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Sleep to Succeed! Yes, 9 easy-peasy ways to program your dreams for a 24-carat gem of an idea that could make you a fortune, win the lover of your dreams or make you famous! 

"Our dreams are a second life," wrote Gerard de Nerval in his book, Aurelia. Given that we spend a third of our lives asleep, it clearly pays to tap that second life for great ideas, solutions and creative insights. Here are 9 welcome ways to access the enormous brilliance of your genius as you go to sleep and dream...

1. Fire gazing: this technique has brought fruitful ideas to the minds of men since the days when we all lived in caves and wore furs! As you gaze at the flickering flames in the fire place, your mind can just gently explore and dwell upon whatever problem you wish to solve, or the area in which you wish to have a fresh idea. Allowing yourself to relax and get peaceful, let your thoughts meander and explore everything you know about this area or problem. The flickering flames will lull your brain into a sleepy state of reverie, promoting the alpha and theta brain waves in which you can be most creative.

2. Power naps: when you feel a dip in your energy during the day, take 10-20 minutes and give yourself a powernap. Thomas Edison used this technique to free his brain and access his superconscious mind for out-of-the-box ideas. He would sit in a comfy chair, clutching a handful of ball bearings, and go off to sleep thinking of whatever project he was working on. As he fell asleep, his hand would relax and the ballbearings would fall onto the floor with a clatter, waking him up. By doing this, he trained himself to be able to stay in that most creative alpha state between wakefulness and sleep. Many of his most brilliant ideas and insights came to him this way.

3. Dream journal: The Talmud says, "An unexamined dream is like an unopened letter." So keep a journal by your bedside and immediately note down your dreams when you wake up. At first, you may only remember the odd snatch of a dream. But soon you will find yourself remembering more and more, and your dreams will be rich with detail. This practice gives your unconscious mind the message: "I'm listening!". It'll start to work with you, giving you valuable insights and symbols that can help you in your waking life. Remember the subconscious and unconscious minds are like eager servants, they are there to help you and are thrilled when you take notice! 

Paul McCartney dreamed a whole song. He woke up, wrote it down, recorded it, and it went on to become one of the all time greatest hits and helped build his massive fortune.

"My most known song is called "Yesterday," and I woke up having dreamed that song. I didn't sit down and think about it, and it is the one out of all my songs that people have played. More than three thousand people have covered that song, so l must start to think that there is a paradox here. You know, I should have sat down for three weeks and slaved over something that successful, but I just woke up one morning and had dreamed it."

Mozart used to wake up with whole symphonies playing in his head, which he would write down.

4. The Pillow Book: put a book by, or about, one of your mentors, or the subject you are interested in, under your pillow. Occultists and energy practitoners believe that everything resonates with energy and information. To them words are actually living things and by sleeping with the book under your pillow you can absorb, contact, mingle with the energy and information in that book. I think you need to have read it first to get the most value from this technique. On another level, what you are actually doing is cueing your unconscious mind by saying, what ideas can I get from this book? How would my mentor think about this? The book is a symbolic anchor to your understanding of how that mentor thinks and what knowledge you got from the book. Your mind takes that as input and give you data in the form of dreams while you sleep. You'll wake up with new insights and ideas. Incidentally, this is a must for students. Study, study, study and then sleep on your books! Physicist Rupert Sheldrake has written about 'morphic fields', which are basically thought-forms or pockets of information and energy. By simply having the intention that you will merge with and benefit from the energy and information of a book while you sleep, you will do exactly that.

Recommended: The Powerful Sleep Program

5. The Zzz-Question: so you are counting sheep to fall asleep. As each one jumps over the wall, have it ask a pertinent question relatng to your problem or area of creativity. Each one repeats the same question over and over. You don't have to count sheep, of course (does anyone REALLY do that?). Write the question down on a piece of paper just before you turn off the light. Look at it. Talk to your mind and say you expect an answer by morning. Repeat the question over and over to yourself as you fall asleep. As you begin to doze off, give yourself the suggestion that your unconscious mind will find the answer, or come up with an idea, while you are sleeping and give it to you in the morning. Do this 3 times then just forget it and go to sleep.

"When deep sleep falls upon men and they sleep in their beds, then God opens the ears of men and gives them instructions." Job 33: 15-16

Make sure you write down your dreams next day. Do this every night untl you reach a solution. Sometimes the solution will be presented to you in the day or you'll just find yourself doing things that lead to the idea. But the impetus and idea comes from the sleep programming you have been doing with your unconscious mind.

6. Deliberate dream hero: go to bed a little earlier. Close your eyes and imagine a dream sequence. Invent your own personal superhero (whatever comes to mind or use the heromachine). His (or her) mission is to save your world. When a problem looms, he'll be there to leap into action, going at lightning speed through the Youniverse to find a solution. When you need a brilliant idea, he'll zoom into the deep reaches of space and return clutching a stellar idea. Make friends with your superhero and give him lots and lots of praise and affection, whenever he successfully completes a mission. See his name and picture on the front page of all the newspapers etc. Run one or two mini-films in your head in which your superhero uses his super powers to help you solve problems and get great ideas. Then set up the first part of the movie with your current problem or with a request for a certain idea... imagine the scenario. And see him disappearing off on the mission... and then just forget about it and go to sleep. When you wake up, lie there a moment and imagine your superhero flying back to your side with ...? Wake with expectancy and be surprised by what he delivers!

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7. Pretend sleep: when you are stressing over a problem or banging your head against the wall searching for a fresh creative angle, give yourself a pretend sleep. Make a big show of going through the bedtime ritual. Act it out like you are a mime artist. Pretending to brush your teeth, get undressed, put on your 'jim-jams', getting Teddy, and snuggling into the covers. If you are doing this in your office... lock the door! :-)) Put your head down on that big plumped pillow, make sleepy noises, and pretend to fall asleep, pretend to dream, put yourself in the physiology of being asleep. Stupid as this sounds, this little pantomime can free your mind and get you creative!

8. Self-Hypnosis: this is an easy one. Just talk to yourself as you are lying down in bed. Tell each of your muscles and body parts to relax. "I am relaxing my feet. Feet, you can relax now. My feet are relaxing all the way down. I am relaxing my lower legs. Lower legs, you can ... " etc. And feel each part relax. Talk inwardly to yourself in a slow, calming, measured voice. Describe a relaxing scene, your ideal oasis and sanctuary from the trials of life. Imagine yourself there. When you are deeply relaxed, present your problem or challenge, and state that you are handing the problem over to your wiser mind, your Higher Self / Unconscious / Or God. Tell yourself that while you are sleeping, your inner mind will dream and fetch a solution for you. Gve yourself the instruction that you are deeply creative, that you are a genius and that a brilliant solution or idea is coming to you even now and that when you wake in the morning, your mind will present it to you. 

9. Audio Tripping: get an off-the-shelf hypnosis or sleep programming cd. Just listen to the CD before you go to sleep. The audio will guide you into an altered state using hypnosis and/or special sound frequency patterns. You will then be fed special suggestions to get great ideas from your dreams. I just spotted this great program called, Dream Maker - The Ultimate Dream Creation Program. It sounds like a heap of fun. They are selling it on the premise that you can program your mind for the dream you want: like a night of passion with Britney Spears or Brad Pitt. However, there's no reason why you cannot use it to program for zinger ideas. Maybe you'll have a fantasy night of passion with Leonardo da Vinci or Marilyn Vos Savant (the woman with the highest IQ) and get the best of both worlds! Freaky!

However, do remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said: "Judge your natural character by what you do in your dreams."

By that standard, I think most of us would be locked up! 

Additional Reading:

• Turbo-Charge Your Life with Sleep Programming
• NLP and dreams
• The Power of Sleep-State Programming
• Recent Media Coverage of Alkimia Audioterapia

You are a genius. And that's no dream. Access your natural genius through the power of sleep and dreams. Wake up and show the world what you've got.

Recommended Resources:

• Hypnopedia Sleep Programming CDs - Reprogram your mind while you sleep! Effective and easy!

Got Feedback? What did you think of this article. I'd love to hear from YOU! Email me: wily[at]wilywalnut.com

Wily Walnut is the headbrain at http://www.WilyWalnut.com, your top resource for unleashing the genius within, becoming infinitely creative, intelligent and brilliant in all that you do!

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