Spiritual awakening shifts around a lot of stuff in our inner worlds, and having all the inner furniture moving can certainly cause a lot of ruckus in other rooms in our inner home. One notable room is how we sleep. Because sleep is one of the fundamental elements of being a human being, not getting enough or not getting the right kind of sleep directly impacts how you feel and experience life. Sleep issues often underlie the chronic fatigue issue that also can show up for a lot of people during an awakening.

Chronic Fatigue and Spiritual Awakening

Today, I wanted to offer some thoughts and some potential solutions to help you cope with the challenges of not sleeping well enough, not enough, or too much. As always, I want to emphasize that this is not medical advice, and it’s always a good idea to check in with the Western MD. We have them for a reason, and they are as much a part of the spiritual path as any healer out there.

But when we are otherwise perfectly healthy and our sleeping patterns change after awakening, there can be a couple of reasons for this. Also, it tends to be the case that several of these issues are going on at once. 

On a brief side note, I have online spiritual awakening classes that may interest you. You can learn more here:

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Also, here’s a more complete guide to discussing spiritual awakening as a whole:

Spiritual Awakening Help and Tips Guide

Before we delve into this, let’s take an enormous breath and a big step back. I want you to look into these questions first as you investigate your sleep issues.

Investigating Health Issues First

Are You Stimulated a lot by Media or Other Things?

 things first, if you are heavily stimulated by what you are watching on your phone, your work, your computer, your tablet, your TV, your radio, and any other form of stimulation, then you need to reduce it. In particular, you need time for your brain and nervous system to calm down a couple hours before you go to sleep.

Time to stop your workday. Put down the phone. Unplug. Go take a walk and breathe fresh air. Your body needs time to come into a landing, not just drop out of the sky straight to the ground.

Try this New Spiritual Tool to Help

Are You a Mouth Breather?

Mouth breathing at night can be truly toxic to your sleep. According to the below book, 25% of Americans have sleep apnea, and mouth-breathing has a role to play in all that. If you are breathing badly at night, you are going to have sleep problems. That is not a spiritual thing; this is about the mechanics of the body.

If you know you breathe through your mouth, try using mouth tape to keep your lips closed for a few weeks. See how your sleep feels.

Also, seriously, read this book: Breath by James Nestor

Are You Eating Cooking Oils?

This tip comes from personal experience. Canola oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, and other processed oils messed up my sleep and gave me a sense of “low energy” for most of my life. But it wasn’t “low energy.” Nothing spiritual here. My body simply struggled to digest these things, and I had no idea.

When I got rid of them, I went from needing 9 to 10 hours of sleep to 8 to 9 hours of sleep. Since doing this in 2018, I get up refreshed in the morning, and I no longer have a sense of lethargy to compete with throughout my days.

When you look into this issue, you’ll find out just how many food products have oils in them. I encourage you to get them out as part of investigating your sleep issues before jumping to the conclusion that something spiritual is going on.

Okay. You’re doing all that, right?

Without further ado, let’s talk about 5 types of spiritual awakening sleep problems, changes, and insomnia.

5 Sleep Problems and Possible Solutions

1 Intense Reactions to Shift in Understanding

Since a real spiritual awakening often comes with dramatic shifts in understanding, our ego is often triggering our nervous system into fight or flight. The newness of it all can feel strange, and people–myself included at one time–would call all these strange sensations and emotions energy.

No. It’s a fight-or-flight response.

The more upset we are, the more we may feel like we are “highly sensitive.”

Nope. You’re over-stimulated.

And freaked out by this unknown process.

The Fear of the Unknown

Along with the freak out and resistance that can disturb sleep, there tends to be a whole lot of healing that people have to deal with.

People carry around all kinds of emotions and memories in their bodies, and healing is no joke. As a person comes into acceptance that you–yes, even you with the amazing life you’ve had–are carrying around all kinds of upset emotions and attachments from your childhood, there is a whole other quality of healing and inner work that now goes on.

That can take a lot of energy.

Even when sleeping normally, you can end up being extremely tired and worn out when you’ve done nothing physically significant. Plus, your shifts and healing come according to their timing, not your ego’s preference. That can mean that they light up at 9 PM at night when you’re ready to wind down. As such, you can find yourself up late at night when you’d want to be sleeping. You may be up all night and develop insomnia if the intensity of the shifts and healing are particularly high and unceasing. Depending on your schedule (and I do hope you can learn to change that schedule as much as possible), you may have to get up before you’ve had enough or any sleep.

Potential Sleep Solutions for Intense Ego Reactions

It’s important to not view your awakening as a problem or torturing you. You’re going through a fundamental life change that is beautiful and will offer you a chance to live life in a totally new and beautiful and natural way.

More to the point, you’re finally looking at reality, and you have to accept that you were just staring at your illusions for most of your life.

As for solutions, accept the reality you’re discovering. Do your inner work during the day, and give yourself time to wind down at night. If you start journaling at 11 PM PT, don’t expect to be sleeping too great after you’ve just churned up a bunch of crap to process.

Finally, meditation in the morning can be very nourishing for some of you if sleep has gone badly. For me for several years, my morning meditation felt rejuvenating. It was a way of feeling like I got a full night’s sleep in just 30 minutes.

Guided Meditation for Calming Emotions

Life After Spiritual Death and Truly Living

2 Relaxation and Powerful Issues

At night, we tend to relax more, and when we relax, our resistance to old pain diminishes. This is why some people in awakening and other spiritual shifts find night time to be a kind of Hell on Earth. They’ll start to relax before going to bed or while asleep at night, and then all kinds of unprocessed crap will boil to the surface, disrupting your peaceful night’s repose.

Severe insomnia can develop for people who have extreme resistance to the pain stuck inside, and such a high resistance further suggests a lot of deep trauma that’s trying to boil to the surface so that you can at least resolve it.

Potential Sleep Solutions for Powerful Issues

Let yourself be aware of what is coming up whether at night or during the day. This is how we learn to dissolve issues with awareness and to let our issues resolve themselves. We are so gifted to have bodies that know how to heal. It’s time to get out of the way of that process. It can lead to a better night’s sleep.

If you have trauma and your sleep is being disrupted, get more support! Awakening doesn’t fix you; it shows you what is real and what is inside of you.

If you are still not sleeping well, practicing coming back to awareness will help to allow things to process out. Sure, you’d rather be sleeping, but if you practice this, then at least you’re helping things to resolve.

But still, deal with your issues during the day. I know so many people come to me hoping to bypass their issues, and then during this process, they boil up at night when their ego lets down a little bit of its guard.

3 Re-Aligning to Your Natural Sleep Patterns

Some people have never slept according to their natural sleep patterns, and now the deeper intelligence within you is emerging. How ever you naturally want to sleep is now coming out. This can extend the amount of sleep you need, and it can change the hours that you go to sleep at and when you wake up. As always, resisting this change will bring further problems.

Potential Sleep Solutions for Emerging Sleep Patterns

Um, do what your body wants. I am sure it is inconvenient to your schedule, but whenever possible, do what your body wants. I know that jobs and children have their own schedules, but right now, you’re going to need to figure out some creative solutions if you want to feel rested and clear. That’s assuming you’ve ever felt fully rested and clear, and that experience can be a brand new one for so many people who live in our society and aren’t sleeping enough. Not sleeping right is a big enough problem that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls it an epidemic in this article:

The Global Problem of Insufficient Sleep and Its Serious Public Health Implications

4 Processing Issues Through Dreams

Especially for those resisting their transitions and whatever they need to do, their dreams and subconscious can take over the heavy lifting of processing issues. Even if you are embracing your shift, the subconscious also needs to get with the program and integrate with this emerging awareness. When this is happening, people can have really vivid dreams. If someone has experienced violence, violent dreams may be surfacing. A lot of strange and repressed things may also come out of the subconscious closet to be addressed, and especially for the things most avoided, nighttime dreams are an avenue where our soul knows we have the least resistance and will have to face the truth.

Potential Sleep Solutions for Dream Processing

This solution is much like I mentioned before, which is to embrace your path.

Do your spiritual work during the day.

Accept that you have changed.

The life as you knew it is over.

The life as you knew it was an illusion, so it never really existed anyway.

Sure, you were sharing a dream with lots of other people, which made life seem safe and gave you things. But it wasn’t real. In your inner most depths, you know this, and your soul decided that it was time for this fantasy to come to an end.

Especially for those of you who receive a lot of messages through your dreams, having a dream journal to write down what is coming up in your dreams will help to process things. If your dreams are waking you up at night, then you might as well do something. If they don’t wake you up, try to journal them out first thing in the morning and then get in a meditation to rest and allow for fully conscious processing.

Remember that dreams are rarely literal. They speak in signs, emotions, and sensations to some degree. If you really want to get into understanding dreams, you may look into Carl Jung’s books. You can also read this blog post to explore more on this topic:

Dreams and Processing Your Issues Through Your Subconscious

# 5 Psychic Disturbances

Umm. Yeah.

Let’s forget about this one for now.

So many “psychic” things are just things we don’t understand about our “psyche.” Also, a lot of “psychic” people are carrying significant unresolved issues and trauma. It leads the mind into strange kinds of imagination and dissociation.

If you’re read more than a few posts on this blog, you’ll notice that I talk about psychic stuff differently in other places. Well, I’ve been on a journey of deeper understanding of people, and this little paragraph is being updated in 2021. So please go with what I’m saying here.

Potential Sleep Solutions for “Psychic Disturbances”

It’s time to get very serious about looking at unresolved issues in your mind, heart, and body. If a part of you is projecting images that don’t exist onto the world around you, this is serious. If you are projecting feelings onto others, animals, objects, or onto nothing at all, it is time to get serious about your inner work. If you aren’t already in therapy, it’s time to get into therapy. Spirituality is not a short-cut to healing, nor should it replace a trained therapist.

Using a Spiritual Teacher as a Therapist

Additionally, those people who are stuck in hypervigilance can be projecting all kinds of fears and meaning onto all kinds of people and places. Relaxation techniques are critical to heal your mind. Breathwork and meditation are important parts of any spiritual practice, but particularly since sleep is disturbed, you HAVE TO DO THEM!

How to Meditate

Adding Breathwork to the Spiritual Toolkit

Returning to a Peaceful Night’s Sleep

I can’t say how these things will go for you, but my genuine feeling is that when you have no actual medical problem and you accept what is arising and do your necessary inner work, things do calm down. Your sleep returns to its natural pattern, and you get the rest you want again.

For more thoughts about the subconscious processing that could be disturbing your sleep, you can check out this article:

Subconscious Processing and Awakening

Additionally sugar can mess up a lot of things, and who knows, maybe that can include sleep. What we put in our bodies matters, so many times, this really isn’t a spiritual issue at all. You can read more of my thoughts on why sugar reduction is really important to health in general on this link:

Sugar Is a Major Health Concern

For more help in matters involving health and sleep, you can check out this Mayo Clinic Article:

6 Tips to Better Sleep

Here are yet other resources that may help you deal with what is going on with your sleep:

How to Find and Release Physical Pain During a Spiritual Awakening

Building a Body Strong Enough for Awakening

Author

I'm a spiritual teacher who helps people find freedom from suffering.

30 Comments

  1. Seriously thank you, this was really helpful, the past few days of my life made everything before seem like an illusion. Ive been getting night terrors and deleriums which I actually think I've been handling quite well because I've been openly accepting them as a part of the process. I'm opening up to the infinite nature of what I'm not knowing. This has been shaking my very core when I swallow even a grain. God bless, looking forward to the journey.

  2. A few times, as of late, I have been asleep and wake up to what sounds like someone else whispering but as I wake up it's coming out of my mouth and I don't understand what it's saying. It's a very strange feeling. I have awakened myself with my own snoring before and every now and then with my own speech but this seems different. It always creeps me out for a moment but then I dismiss the fear and usually go back to sleep. Any thoughts on this or what would be the most constructive way of dealing with it?

  3. I would point you towards working with a sleep coach to make sure that you're doing what you need to do to help your body fully relax before I would make any suggestions about this experience.

  4. Good morning Jim, this is the 3rd morning in a row that I have not sleep very much apart from very vivid dreams! As you were describing I feel extremely tired, but some how I seem to pick up during the day and feel ok! The first night I was suddenly woken to my whole body vibrating, to what I can only describe as the 'OM' sound. The body vibrating was ok, it was the sound I could hear which made the night very difficult, especially as I had no idea what was happening! I suspected it was something spiritual and confirmed this with a friend! Anyway I'm glad to say that whatever is happening at night is worth the inconvenience as I have had the most amazing incredible experiences over the last weeks and the shift in my awareness and wellbeing is off the chart! Yesterday was quite possibly one of the best days of my life! Just a normal day at work, but my word I believe I was right on top, completely aligned to my source as A "Esther" Hicks would say! Never felt such job and peace and happiness and satisfaction!!!! I think my friends think I've gone mad! Anyway I've lots to do today, all things I want to do for me!!! I'm going to my yoga class again this morning so I know that will give me the lift I need! (I would not have been going to any yoga on my day off, or ever a few months ago) Thank you Universe! You message came bang on time buddy and is much appreciated! I look forward to exploring your blog and speaking to you again! Much kindness and happiness! Dan

  5. Hey there Jim! This message might be a bit long! First of all id like to say how awesome it is the start writing ,"spiritually un… " and the for google to know exactly what i was looking for… which came out to be finished by ,"[un]able to sleep"! Anyhoo, ive had autoscopic experiences (out of body) in my youth, as well as an unflinching awareness that theres more to this world than the 3rd dimension, and that even though the human experience can seem limited, we are in complete control of our destiny, and all we have to do is release ourselves from the blocks to our awareness, and (for me at least) to fully experience what it means to be human which is the fulfillment of the most beautiful path to be taken in life. That, for me is to leave this earth in better shape than how i recieved it. I got big plans for my life. And to go into it now would take too long through simple script. But id like to talk to you and work out some kinks in my remembered self… in other words, the self i carry through and into my relationships, my ego that is. Im quite scientific, and i have my roots in psychology and an understanding of early childhood memories that could effect consciousness in a young adult life, that can finally come to be absolved through greater understanding… though im struggling to unearth and truly understand the psycho somatic symptoms in my body. And to align my self potrayal, with the big picture. And im wondering if you could have any idea what im getting at, and what i need. This may only be as clear as mud, for im sorry, i dont know what you do or do not know. Also might be from a lack of sleep that my ability to successfully convey a clear and concise message to you might have been messed up… hear i go again, attaching cheap setiments to a complex scenario… im 25 years old.

  6. Hello. I’m a new subscriber. I really wish I had found your blog a couple of years ago. This spiritual awakening caught me unaware and seriously considered professional counseling because of all the changes happening all at once. My psychic abilities had dimmed to a point they were no longer useful, I was ditching my friends, hated my job all of a sudden, slept too much, and felt lazy. My acupuncturist suggested that I was picking up too much emotion that wasn’t mine and until I stopped I wouldn’t grow properly. So with research and her help I learned to shut off. That’s when the floodgates opened. I was forced to look at some past events that caused trauma. The trauma was making me feel physically bad all the time and I was being treated for connective tissue disorder, idiopathic hypersonic, high blood pressure, migraines, and chronic sinus infections. Imagine how all the past pain made existing physical issues become overwhelming. Now after accepting and forgiving, having patience with myself, learning to love me in addition to some incredible tools I am to this point. Alive on purpose. I do struggle now with not enough sleep because I have acquired some spirit teachers that want to do their intense teaching between 4 and 6 am. Thank you for the suggestions. I will use a couple of these.

  7. Ive caught myself in full conversations with my guides and myself –like "thinking aloud" and processing while I'm asleep.

    The dreams are vivid and I usually wake up feeling worried but I'm grateful that the dreams are not my reality, at least in this lifetime.

  8. Thanks for sharing, Shelly. I hope you are also working with a trauma therapist to resolve the old emotional-body tensions.

  9. Jim, I have always been quite psychic. An earth empath, most definitely. I have, in the last few months, in therapy and psychically, been accessing the knowledge that certain stories about John and the earth, are not true, at an even deeper level. With more intensity, for sure. The healing is taking on a life of its own and accelerating.

    The spirt of the Cosmos and my soul (part of it) must surely love me. My self love and love for others is increasing in leaps and bounds.

    I have, in recent months, asked the Cosmos to grant me more access to my true psychic nature, to strip and dissolve the layers of Maya, even more so, and She has heard and responded.

    I am so very grateful for this, but the insomnia had been challenging. Now, Jim, that I was supposed to finally read this, my resistance to this process can soften and melt away. Thank you so much.

    In Gratitude,
    John, aka,
    GuruPrasad

  10. Hi John,

    Thanks for your comment. I'd caution you about seeking psychic abilities. It's the ego that wants such things. It's usually because it wants to be special, which hides deeper attachments.

    In kindness,

    Jim

  11. Hi Jim,
    I wonder if you could comment about the perceived passage of time during sleep. I occassionally have nights where I wake up feeling as though I've slept for ages – only to look at the clock and see that it's midnight and I've slept for one hour. It also doesn't seem like a great thing that I have more time to sleep. Feels oddly like a chore even though I haven't had nightmares. Do you think something spiritual is taking place as I sleep? I wonder if anyone else experiences this. Thanks!

    • monica mohan Reply

      Oh man I’m having this right now.For 2 months: 3 days of that 1 hour of sleep thing…followed by a day or 2 of good sleep. I’m currently on my ass for the second day in row and exhaustion isn’t even the word. Yet I’m chuckling because the reality shifting has been hilariously unsettling, but knowing what’s at play gives me no fear. ALSO EATING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. Not my normal practice. Godspeed to us all. Lol

  12. I feel like there is always something spiritual going on… but no, there haven't been any dramatic shifts that I am aware of. I was wondering if something is going on at a deeper level that I'm unaware of.

  13. Depending on what kind of spiritual practice you have, I'd point you towards doing/getting started doing inner work. Learning to question your ego (if you don't already do this) is a good starting point to look at your beliefs and assumptions and to start to understand the fictional nature of your ego (because all beliefs are fictions that we primarily adopt from other people). I don't know that you'd find anything sleep related in doing this, but this kind of inquiry is an important step towards realizing who you truly are.

  14. I'm happy to come across this post because all of what is explained here and many more has happened so severely to me for couple of years now, like you said 'hell on earth'. Please I don't know if you have more to say to me cos I want to nutshell you. For the past years now, I have experienced very severe suffering I never knew I will survive, though I did.. and still survivng. Within these years, I have experienced some signs which I found hard to denote.
    1. Twitches, severe itches and tingling in some parts of my body, like the head "both left, right, back and middle of my head", two palms, my feet" all corners of my feet" my lips, my eyebrows and eyelids
    2. Flashes of light in the left corner of my left eye
    3. Unnecessary body wickness with no cause.
    4. Sleepless nights
    5. Unconscious thinking even when I don't want to..
    6. Strange dreams and more of them
    Please with your knowledge, I don't know if you have something to say to me because I'm still holding on strong!

  15. If you don't have a spiritual practice, then you should start one. I recommend at least 30 minutes of silent, seated meditation every day. You may also want to talk to a health professional because how we treat the body and what we put in it profoundly impact our experiences. Good health is a critical platform for doing deep inner work in a sustainable way.

    Here's a link about inner work:

    What Is Spiritual Inner Work?

  16. Hello Jim: I stumbled on your website this morning as I was searching for some explanation to what I am going through. I meditate quiet a bit and recently started energy healing (with Donna Eden) and have been practicing that. For my professional life, I do transformational projects for large companies and typically travel quite a bit but now been home stuck due to Covid. Recently for like about 6 weeks now after 2 weeks into my energy healing course( not sure if there is a correlation) I have been feeling anxious closing my eyes, and been feeling scared as I see utter darkness when I close my eyes even during daylight. How can I overcome this- there are other things im experiencing like I see flashes of light in my peripheral vision but when I look in that direction don't see anything. Can you help me overcome this fear of darkness and I feel my fear is that I am leaving the physicality – not sure how to explain. -With Gratitude-K

  17. Hi Jim, I am a regular reader of your posts. During the day anytime I get between work meetings, I return to your blogs to get recharged. It's the last thing I do on most nights or I meditate. Lately I've been feeling a sense of detachment … Nothing seems fun. I don't desire anything material or look forward to anything. I even don't feel any attachment to family or friends. I am constantly evaluating my feelings and reactions to situations. I wake up at night several times from my sleep and cry in yearning. I don't like my ego self ! I would love your guidance

  18. Hi K. I encourage you to practice witnessing your thoughts and experiences rather than identifying with them. I also encourage you to audit and possibly change your sleep/rest, nutritional, and activity habits. The average Westerner is failing to take care of their bodies correctly. An incorrectly cared for body can lead to all kinds of imbalances and strange experiences.

  19. Hi Jim. This got me at the right time. I'm finding intense jolts in my heart coming on as I'm trying to sleep. Almost like a part of me is doing it.

    Some nights worse than others. It feels so scary that I'm out of control and unbearable. I've been on the healing journey for about 7 years and have had this a bit in the past but it's all come to the surface again.

    Sometimes I don't know if I can do this. It feels like too much for me to handle. I feel so lost and hopeless. My sleep feels so important to me and I feel like I'm losing it, along with my sanity and any motivation.

    Also what's your thoughts on the difference between working through the underlying issues vs actually putting all of your focus on the problem and not what you're wanting to create?

  20. So…psychic abilities kinda run in my family. I was just awakened from a vividly detailed dream about two murders that took place in my home which also explained how a particular wall panel was replaced and put in its current condition. I am currently unable to sleep as a result and keep seeing movement out of the corner of my eye whenever I'm near the area of my home where it happened. I haven't been in this terrified condition since after my mother died and she came to me in a dream.

  21. I recommend breathing slowly to calm yourself and finding a trauma therapist to help you process your past traumas.

  22. I have been having major awakenings. Speaking my truth, being aligned, being aware…awake to the world rather than viewing illusions (the dire world we live in with American imperialism.) Since then I cannot sleep. I am not even tired because of it.

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