Mind Power News
Issue No. 141 / Friday, September 22, 2006
Edited by Andreas Ohrt /
www.MindPowerNews.com


In this issue:

7 INVENTIVE WAYS TO GO TO SLEEP:
Thanks to a few innovators... sleep doesn't have to be boring. In fact, when armed with the right accessories, it can be so exciting you'll regret having slept through it.

RELAXATION BETTER THAN DRUGS FOR INSOMNIA: In older adults with chronic primary insomnia, "cognitive behavioral therapy was more effective immediately and long-term compared with both zopiclone and placebo," Dr. Sivertsen and colleagues concluded.

HOW TO TURN SLEEPLESSNESS INTO SERENITY: Hypnotherapy sessions help you to relax your body physically, and most especially, mentally. Hypnosis also teaches you methods that help eliminate negative thoughts when they arise and hones in on what’s caused the problem in the first place.

YOUR BRAIN SOLVES PROBLEMS DURING SLEEP: The data is clear: While asleep, the brain is capable of doing things it can't do when it's awake.

LUCID DREAMS KEY TO GOOD SLEEP: Through a state of dreaming that combines Western science and Tibetan Buddhist study, students might be able to improve sleep quality, overcome fears and explore reality.

SLEEP AND GROW RICH : I was not exaggerating in the least when I said that getting rich can be the most constructive, healthful, joyous thing you ever did. My only warning is that you must get rich in the way that expresses your own, best, personal achievement.


7 Inventive Ways to Go to Sleep

By Christian Hoopes
Source:
American Inventor Spot

Each night of your life it's the same routine: same boring bed, same boring pillow, same boring pattern of reducing alpha waves, generating theta waves, lowering EMG, entering delta sleep, and finally engaging in rapid eye movement. Aren't you sick of it?

Thanks to a few innovators, however, sleep doesn't have to be boring. In fact, when armed with the right accessories, it can be so exciting you'll regret having slept through it. You'll have to get a camcorder to record yourself sleeping just so you can watch it when you're awake and see how much fun you had.

Here are 7 Inventive Ways To Go To Sleep:

1. Chillow
We've all been there. We love the ‘cool' side of the pillow but as soon as we flip to it, all the coldness gets absorbed into our head and dissipates, leaving us to languish in a state of unreasonably warm pillowness until the other side cools down sufficiently. Until now, the only alternative was to build a multi-million dollar pillow-flipping robot who would lift your head off the pillow, flip the pillow, and lay you back down every 20 minutes or so, stopping only when he would need an oil change, which is every 2 hours.

But now the ‘Chillow' is here. Say goodbye to Flipbot 2000, say hello to cool, comfortable nights. The Chillow is a technological marvel on a magnitude of the combustion engine, or ESPN. Filled with a space-age blue gel, all you have to do is top it off with some water and the Chillow will do the rest. It's guaranteed to keep your head nice and cool all night long, and if your brain freezes and you die, they will return all your money, minus a 95% restocking fee. Thank you, Chillow!

2. Japanese Dream Machine
Tired of running away from Tommy Lee Jones for a crime you didn't commit every night? I know I am. Fortunately, the good people at Takara inc. have stepped up to the plate to make sure your dreams are nothing but sweet.

Called "Yumemi Kobo" which is Japanese for "dream workshop," the devise boasts the ability to influence the user's dreams. Armed to the teeth with an arsenal of speakers, a voice recorder, small lights, a picture frame, and even a fragrance dispenser, the Yumemi Kobo is designed to ‘determine' when you enter REM sleep (the stage of sleep at which dreaming occurs) and only activate accordingly.

So say you want to dream about, say, having a pirate adventure. You load up a picture of pirates cavorting about, you fill the fragrance dispenser with, what-rum? And you slowly drift off...only to be woken up by the smell of ocean funk, flashing strobe lights, and the pre-recorded sounds of clanging sword fighting. If you're at all able to get back to sleep, your dreams are almost certain to be those of being chased by a robot through a disco for music pirating.

3. Coffin Bed
Maybe you're a Goth who is into such things, maybe you think it would be interesting, and maybe you're just plan disturbing, but some people out there probably would enjoy the feeling of sleeping in a coffin. Thanks to the Casket Furniture company, the wait is over.

According to their site, this ‘long awaited' item can be yours for only a little over $4,000. While the rest of us suckers stretch out on queen-sized down mattresses, you'll be hunkered away, dreaming the dreams of angels, in a big wooden box that you can't roll over in and which might close on you and suffocate you to death. At least burial won't be a problem.

Disturbingly, their site also indicated ‘locks and latches' are available at an added price. Oh, thanks. How much to have it filled with flesh-eating bacteria, too?

4. Snore Backpack
Are you one of the 4 in 10 people in the United States who suffers from snoring? How often have you wondered when someone would invent a way to allow you to sleep silently while simultaneously looking like a massive dork wad?

Based on the scientific principle that you're 10% more likely to snore if you're sleeping on your back, the good people at some lame company or other got immediately to work and came up with Dr. Parker's Snore Relief Cusion.

Worn like a backpack, Dr. Parker's Snore Relief Cushion is basically just a foam pillow with rubber suspenders attached. Just sling the thing over your back and hope that your wife doesn't mind that you'll be going to bed looking like the bullies from shop class super glued part of a couch to you. Now, try to roll onto your back. You can't do it! Because there's a giant foam pillow preventing you. And if you're worried about safety concerns involving getting tangled up and choked to death by the rubber suspenders, rest assured that's only 60% likely to happen. Sure, the company likes to claim that the product is 100% safe, but can you really trust people who don't mind looking like this guy.

5. Stylin Sleep Mask
This isn't your grandma's sleep mask. You're an active young woman. You have responsibilities, places to go, people to see. You deserve a sleep mask that says "I'm unique! I designed my own sleep mask!"

Fortunately, you no longer have to be style-deprived while unconscious anymore. Now you can look your best for all the people who we can only assume must stare at you when you sleep, where they will no doubt be incredibly impressed with your amazing skills.

Complete with a piece of ‘self-adhesive' black felt, a hot glue gun, some satin, and a smorgasbord of decorations including ‘sequins' and ‘glittery puff paint,' you too can sleep like Liberace with the help of a Stylin' Sleep Mask from Familyfun.com. And what's more, designing the mask is only half the fun-the other half is wearing it! While you're asleep!

6. Floating Bed
Who hasn't dreamed of sleeping on a bed that floats in mid-air? I haven't, but I'm sure someone has. And in fact, someone did, or we wouldn't have the $1.5 million dollar magnetic floating bed.

Tethered down with 4 cables to prevent your bed from floating out and taking a spin on I-94, the bottom of the mattress is covered with enough magnets to keep almost 2,000 pounds floating in the air.

Though there would be no technical application of this bed other than to just look incredibly cool, I pledge it's the first thing I will buy as soon as I acquire either $1.5 million dollars or 1.5 million fridge magnets, whichever comes first. (via Gozmodo)

7. Sleep Analysis Doll
Sure, it seemed like you slept OK, but how will you know for sure? Short of talking to a horrifying sleep analysis doll, you'd have no way of knowing, which means it's a good thing that just such a doll is now available on the market.

With its 6 sensors and vocabulary of 1200 different sentences, the doll is capable of determining a user's sleep patterns and then badgering you when you don't stick to said sleeping patterns. So that night that you have insomnia because you're nervous about an important project at work will be made even more fun with a disturbing doll berating you for not being asleep. Good times. And a normal person would buy this why?



Relaxation Better Than Drugs for Insomnia

By Michael Smith
SOURCE:
MedPage Today

Relaxation and other behavioral techniques may overcome insomnia better than drugs, found investigators here.

A randomized, placebo-controlled trial comparing the hypnotic agent Imovane (zopiclone) with cognitive behavioral therapy found that for most outcomes, Imovane was no more effective than placebo, the researchers reported in the June 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

On the other hand, cognitive behavioral therapy was significantly better than either, said Børge Sivertsen, Psy.D., of the University of Bergen, and colleagues.

Imovane is not approved in the U.S., although Lunesta (eszopiclone)—a version of the medication containing only the active isomer—was approved in 2004.

In older adults with chronic primary insomnia, "cognitive behavioral therapy was more effective immediately and long-term compared with both zopiclone and placebo," Dr. Sivertsen and colleagues concluded. However, they noted, the finding might not generalize to all sleep medications.

Despite that limitation, they argued, the results imply that physicians should be cautious in prescribing hypnotics for long-term use, given increasing evidence of the long-term efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy and the lack of similar evidence for the medications. "Clinicians," they wrote, "should consider prescribing hypnotics only for acute insomnia."

The researchers enrolled 46 adults, 55 or older, with chronic primary insomnia that had lasted at least three months and affected their daytime functioning. The participants were randomized to get Imovane, a placebo resembling Imovane, or cognitive behavioral therapy, which included sleep hygiene education, sleep restriction, stimulus control, cognitive therapy, and progressive relaxation techniques.

Outcome measures were total wake time, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, and slow-wave sleep. The effects of the therapies were assessed with ambient clinical polysomnography, supplemented with sleep diaries; assessments of all three groups were made at baseline and at six weeks, and again at six months for the two active groups.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE
http://www.mindpowernews.com/Relaxation.htm


How to Turn Sleeplessness into Serenity

By Steve G. Jones
Clinical Hypnotherapist

Better Living With Hypnosis

We all have those nights where falling asleep can be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. Of course, sleeplessness is hard to determine the exact cause as it frequents people depending on what’s going on in a person’s life such as depression, stress, sickness, restlessness, being too hot or too cold.

No one really knows exactly why we need sleep, but studies show that sleep is as essential as food: it enables us to function and nourishes us so we can perform various tasks. Most people know this, and will frequently turn to sleeping pills so as to induce the kind of sleep that’s needed.

But instead of finding a solution through contrived means that really doesn’t address the issue, you might consider hypnosis—a far more effective method—a solution that cuts to the heart of the problem. Not only does hypnosis put you in a relaxed state of mind, which is the very essence of what hypnosis is, but hypnosis sessions discover why you’re not sleeping, and retrain your brain to not “try and fall asleep,” but to fall asleep as naturally as you once did.

Sleeplessness, or insomnia, is a very common thing in the United States. There are many symptoms, including sluggishness during the day time, waking up frequently during the night or waking up and not being able to fall back asleep.

Four years ago, the National Sleep Association did a sweeping poll across the country to see just how big of a problem sleeplessness was, labeling the study “Sleep in America.” Perhaps it’s not surprising, but the results showed that nearly 75 percent of the respondents said they exhibited at least some or all symptoms of insomnia for a few days or several weeks, and 35 percent said they experienced one of the symptoms, every night, for over a year!

The problem with insomnia is that it perpetuates itself. Once we recognize we can’t fall asleep, we focus on the fact that we can’t fall asleep, virtually eliminating any possibility of relaxing our brain because our brain is focused on that one very frustrating fact. Everything in our life subsequently suffers: our work and school performance, our relationships, our physical health (it’s not a coincidence that an increased amount of sleep helps cure colds and flu bugs) and our moods.

Hypnosis changes all that. Hypnotherapy sessions help you to relax your body physically, and most especially, mentally. Hypnosis also teaches you methods that help eliminate negative thoughts when they arise and hones in on what’s caused the problem in the first place. Sometimes the reason for insomnia stems from obvious reasons like stress at work or at home, but other times it can be something that you never dreamed would be the cause (pardon the pun).

Once your natural sleep cycle has been disrupted, for whatever reason, it’s very difficult to get it back to the way it was without some form outside supplement such as sleeping pills. But you can’t rely on sleeping pills for the rest of your life. Not only does it mask the problem, it’s unhealthy and is dangerously addictive.

Hypnosis releases you from the shackles of insomnia and the self-defeating negative thoughts that perpetuate it. Knowledge is power. Hypnosis provides you with the knowledge that can make you a falling asleep expert.

Steve G. Jones is a clinical hypnotherapist who has also written Unlimited Wealth Through Hypnosis and Hypnosis Promotes Healthy Weight Loss



Your Brain Solves Problems During Sleep

New dream research shows shuteye can be a powerful tool to solve your toughest dilemmas.

By Catherine Guthrie
Source:
The Ledger

A growing contingent of researchers believes that our nocturnal musings are subconscious incubators capable of hatching answers to life's enigmas -- a notion sprung from sleep labs where researchers peek inside the brain at rest.

The data is clear: While asleep, the brain is capable of doing things it can't do when it's awake.

Learn New Skills By Osmosis

When Lisa Byerley Gary, 42, and her husband launched a weekly newspaper, she was in charge of layout and had to use an unfamiliar software program. Now a writing instructor at the University of Tennessee, Byerley Gary reflects on those harried weeks and chuckles at how she tossed and turned.

"Night after night, all night long, I would dream about laying out pages on the computer," she says. "I literally went through the steps of placing the text and making it fit." In retrospect, she says, the dreams sped her along the learning curve. "The dreams reassured me that I was working on the problem while I slept," she says. "My mind made use of every moment."

Sleep is the glue that binds new information into the brain. Robert Stickgold, Ph.D., a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, looks at the effect of sleep on learning and memory.

In one study, Stickgold and his colleagues taught volunteers how to perform a task. Later, the researchers measured how quickly the subjects completed the task. They found that people tested later the same day didn't improve. But when they were allowed to sleep for at least 6 hours between the training and testing, their scores shot up by 15 percent. What really surprised Stickgold: Participants continued to increase their scores over the next 2 or 3 days without further practice or training.

In another study, Stickgold had volunteers -- including five amnesiacs -- play a video game a couple of hours a day for 3 days. Then he roused them just after they'd fallen asleep to discover what was running through their minds. Sure enough, they were dreaming of the game -- and that was true even for the amnesiacs, who had no memory of having played it.

"It's clear that a night of sleep changes the form of memories so you can perform tasks faster and more accurately," Stickgold says.

[Editor's Note: Article edited for space. Read the full story here]


6 Ways to Mine Your Dreams for Answers
Try these tips to remember your dreams more vividly and make the most of their problem-solving potential

Start on a weekend: Dreams are best remembered when you wake without an alarm; that way, you'll likely wake from REM sleep, and your dream will be fresh in your mind, says psychologist and dream researcher Rosalind Cartwright, Ph.D., of Rush University Medical Center.

Sharpen your recall: Before you nod off, tell yourself your dreams matter and you want to remember them. Stating your intention is the first step toward enhancing dream recall, says G. William Domhoff, Ph.D., a dream researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "If you think they're unimportant, you'll forget them the instant you wake up."

Sleep on an easy one: Begin with something simple, like how to fit an oversize sofa into your overstuffed living room. Slowly work your way up to more intricate problems, like how to resolve a childhood issue with your sister. When Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, asked college students to solve problems in their sleep, nearly half of the volunteers who chose a moderately easy problem dreamed a solution within a week. But their success rate ebbed as the problems became more complicated.

Stay on track: Make the question the last thing you think about before nodding off.

"As you drift to sleep, you're very suggestible; it's a bit like a hypnotic trance," says Barrett. Use this time to conjure up your problem. Sum it up in one or two short sentences. If possible, put an object representing the quandary on a bedside table. If not, call to mind a clear image of the issue -- just make sure it's the last thing you mull over.

Write it down: Keep a pad of paper and a pen next to your bed. Upon waking, take a moment to lie quietly. Glance around the outskirts of your consciousness to see if a dream is lurking. "If a fragment comes into your head, gently follow it backward," says Domhoff. "We usually remember our dreams in reverse." So, like a loose piece of yarn, a dream may unravel if you tug gently on one end.

Keep still: If you wake up in the middle of a dream, mimic the body in REM sleep by staying still. During REM sleep, muscles are paralyzed, a protective mechanism that keeps you from socking your partner when you reach out to grab a flyaway Frisbee. Use this time to think about the dream and trace its story line. Give the dream a title before you open your eyes, says Cartwright, because when the mind is awake, it's more likely to remember a short catch-phrase than the visual images. Then write down as much as you can remember.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE
http://www.mindpowernews.com/SolveProblems.htm


Lucid Dreams Key to Good Sleep

By Mika Mandelbaum
Source: Arizona Daily Wildcat

Through a state of dreaming that combines Western science and Tibetan Buddhist study, students might be able to improve sleep quality, overcome fears and explore reality.

Lucid dreaming occurs when a person is sleeping and becomes aware of the fact that they are dreaming.

Tibetan Buddhists have used lucid dreaming to perform dream yoga, where they achieve a meditative state in their sleep.

By reaching the lucid dreaming state, college students, who typically have problems sleeping, have the power to improve their sleep, said Dusana Rybarova, the director of the Dharmakirti College Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that supports interaction between scientists and Buddhist scholars.

"You can bring your sleep under control through your own will, practice and meditation," said Rybarova, a UA psychology graduate student.

For example, through lucid dreaming, a person can turn a nightmare into a transcendental, peaceful state by taking control of the situation with a positive attitude, said lucid dreams researcher Stephen LaBerge.

LaBerge has researched lucid dreams at Stanford University, proving scientifically that people have lucid dreams while sleeping.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE
http://www.mindpowernews.com/LucidDreamSleep.htm


Sleep and Grow Rich

By Ben Sweetland
Introduction from "Grow Rich While You Sleep"

Prepare yourself for a wonderful experience. Whatever you want out of life, this book will show you the way to make it come to you. Be it money, influence, love, respect, or admiration—be it any or all of these— it will be yours in abounding measure.

This way to get rich is universal. It has brought riches to men who work at all kinds of occupations in many parts of the world. It does not depend on your education, your background or your luck.

It depends on the most essential, deepest-thinking part of you.
Just look around and you'll see how few men really know what they want or where they're going. Having no goal in mind, they can't even discern the difference between what is good for them and what is bad.

If you too are that way—don't worry. This book is going to change you. Start by remembering that you are better than you consciously think you are. In fact, if you already know how you would like to spend a lot of money, you are far ahead of most men!

Before you finish this book, you are going to know once and for all:

  • How to recognize your real goals in life—no matter what anyone else tries to tell you.
  • How to get acquainted with your real self—your true abilities, your vast fund of hidden talent.
  • How to fill yourself with such genuine, deep-down confidence, zest and good-will that other people will be pleased to help you get what you want.
  • How to find and hold the full, glorious picture of your own success and build toward that picture with every word and deed.

As your work multiplies in worth, remember this: You possess not only the things money can buy, but also the deep, inward satisfaction that comes with making your life what you want it to be. Growing rich in a way that really expresses you is just about the most constructive, healthful, joyous thing you can do for yourself!

This entire book is built around a saying in the Bible: As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Without changing the meaning of this timeless, golden truth, I give it to you more along the lines of modern psychology:

A man is what his Creative Mind says he is.

You are not a body with a mind attached. You are a mind with a body attached. Remember this, and you take your first step toward self-mastery.

Actually, the mind has two levels. The one we know best is the conscious level. It takes in impressions through your senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. It is highly effective in making your daily thousand-and-one decisions. When you perform any conscious act—pick up a pencil, speak to a waiter, make a phone call—your Conscious Mind sends the orders to your body. And when you go to sleep, your Conscious Mind goes to sleep.

The other level never sleeps. This is the Creative Mind.

Your Creative Mind literally keeps you alive. It is responsible for the involuntary lifefunctions such as your heartbeat and your breathing. It has great control over your glands, the master regulators of your body.

Most important for our purpose: Your Creative Mind also governs your personality, your character, your inmost drives, your deepest and most secret desires!

W. Clement Stone conceived a powerful picture in his Creative Mind; he saw himself controlling a large insurance company. Now, we all know that to start a business you need capital; in fact, most business failures are caused by lack of capital to tide-over a bad time. Well, my friend Stone had less than $100 in his pocket. But he has made a personal fortune of some $100,000,000... beginning as the head of an insurance company.

How many salesmen will go out today with a good product and a good sales pitch—and ring up no sale? It's your Conscious Mind that knows the facts about a product and how it can benefit the user. But it's your Creative Mind that determines whether you inspire trust or suspicion, belief or doubt—whether you are the kind of man who is well-liked as soon as he says Hello, or the kind who shapes up as a negative character whom it's so easy not to do business with.

I don't mean that an image of success in your Creative Mind means that you cannot possibly fail on any occasion. But I will show you men who, having first failed, came back and overcame every obstacle. They simply considered every setback a wonderful opportunity for improvement.

It's your Creative Mind that can and will put you up there among the happy, wellclothed, and well-supplied people; the people who attract love, who find their way out of difficulties, and who seem always to live in the sun.

How to Grow Rich While You Sleep

Just as its title promises, this book shows you how to grow rich while you sleep. You do it by communicating with your Creative Mind while your Conscious Mind sleeps along with the rest of you!

At this time, your Creative Mind is highly receptive and the Conscious Mind cannot interfere. Send your Creative Mind a message while you sleep, and that message sinks in. It even can eradicate undesirable old messages. (You can do this at other times, too, but the best time is when you are asleep.) And, by the way, you'll sleep soundly.

As I shall show you, the actual process of communication is very easy. Some people take a few days to master this priceless secret. I know of several men who did it in one night. It's a wonderful experience to find that magic genie at your command.

What shall you tell your Creative Mind while you are sleeping? First, I suggest you practice with the tested messages you'll find in this book. I know by experience how powerful they are.

Very soon, however, you'll create your own messages. Mind-pictures, really. . . of you driving the car you want to drive ... living in the house you want... belonging to the clubs or social groups you've yearned to join. And, most of all, you supplied with plenty of money and spending it in the way that pleases you most!

Some men think they have tried and failed at this already. If you think so, I assure you the chances are a thousand to one that you never got through to your Creative Mind. Many a man "changes his mind" about the way he'll handle his life—but all he changes is his Conscious Mind.

Now you are going to change yourself right down there where you really live. This time you'll cast out all negation, self-doubt, self-defeat. Optimism, selfconfidence, courage and wonderful new talent will be yours—and the road to riches is straight and wide.

The Healthiest Condition in the World

I was not exaggerating in the least when I said that getting rich can be the most constructive, healthful, joyous thing you ever did. My only warning is that you must get rich in the way that expresses your own, best, personal achievement.

Then you'll earn more than just money. Since some three-quarters of our illness has a mental basis, doesn't it stand to reason that your state of mind has a tremendous effect on you? In fact, the famous researcher Dr. John A. Schindler has shown that one of the most positive aids to health is a cheerful, constructive, forward-looking state of mind.

I know that many men get rich at the cost of their health— rich enough to be able to afford the most expensive doctors.

This is not going to happen to you. The next few years, while you build your fortune, will be your happiest years. You'll free yourself of much inner conflict and have no psychosomatic reason to become a "headache type" or a "bag of ulcers."

What's more, you'll rid yourself of a great deal of fatigue and get more work done with much less effort. For what is more fatiguing except defeat—the dreadful tiredness of continually butting your head against a wall? The best tonic for this tiredness is doing one job after another with sureness and success. At the end of a day you're rarin' to go off for a well-earned session with your favorite hobby.

Ben Sweetland is the author of Grow Rich While You Sleep. This book shows how to use the deepest thinking part of you, while you sleep, to get whatever you want out of life... With this technique you can sleep on it and awake in the morning with answers so clear-cut you will be amazed! Learn more here...




More news at the Mind Power Blog

  • Scientists Tackle Secrets of Time Travel
  • Research Suggests That Beliefs Control Our Genes
  • Hypnosis May Cure a Type of Baldness
  • Does God Want You to Be Rich?
  • FREE REPORT: Psychic Hotlines Exposed!
  • 11-year-old Boy Breaks World Memory Record

Read them all here: www.mindpowernews.com/Blog



Want more?
Every article which has ever run in Mind Power News is now compiled and catergorized at the Mind Power News & Article Library. All new updates will be posted as soon as I find them at the Mind Power Blog.

Want to Subscribe/Unsubscribe?
To unsubscribe, simply follow the link at the very bottom of this message. If somebody forwarded this message to you, please sign up to receive your own copy of this e-zine each week at www.mindpowernews.com

Thank you,
Andreas Ohrt
editor(at)mindpowernews.com