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Three Tips to Help You Manifest Your Best Night’s Rest, by Clare R. Johnson, PhD

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Sleep is the ultimate act of self-love. When we push sleep away, we push good health away. Many people are chronically sleep deprived, losing an average of an hour of sleep each night. By the time they reach the age of 30, they will have missed out on thousands of hours of sleep. When we don't get enough sleep, we become more likely to gain weight or catch a cold, and our risk factor for illnesses such as heart disease or diabetes grows. The good news is that the detrimental effects of accumulated sleep debt can be recovered when we relearn how to embrace restful sleep.

Sleep is also a connection with the divine: it's not only a physical event, but a spiritual one. Throughout history, humans have created sacred spaces to connect with the divine. My newest release, Elixir of Sleep: Practical Solutions for a Good Night's Rest, explores the sacred aspects of sleep. It offers 64 somatic, imaginative, playful practices to help you manifest a soulful night of rejuvenating rest.

Here are three tips you won't find in the average sleep book.

Tip #1: Create a sacred sleep altar.
The ritual of altar-creation is a wonderful way of setting an intention around your sleep and dream life. What would you love to experience tonight—blissful sleep with healing dreams? The pre-bed time is an excellent moment to set a powerful intention to welcome your ideal night of sleep.

Gather anything linked to your night of sleep that makes you feel serene, powerful, and protected. Some people choose a statuette of a deity, or a treasure chest, colorful crystals, or those little cushions filled with lavender or other soothing herbs. Arrange your objects in any way you like, preferably in your bedroom so you can see your altar before you sleep and when you wake up.

The sacred sleep altar is best seen as energy in motion rather than a fixed entity: any element can be added or removed at any time. If you dream of a parrot, add a sketch or a toy figure to your altar. Or just write the word "parrot." If you have a bad night's sleep, add lavender to your altar the next evening, while setting the intention for a deep and restful sleep. Bring in things you find in nature—a feather for mobile air energy, moss for earth and grounding, or a shell for ocean power.

Connect with your altar before bed. Now's a good time to set an intention for your night of sleep. Consider what you would love to experience: pure, blissful rest; adventurous dreams; or an encounter with a wise guide. There's no need to set an intention; this can also simply be a moment of mindful calm before you settle into bed.

Tip #2: Imagine sleep as a gorgeous animal.
Try this imaginative practice from Elixir of Sleep to explore the unique energy and personality of your sleep.

As you lie in bed in the darkness, think of sleep as a gorgeous animal. Which animal do you most admire? Perhaps a wild, shaggy-maned lion; a wild dolphin; a jewel-eyed sloth bear; or a rainbow chameleon. See your chosen animal clearly in your mind's eye.

Now imagine that amazing creature's habitat shrinking, forcing them to exist in a restricted way, cutting off their potential. How can you help this magical creature to regain their rightful space? Using your hands, make a gesture to enlarge their habitat—for example, start with your palms together and then extend your arms outward. See your creature's habitat grow large and expansive, filled with things they love. The lion roars with joy, the chameleon's colurs glow with happiness.

Make a promise to continue to create space in your life for sleep. With your hands on your heart, send your sleep animal love and feel that love radiate back from them to you. By fulfilling your side of the bargain and creating space for sleep in your life, you are nourishing your body, mind, and soul.

Tip #3: Take a candlelit bath with the vibration of OM
When we begin to welcome sleep into our lives, we simultaneously welcome many other self-care practices. One of my favorites is the candlelit bath ritual. This is a way of cherishing ourselves as we prepare for our healing journey into sleep.

A pre-bed bath is also a science-supported practice for promoting sleep. When we take a warm bath or shower, all the blood goes to the surface of our skin. Once we get out, all that extra heat leaves, so our core body temperature drops, helping our brain and body to fall asleep and stay asleep. When healthy adults have a warm bath before bed, their sleep quality improves and a 10-15% increase in deep, restorative sleep is experienced.

In Elixir of Sleep, I share a wonderful practice that will elevate your bathtime ritual to a cosmic level by bringing the universal sound vibration of OM into your bathtub. If you have no bathtub, you could try it in the shower, or even in a swimming pool. If you have mobility issues, a lovely variation of this practice is to sit comfortably in bed and gently close your ears with your fingers while you chant OM. This amplifies the sound inside your head, giving a similar effect to chanting OM underwater.

Run yourself a warm bath. As it fills, remind yourself of the science of sound healing. The human body is around 60% water. When we create sound vibrations in the bath, we create strong, harmonious resonances that affect our body, cells, and brainwaves. This helps us to harmonize our energy and heal. It's also wonderfully relaxing. Once you're in, sink down in the bath a little so that you're as close to the water level as possible without it flowing into your mouth. If you feel self-conscious, remind yourself that it doesn't matter what you sound like—the humming vibration is what counts here.

Inhale deeply, then open your mouth and sing "OM" as you exhale. Continue with this omming breathwork for as long as feels right. Sometimes a single minute is enough, and sometimes five or ten minutes of omming feels amazing. Listen to your inner sounds. This can take you into a profound meditative state: the perfect way to wind down before a night of radiant rest.

Elixir of Sleep has over sixty other practices to help you and your loved ones to invite deep sleep and joyful dream adventures. It also has a comprehensive Sleep Quiz to help you figure out your sleeper-dreamer type, and to fast-track you to the most helpful practices for you personally. When we take time to create a beautiful relationship with sleep, we make the most of the third of our life we spend slumbering between the bedsheets.

We regain a bright mind and a healthy body. We develop deeper intuition and engage in profound self-care. We open our hearts to the spiritual flow of life.

Let's dive under the covers with a happy heart, and wake up energized!

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2025. All rights reserved.

Throughout my almost 45 years, I have had dreams in which I can fly. I know these are normal for most people, but the experiences I have don't quite match the experiences I've heard about from others. I can clearly remember being taught how to fly as a child INSIDE my home. I remember how I would push off from the corner and how excited and happy I was to be floating! I don't know who was teaching me. I have dreams that I'm either flying or that I'm somewhere I know isn't this realm. I'm certain I'm never alone during these times, but I don't recall names or faces of anyone. During one particularly troubling dream, I recall traveling with others and participating in a battle with a demon - an actual fight in mid air. I know this sounds crazy, but it felt like so much more than a dream. Do you believe astral travel is real? What do you think the purpose of it is? Is this just my way of escaping life or finding more excitement?

~Tanya

Susyn:

I do believe in astral travel and have had experiences similar to what you describe. In fact, this phenomenon has been documented in every culture throughout the ages.

Though we have limited knowledge of this subject, we have all at least been exposed to the idea that time, space and our physical world are not as solid or static as was once believed. When you consider that time can seem to go quickly or slowly and our physical worlds are constantly changing, the idea of our spirits leaving our bodies to travel to other places does not seem so far-fetched.

Many people experience the initial stages of astral projection as having the ability to fly or a sensation that they are falling back into their bodies after an astral journey.

The fact that you remember doing this from a very young age suggests that you may have practiced astral travel in a past life, and thus come into this life already well-versed in the art. Though it seems you donít know the people you encounter on these travels, they may very well be spirits youíve known before.

The higher purpose of astral projection is to experience life from a soul-based perspective. You describe battling a demon in one of these adventures, which indicates that you are aware of the struggles occurring in the spiritual realm and are participating in them. Many of your travels will be subconscious; though it seems you project on a regular basis, you may only be remembering a fraction of these experiences.

Rather than this being something you do to distract yourself or attempt to live a more exciting existence, it is simply a natural expression of your soul. Because your travels have been somewhat random, it may seem like this is a way you try to escape from the reality of your physical life. As you develop your gift, however, you will be able to pick and choose where you travel, whom you interact with, and what you accomplish.

For instance, you may have a loved one far away who is struggling with an illness or some other problem. With your gifts, you could travel to where they are and look in on them. You could also program yourself before bedtime to visit a place you have never been before. Once you master control of your projections, the possibilities will be endless.

To master this art, you simply need to set some boundaries and learn how to direct your astral projections. Because this is something you have done all your life, moving it to the next level shouldn't be difficult. I encourage you to keep up with your astral journeying and learn more about how to gain control of these experiences.

*****

Mata:

I do believe in astral projection; I've experienced it myself. In fact, I read your question with some excitement, for I too have very vivid memories of attempting to fly as a young child. I remember being about four years old and insisting to my family that I could truly fly. They laughed and told me I must have been dreaming, but I knew it was more than a dream.

I would stand on something like a bench or large piece of furniture, leap into the air, and flap my arms like crazy. I could get airborne for several seconds this way but I always ended up back on the ground. I did remain suspended in the air for far longer than would have happened if I had been attempting this in the physical, however. I've read and heard about many other people who have had similar experiences.

Your question also reminded me of my little nephew, who used to tell us about how he would fly to other places at night. He told us there were certain other people there, none of whom he knew when awake. He also talked about how sometimes, he would just jump up and down, touching the ceiling for fun. He could not understand why he was unable to do this when awake.

As for why we project, it just comes naturally. The astral is a very familiar place; when we aren't incarnate here on Earth, we are all able to travel to and through other worlds. I suppose asking why we have out of body experiences is a bit like a dolphin asking why it is able to leap and fly through the air above the ocean: it is simply part of our nature and our universe.

I love to think of all the little children in the world who have not yet been taught that flying (and all sorts of other wonderful things) are impossible. I love to imagine them knowing that they can fly and having all sorts of spiritual adventures simply because they are still so fresh from the spirit world and so open to any and all experiences.

If you had quit your job and were spending all day, every day, in bed, trying to get out of your body, then I might think you were trying to avoid physical reality. That is clearly not the case. Spontaneous out of body experiences can happen for all sorts of reasons. When trauma is not involved, it may simply be that your vibration is at the upper range for the physical dimension, so it is easy for you to slip up and out into realms that are close in vibration to this one.

It has also been my experience that sometimes, our higher selves bless us with such experiences to prove to us that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience instead of physical beings who may seem to have spiritual experiences now and then.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.