Healing Night: The Science and Spirit of Sleeping, Dreaming, and Awakening

Buddhist philosophy teaches that depression results from excessive activation that is not properly balanced by rest.

rest is an essential prerequisite to healthy sleep and dreams, to natural night consciousness.

Sleep is not a place that we can intentionally access.

Dusk calls for a new kind of nightmindedness—for personal ritual and expanded spiritual awareness to promote greater lucidity.

Allowing ourselves to honor the call to rest not only supports healthier sleep but also opens a mysterious portal to the rich inner world of dreams, including the waking dream.

normal, natural occurrences that held important personal, social, and even spiritual value.

Turning down the heat—identifying and releasing the underlying emotion—can be of significant benefit.

Healing Night explores darkness itself as a potent sleep medicine.

Yet experienced in the context of a night that is welcomed rather than resisted, our daytime difficulties may actually look better in the shadowy light of dusk.