Romancing Sleep: Methods for Deep Sleep and Profound Dreaming Hot

The “gem” of this book is the authors’ desire to bring our days and nights back into their natural, harmonious relationship. Our glaring, revved-up society leads us to regard sleep as nothing more than what we do when we’re not awake. In contrast, the authors posit that sleep and dreaming exist in a realm of their own, and we must relearn the being states that contribute to a natural transition into that realm.

The Yin-Yang symbol on the book cover represents the overarching message of the book—that light and dark, intention and attention, acid and alkaline are contrasting elements but of equal value. Most of our lives are top-heavy with intention, emphasis on the mental, and we suffer in countless ways from this imbalance of body, mind and spirit.

The authors describe opening to sleep as “entering the Void.” I was surprised by the use of this specific term, because I have few positive associations with this word. Typical reactions range from “the lack of anything” to a full-blown panicky fear of death. Though the authors do succeed in conveying a rich geography of sleep, I believe that the prominence of this word in their paradigm might work against them.

The bulk of the book is carefully chosen exercises to assist the surrender to sleep. There are exercises using mental images, all aimed at distracting one from the stress of the day. There are also useful physiological exercises involving breath and others that focus on releasing physical tension. What I found especially informative were sections on the relationship between light and sleep as well as nutrition and sleep. Though the book stands best as a whole, it could also be used beneficially to explore areas of special interest to the reader.

Overall, I found the beginning chapters a bit wordy and repetitive, too much analysis of terminology that, in the end, isn’t absolutely necessary in order to seek richer sleep. The rest of the book, though, is an intriguing invitation to reweave sleep back into our lives, so we can enjoy the health, balance, inspiration and insight that it offers.