Using your subconscious mind while you sleep

Your subconscious mind is a pretty powerful instrument. In fact, some sources claim it’s about a million times as powerful as your conscious mind, measured in the number of inputs it’s capable of processing per second: 40 million versus just 40.

One of the tricks that I’ve used for years is to consciously use my subconscious mind while I sleep.

Right before going to bed at night, I will deliberately load an interesting and engaging challenge into my head, and keep it on my mind as I’m falling asleep.

And like clockwork, my subconscious mind will be working on this while I sleep, without hurting the quality of my sleep in any way.

Then when I get up, I’ll already have made significant progress.

One trick is to make sure you take some notes right as you wake up, before you lose access to what you’ve come up with.

Your brain operates at different levels of brain wave activity - delta, theta, alpha, and beta being the most common.

While you’re sleeping, your brain cycles between delta and theta. As you wake up, it transitions from theta through alpha, and eventually you’ll end up with beta waves as you’re fully awake and going about your chores of the day.

You want to catch your brain at the theta-alpha transition, while you still have access to your subconscious mind.

This is one of the reasons it can be difficult to remember your dreams. You lose access to this part of your mind as your brain activity speeds up. This is also one of the reasons it’s so valuable to meditate during the day, to slow your brain down and allow access to the deeper layers of your consciousness.

Try this tonight as you go asleep, and let me know how it worked for you in the comments here.