your immune system and the universe in helping you get good sleep by simply asking for it using the ‘magic words’ that work. Buy Magic Nights to learn how to use this tool for good sleep and more.
Have a Magic Night!
Dr. Katie Hawn
My Cure for Insomnia
On the Edge of the Dreamtime Ocean by Prairiekittin
I have this little prayer and ritual that I do every night just before I go to sleep. I lay in my bed and do a few things to balance my body and go through a short mental intention to make sure I get the kind of sleep I want. Then I ask for something a little extra using more of my special Magic Nights words.
The problem is, on more nights than I would like to admit, I can’t even get through even half of it before falling asleep. Sometimes I even feel that my brain just blocks me from continuing the thought. “Enough” it will say, and just make me go to sleep without any agenda whatsoever.
This sleep-inducing protocol is the first part of the Magic Nights Technique:
- I set the overall tone for the night with words like Love and Light.
- I make sure everyone is safe and has a good time: “According to Free Will and for the Good of All.”
- I put on my Captain’s uniform:
- I do a mini cross-crawl exercise with my hands and feet to balance my right and left brain,
- I activate each Chakra by putting my hands over it and running a little energy through it until it feels open and good, to balance my neurology more.
- I call forth my inner wisdom, divine essence and authentic self in harmony and wholeness.
- I begin to invite my Magic Nights Crew…Z Z Z…
If I wake up in the middle of the night and realize I hadn’t gotten through my full Magic Nights intention, I just start again. This time, I usually can stay awake long enough to get through all of it.
But then, if I really, really can’t sleep even with the intention, I might drink some water then:
- lay on my Upledger Still Point Inducer for ten minutes
- do a little AcuYoga out of my Acu Yoga book.
In either case, I will make sure to spend a little more time on my morning attention meditation.
I guess sometimes a girl just needs to just sleep. And that’s OK.
Have a Magic Night!
The Ugly Child: Eight Tips for Transformation
A Precious Bundle of Talent, Intelligence, Creativity, and Possibility
By the time I arrived in this world, the spots of First Born Son and the Pretty Little Girl were already taken in my family. And my parents didn’t have the imagination to create another spot, such as talented, creative, artistic, athletic, intelligent… Instead, when I was just in diapers, my brother dared to speak the words I felt from the others around me. “You’re ugly.” It didn’t help when my group of friends in middle school nicknamed me “Franky” for Frankenstein, and even as an adult, my mother said to me “well, your sister was the pretty little girl.”
It’s been a lifelong journey to change my mind about myself. It has driven me to seek beauty on many levels, especially within, and to continually nurture and appreciate that wounded inner child. Now, even in middle age, I am satisfied with my life and looks. I’ve learned a lot and am still learning how to better appreciate who I am and where I am in life. Here are some ideas and things to do that can help your child, have helped me, and can help you:
To Help an ‘Ugly’ Child
If you have or know an “ugly child”, my blogposts for and about children will help them gain self-esteem, empower them and help them choose their own future dream, one Magic Night at a time, especially The Best Bedtime Story and the Magic Nights Lullaby.
If you are a young adult or adult with a childhood as an ‘ugly’ child, or to help an ugly child as they grow, below are
Eight Tips to Feel Good About You!
1. Remember that ugly is only a word.
How you feel inside is more important:
- Ugly is only a word. It doesn’t have much to do with reality. Like yin and yang, There is ugliness in all beauty and beauty in all ugliness.
- We are more than our bodies. We are our intelligence, our ethics, our creativity, our purpose, our talent and our inborn essential divine perfection.
- Ugly children don’t necessarily become ugly adults. My parents were ‘surprised’ that when I grew up, I was perfectly fine looking = maybe not a stunner, but at least attractive.
- Even’ugly’ or disabled people can be happy, productive, creative and make the world a better place in their own unique way.
- Being ‘ugly’ in one persons eyes doesn’t prevent a lifetime of happiness and fulfillment. As a wedding officiant, I married all kinds of people, rich and poor, plain and attractive, thin and overweight, young and old. And they were all deeply in love. The couples I felt had the brightest future together were the ones who began their married lives having been great friends for years, and already knew what “in sickness and health, in good times and bad” really meant.
- During the stages of our lives; childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age and old age, what is most important changes. It may change from learning and experiencing, to productivity and purpose, to career and passion, and to wisdom. During all of these stages beauty and ugliness takes on different meanings and different positions in our lives.
2. Be Happy, Busy and Creative.
An interesting happy person is always more attractive.
3. Pay more attention to how you feel than how you look.
Beauty or handsomeness must begin within. Create more of this with a busy, happy and purposefull life. Every night for at least a week to start, ask your inner wisdom and the universe to teach you how to feel attractive with this simple prayer in the Magic Nights style:
“Please teach me how it feels to be [beautiful/attractive/ handsome/brilliant/successful…] in every cell of my body, on every level and aspect of my being and in all time and space. For my highest and best good and for the good of all. With peace, freedom and joy. Thank you.”
4. Get a great haircut.
No matter what kind of hair you have, a professional stylist can help you to make it suit your face and your style
Modeling Shoot at 23
5. Learn how to do your hair and makeup from professionals.
Go to a salon for a makeup and style lesson, or if you can, take a modeling class. No matter what you look like, this will help. I couldn’t model because of my head shape and high forehead, but it was important to have that experience to find out that I was talented at runway and it motivated me to get my first modeling pictures taken.
6. Dress to feel good and attractive and to ‘blend in’ with your crowd while giving your look your own unique style.
This doesn’t mean having to be a slave to the latest fashion, it means being creative and allowing yourself to find the clothing that works for you at the right price. How you feel in your clothing will determine how attractive you are, not what labels are on your clothes. Like they say, “Are you wearing your clothes, or are they wearing you?”. When lived in California, there was a great Goodwill nearby. I got most of my clothes there and got compliments all the time because of how I put the outfits together and how I carried myself when I wore them.
Fun Photo Shoot at 45
7. Learn how to dance and move.
How you walk and move through life tells volumes about you as a person. Use the treadmill in the gym to transform your walking style. Find a movie star you like the style of and imitate walking like them with good posture. My personal favorite is Nicole Kidman. She is tall, graceful and refined. Take jazz or ballroom dancing class, snowboarding or stylized martial arts like Kung Fu. Avoid sports that create an aggressive, restricted, hunched or jarring movement style.such as boxing or karate. If you are overweight, choose a fun sport you like that will be safe and effective to help you feel better in your body. Think more about being increasing your activity and health than about decreasing the weight. My favorites are ballroom dancing and belly dancing.
8. Do a Photo Shoot.
Put together a photo shoot for yourself that suits your personal style not just your physical attractiveness. Play up your talents and positive energy and avoid a purely sexy glamour shoot as this only reinforces the dependence on looks alone. Use a friend to take the pictures. If you can, have your hair and makeup done up professionally and use a few different types of fabulous and fun outfits and different locations. With digital cameras, you can take the hundreds of shots (at least 300) that will result in a few really good ones you’ll treasure all your life. Use different angles, lighting. Shoot indoors and outdoors. Everyone has a ‘good side’ and in the right light can express their best points through the lens. Do this periodically over your life (I did and it is great to go back and look at those pictures) Practice in the mirror to find out your best smile and angle for photos. Get some prints made, frame them and put them up on your wall!
You are a perfect expression of the divine love that created you. Your life is a work of art. Your joy is all the universe wants for you. Have fun!
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Dr Katie Hawn