To sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!

Recently I ran across a YouTube video by a sleep expert who suggested a little exercise that might be helpful for middle-of-the-night wakers. He suggested remaining relaxed and randomly picking letters from the alphabet then doing a little word association thinking of words that begin with the chosen letter. One night I gave this a try and noticed that in my relaxed state I tended to personalize a fair amount of the words. 'C,' for example lead to: Cape Cod, Catholic, Caribbean, Candy Cane ... and each word evoked a memory, many of which were from my childhood- 'Cape Cod' to summer vacations, 'Catholic' to a recollection of friends with dots on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday, 'Caribbean' to adult travels, and 'Candy Cane' to Christmases. Not all memories were pleasant, some were sad, some a bit challenging, but all gave me a sense of integration as a person, especially when a memory retrieved something I had lost awareness of.

One should ask, does this exercise actually work in helping a person get back to sleep? My answer is: possibly, though the exercise is surely not going to be a panacea. Regardless, it is interesting from a theoretical perspective as there is a lot of scientific substance associated with the practice.

First, the exercise involves semantic activation which is linked with the Freudian concept of free association. Additionally, the state the troubled sleeper is in when doing the exercise will often be 'hypnagogic relaxation'- that twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, around which there is interesting science. Finally, if we expand our theoretical lens, the practice also aligns with concepts from various schools within psychology, from Erik Erikson's life cycle model to Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS), a commonly practiced modern interpersonal therapy.

An idea common to these theoretical schools is that integration of personality has a stabilizing effect on our psyche. When a person is reflecting and calmly doing a life review they are getting in touch with the tapestry of their life. Integrating parts of our psyche, to borrow from IFS, leads to more efficient psychological functioning, functioning where the self is the principle guide of experience rather than fragmented parts of the mind that can have a bullying effect when not integrated.

I would invite people who are curious to try the random letter exercise. Just remember that it is a practice, so taking ones time and experimenting for a period of time will encourage better results. I would also bring up a caveat. If a person has unresolved trauma the exercise might be stressful. Before trying the exercise, if it appears intimidating, remind yourself that one can usually move away from stressful thoughts if they are overwhelming. On the other hand if one is challenged but not overwhelmed, one might stumble into something comforting; within all of us there is a protective comforter patiently waiting to be discovered.