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Comment by dloss | Hacker News Reader

For people sleeping alone, this counting technique might be a nerdy alternative: http://www.dirk-loss.de/calmyourmind/

Moreover, I find Shinzen Young's reframing helpful: "Amazingly, it’s possible to get a good night’s rest without necessarily sleeping much or at all. Two things are required: (1) that the body get rest by lying very still and corpse-like. (2) that the consciousness get rest by engaging in a systematic focusing technique." https://www.shinzen.org/help-for-insomnia-yet-another-use-fo...

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There is no possibility of this anyhow working. Sleep is not "mind rest", it's a neurological process completely different from and incompatible with consciousness.

You can relieve some fraction of cognitive fatigue by taking a mental break, but this compares to sleep in much the same way as duct taping a broken tool compares to mending it properly.

You're absolutely right. On the other hand, really extensive meditation can have some very strange effects on sleeping and some other things, so I personally withhold judgement.

If nothing else, take into account the studies that said that the placebo effect can actually help about 30% of people -- even if they know it's a placebo. So I don't know. Things get weird quickly.

> There is no possibility of this anyhow working.

I agree that this sort of rest is not equivalent to sleep. Nevertheless, this and similar techniques work well for reducing sleep anxiety. Less sleep anxiety tends to result in more and better quality sleep.

It may not alleviate the need for sleep altogether, but if you meditate a lot, like 10 hours a day, you can function well long-term with very little sleep.

I find that a good systematic focusing technique is to 'look' at the patterns inside your closed eyes when lying on your back. When I do this I see very little at first, maybe some fuzzy indistict patterns ... but then the patterns become progressively more detailed until I am in an interesting dreamlike state with fascinating visual effects and characters. Sometimes I find i can influence these dreams - I guess this is akin to lucid dreaming. A most entertaining way to fall asleep!

It’s called Kelno'reem

That only works if you have a snake in your belly though.

"Way to go, Junior!"

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