GRIEF and DREAMS: The Surprising Connection That Can Transform Your Life! with Delphi Ellis

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Hi there, welcome to Grief to Growth Podcast. Your host is Brian D Smith, spiritual seeker, bestselling author, grief survivor, and life coach. Brian believes that the worst tragedies of life provide the greatest opportunity for growth. Brian D Smith says he was planted, not buried, and he is here to help you grow where you've been planted by the difficulties in life. In each episode, Brian and his guests will share what has helped them to survive and thrive. It is his sincere hope this episode helps you today.

Hey everybody, this is Brian. I'm back with another episode of Grief to Growth. And today I've got with me Delphi Ellis. And Delphi has written a really interesting book. I about sleep. And sleep is a subject that I know is near and dear to a lot of our hearts, especially people that have gone through grief or going through grief. And we're going to talk about some of the myths about sleep today. I just finished your book yesterday. It's a fascinating book. So we'll talk about it. And I'll bring her in here in a second. But first, when I finish your introduction, she's the author of the book, it's called Answers in the Dark: Grief, Sleep, and How Dreams Can Help You Heal. She's a qualified counselor, she's a well-being trainer, and a mindfulness practitioner. And her therapeutic background is in bereavement. And she supported mainly those bereaved by murder and suicide. She helps people find their mojo and get their sparkle back, especially after a difficult time in their life, in their lives. So with that, I want to bring in Delphi Ellis. Welcome to Grief to Growth.

Thank you so much for having me today.

As I was saying, Delphi, I think this is— I know this is a topic that's near and dear to a lot of our hearts. We're going through— a lot of us are going through grief now for various reasons. We're going to talk about what are some grief events that can cause that. But what got you interested in dealing with sleep and dreams?

So, um, therapeutically, I actually started working with people about 20 years ago. And following my own experience of bereavement, I just naturally kind of moved into that area of wanting to help people find their way through such a difficult time. And it It just so happened because of the, the way that I was working with people at the time, the majority of people that I worked with was, as you say, bereaved by murder and suicide. It wasn't by design, it just kind of happened that way. Um, so I ended up volunteering and supporting people in coroner's court and supporting people through the inquest process, which was, you know, as you can imagine, and at such a devastating time. And as you know, and, um, but before that, I actually had a childhood where I grew up in an environment where we talked about stuff like this. So it was very natural growing up. I remember being asked around the breakfast table what dreams I'd had the night before. And it was only really when I went to school and I was, you know, actively talking about the dreams that I'd had, I remember my friends sort of looking at me like, what is she talking about? You know, as if I was kind of the weird one. But to me, that was perfectly natural. It was natural to be talking about our dreams and our sleep experiences and the nighttime experiences experiences we have. So, so that's really what happened, was when I found myself working with people that were grieving, very quickly I realized that when the time was right, they wanted to— first of all, they wanted to, um, as I call it, help people get their sparkle back. But second of all, they wanted to talk to me about the dreams that they were having, especially some of the dreams that were so vivid and so clear to them, um, and they just wanted to find ways forward from that. So that's kind of how I fell into it, and, and I've been doing it ever since.

Well, yeah, I think there's— I said there's 3 really interesting topics here. There's grief, there's dreams, and, and there's sleep. And I want to— I do want to get deeper into all those. But you mentioned that you had a bereavement event yourself. Did that interrupt your sleep when that happened?

Yeah, so I was very young when that happened. I was actually 18 years old when my dad died. Um, and it was, um, it was one of those— it was unexpected. When I look back on it now, I, I know that it was, it was going to happen. Um, but at the time, certainly at 18 years old, I, you know, I had, I was not ready for that. And so it did, it really, if I'm being totally honest, it changed the whole trajectory of my life. I think had my dad not died when he did, I think I would've probably just certainly probably not moved into the arena that I'm in now and certainly not with the intensity, you know, of the work that I do now. So, yeah, it's fair to say that that experience changed the whole trajectory of my life. And so, and at the time, yeah, I know for a fact that my dreams and certainly my sleep would, would have been, you know, impacted by that.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's— sleep is just a weird thing. And we'll talk about, you know, how we all, we want to go to sleep, but sometimes we have trouble going to sleep. And we, and we, our sleep gets disturbed by events like that. And again, we talked before we start recording, my audience is people that have been through grief. And a lot of times, Talk about how grief can affect our sleep patterns, if you would.

Yeah, so one of the things I talk about in the book is I have this whole section called Under Grief. And it's about recognizing that loss shows up for us in so many different ways, even without anybody dying. So we can experience the loss of when we are made redundant, for example, from our jobs, or when a relationship breaks down. That's the kind of loss that we can experience throughout our lives. But because generally speaking, and certainly in the UK, experiences like that just aren't recognized as grief. They're, they're seen as these everyday experiences. We just keep calm and carry on and try and navigate our way forward without there being any impact. But of course, that's, that's not the case. You know, the, one of the things I talk about is how grief often rests underneath awareness. If we've not been given permission to talk about our grief experiences, however that showed up, whether it was the loss of a loved one, whether it was the relationship breakdown, divorce, redundancy, all those kind of things. If we haven't been given permission to talk about that loss and how it's affected us, it will just rest underneath awareness. And of course, during the day, we're very busy keeping ourselves preoccupied so that we don't have to think about the things that are troubling us during the day. But one of the quotes I use in the book is that it's like a hole that we dance around during the day but fall into at night. So we will find ourselves at night, um, you know, our bed becomes this magical place that reminds us of all the things we haven't done today, but also brings to the surface these experiences that we either haven't processed or we weren't given permission to talk about. And so we find ourselves at night, as I call it in the book, I call it going down the plug hole, and it's dark down there. And we can find ourselves in these almost tormented places where we just can't process or navigate these experiences because we're not being given permission to do that during the day. So that for me is how it shows up in our sleep, where we would, you know, we're having these difficult lifetime experiences. And one of the things that I make the distinction about in Answers in the Dark is that there are things that we do during the day that we know affect our sleep. You know, we know that if we drink too much caffeine or we exercise before bedtime or, you know, we eat too late, we know that's going to affect our quality of sleep at night. But I talk in the book about situational insomnia, as I, as I refer to it. And that's very much— it's not so much about what you're doing that's stopping you sleeping, but what's happening to you. And I think that's how— that's in the book where I kind of emphasize this, how grief rests underneath awareness and stops us sleeping.

Yeah, I— you talked in the book, use a term called disenfranchised grief, which is the first time I've heard that. So explain to me what that is.

So disenfranchised grief is essentially where society doesn't accept our reasons for grieving or doesn't consider consider why we're grieving as a reasonable reason to grieve. So for example, a redundancy or a relationship breakdown, society might not accept that as a reasonable reason for us to be upset. So people will often say, and I talk a lot about this in the book, about how people often come out with these really unhelpful platitudes like, you know, there's plenty more fish in the sea, or, you know, they're better off without you. And yet actually, when we're in the sick of that pain, those kind of phrases, they, they're just— those clichés don't work for us. Um, but yeah, disenfranchised grief is, is very much about what society deems to be unacceptable reasons to grieve, and yet they're all valid. And I make this point in the, in the book that all grief is valid. There may be different experiences of grief, and sometimes we might compare our experiences of grief to someone else's. Sometimes that can be helpful, sometimes not. But an example of disenfranchised grief that more and more people are recognizing is the death of a pet. So when a beloved dog dies that's been part of the family for 15 years, um, you know, I've, I've heard so many people have said to me that they've been met with this wall of, 'But it's just an animal.' And of course, to that person grieving, that pet was so, so, so much more than that. And so, um, that's an example of disenfranchised grief and how it shows up, where You know, I've known of people in the LGBTQ community where, you know, a woman's wife has died and her family have, you know, said really unhelpful things to her like, well, at least now you can have a proper marriage, because they didn't accept the marriage that she had before. And so that's an example of how these, you know, these experiences can show up and that society doesn't acknowledge or accept that person's reason for grieving. And of course, that in itself causes then the grief to go underground. So that person doesn't feel that they can grieve for the person that they've loved and lost, then they, their grief will go underground. And that in itself can lead to other problems. You know, inhibited grief, for example, is an example of how our grief shows up as a physical illness because we haven't been able to process it, we haven't been able to talk about it, and so we might become unwell. So yeah, that disenfranchised grief is something I'm seeing more and more of where people just don't just aren't given permission by society to grieve for the things that they've lost and loved.

Yeah, I thought that was a great point you made in the book, and how we can even things other people might not see as a loss that we could see as a loss. And then, and as you said, every feeling is valid, you know, so for people to invalidate what was just a pet, or, you know, people even moving, you know, and losing, losing friends that you might have had in the past, people might say, well, you didn't really lose them. But It's just, it's a change and it feels like a loss. If it feels like a loss, it really is.

Yeah, exactly that. And, and I think the point you made about moving home, for example, one of the things I talk about in the book is when a child leaves home to go to university or to college. And, um, you know, so many, certainly moms I speak to will say that, you know, they talk about this empty nest syndrome where that, you know, they've got this empty house or this empty room and for them it is a loss, it is a bereavement. And I've known, you know, parents that have cried and cried, even though, as you said, even though that child is still available to them, you know, with the aid of modern technology, that, that child is just a Zoom call or a telephone call away. But nevertheless, it's, it's that whole thing about what it means for that child to leave home and, and begin a new life elsewhere. So it's valid, and I think it's So important as a society that we recognize that as grief, and that we talk about it as such. It's not the same as perhaps another person's grief, but it's still valid.

Yeah, I completely agree. And what I remember when my daughter graduated from high school and went to college, and it was a grief event for me, and I cried. And you're— and it's like, because it's, it's not that they're not available to you. It's end of a phase. It's a change of status in your life. You know, they're never going to— they'll come home and they'll visit but now it's a visit, it's different. And so I think it's really important, as you said, to acknowledge people when we're going through that. And for people that are going through it ourselves, to say, okay, I have feelings about this, and I need to process them. Because I love what you talked about, like when you go to bed at night, that's where you can't hide anymore. That's where, that's where all those thoughts start to come back to you. And as you're trying to calm, quiet your mind down, that's when they're— that's when they come out.

Yeah, exactly that. And interestingly as well is even those experiences, for example, of a child leaving home to go to university as an adult, people will actually have dreams at that point that their child has died. And you can imagine, you know, it just creates that feeling of devastation. And actually people worry that that means that dream is going to come true. And actually the the dream is more likely a reflection of that feeling of loss, you know, that devastation of the feeling of loss, even though— and that's one of the things I emphasize in the book about how grief shows up even if no one has died. And it can show up in our dreams as much as it can with our lack of sleep.

Yes. And I think it's an excellent point you made in the book about those dreams of a loss of someone or an impending disaster or something. So talk about, about that. If I have a dream where someone's died, how should I take that?

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss. And still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become. A place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

So in the book, I talk about these different types of lost dreams that people have, and they can show up, like I say, in different ways. They can show up as we dream about the death of a loved one, and, and actually that's more likely a fear of loss, a fear of losing that person. Of course, some people, um, as you know, they will have dreams about that person that has died, and they will, um, you know, they will have that experience where they are dreaming about their loved one who has died. And those are what we refer to as visitation dreams, where the person that we've loved and lost appears to us in a dream. They appear to us perhaps healthy and well, and they're reassuring us that everything's going to be okay. Um, and those are very beautiful, very spiritual, um, and quite powerful dreams actually in the terms of our recovery and how we find our way forward. So death dreams can, can show up in many different ways. And, and the most traditional meaning of a death dream, i.e., dreaming about someone, um, that hasn't died but we're dreaming that they've died, is, um, is about change. And it's about recognizing change and how it shows up. So for many people, if they're having a dream about a loved one that they really care about and they've dreamt that that person has died, then I, I hope to reassure them that often it's, it's more about change and recognizing those changes than it is about, um, anything that's, that's likely to come true or anything that's likely to happen for them. That's not to say that people don't have dreams that come true. I've spoken to many people who have, but, um, at the same time, death dreams in particular, they're more often recognizing those changes that we're navigating even without anybody dying.

Yeah. And in the book, you talked about like these dream dictionaries and interpreting dreams. And I thought it was— you did a really, really good job with that. Because the thing about dreams, and I kind of, I think this was in the book, but I kind of came away with it, is that first of all, the different types of dreams, right? So there are dreams that are just dreams, you know. So there are dreams that might be, that might be premonitions. There are dreams that I think are visits, where our loved ones visiting us, And there are literal dreams, and then there are symbolic dreams, which is, I think, what makes it so hard to, to interpret them, because they can— they come— they're just not really rational the way we think.

Yeah, you're so right. And I talk about this in the book. One of the things I was very careful to say in Answers in the Dark is that it's not a dream dictionary. I've spoken to enough people over the last two decades to know that dream dictionaries can be helpful. You know, they can offer some insight, they can offer some wisdom. But we, as the dreamer, we have our own unique code that has been encrypted. And so our dreams really are speaking to us. That's what makes them so important, is that only we essentially can decode them. Yes, you could go to someone and say, I've had this dream, what do you think it means? Can I work through it with you? And that might be helpful. But at the same time, these dream dictionaries, they're only helpful to a point. I say to people, you're perhaps just getting one bite of the apple if you use a dream dictionary to analyze your dreams. In the book, I talk about how we can explore our own dreams and look to decode them ourselves, but also offer those different experiences you described. So I talk about visitation dreams, I talk about predictive dreams and, and how they might show up for people. But I'm also careful to say that ultimately, as the dreamer, you're the best person to decide what your dream means. They are encrypted so that only you can understand them.. And that then needs a toolkit, you know. And that's, that's hopefully what I offer in the book, is kind of like some insight as to the types of things that you can think about, you know, questions you could ask yourself when you're having that dream. But you were so right what you said as well. Sometimes dreams can be literal, and sometimes dreams can be metaphorical or symbolic. They can, they can show up in all types of ways. And so often when I've spoken to a dreamer and I've said, when you think about that symbol you've just described to me, what do you think about? What, what kind of comes to your mind? And so often they'll just instinctively start telling me what their dream means without me kind of doing anything, you know. They're just instinctively telling me what their dream means, but they didn't realize they knew until they started to unpack it and explore it for themselves. So yeah, there's so many different ways of looking at dreams. And one of the things I talk about even in the book is creative dreaming. So— there's people throughout history that have literally created their works of art by the dreams that they had. You know, I mentioned in, in the book, kind of in a jokey way, about Keith Richards dreamt the riff to I Can't Get No Satisfaction for the Rolling Stones. And that's just one example. Um, you know, people throughout history have come up with their scientific discoveries through the dreams that they had. So they are just this phenomenal resource that we have that, that so often goes unexplored. But if we just take the time to look at them, you know, we can be really blown away by the profound wisdom they can bring.

Right. So let's talk about how we can be more intentional about our dreams. Because I know that there are people— and my wife actually, for a long time, would say, I don't dream. And I'm like, you have to dream. Everybody dreams. So how do, how do we become more intentional about our dreams? What are some things we can do so we can remember our dreams better? Because we all dream, but sometimes we don't remember them.

Yeah, and one of the things I explore in Answers in the Dark is that there are many reasons why we might not be remembering our dreams. You're absolutely right, we all dream every single night, it's just that we might not be remembering them. So one of the reasons we don't remember our dreams is that we perhaps have grown up in an environment where we just don't see dreams as important. You know, certainly again in the UK, we're brought up to believe that dreams don't mean anything. You know, so often, you know, a parent would say if you had a nightmare, a parent would say, oh, don't worry about it, it doesn't mean anything. And yet we know that's not the case. We know that we can interpret our dreams and make sense of them. So, but if you've grown up in that environment where you were told your dreams don't mean anything, just ignore them, then you're less likely to remember them. It makes sense when you get up in the morning, you're just not going to be thinking about the dream you've had the night before. For other people though, it is because of the busy world that we live in. You know, even post-pandemic, we're still you know, going at 100 miles an hour all day, every day. And so if the first thing you're thinking about in the morning when you wake up is where you've got to be, who you've got to see, what you've got to do, you're less likely to remember the dream you've just had. You might have a sort of faint echo of it. There might be a faint echo of it in your mind. And that's one of the reasons why I encourage keeping a dream diary so you can actually start to firstly just keep a note of the types of dreams you're having, but also explore patterns in your dreaming. You will start to see patterns in your dreaming. And why you dream certain things when you do. So yeah, to be more intentional with our dreams, really it's about firstly and foremost is, is kind of saying, do you know what, there's something to dreams. There's something that I could use these as an additional resource, as an unexplored resource. So even just going to bed at night, when you're going to bed, if you just say to yourself, I'd really like to remember my dreams tonight, maybe even keep a diary or a pen and paper by your bed that kind of sets that intention that when you wake up you want to remember it. And then you will find over time that starts to happen. You know, it might not happen straight away, but certainly within a few days you might find that you start to remember even just the echoes of a dream you've just had. And then when you wake up in the morning, it's just laying still, just noticing, um, all the kind of thoughts or the sensations or the feelings that are going through your mind and just keeping a note of them. If you don't write your dream down within about 5 minutes of waking, it will just disappear into the ether. Unless something happens later in the day when you think, oh, I've just remembered my dream, then there's a good chance it will just disappear. So it won't go into your long-term memory unless you write it down.

Do you know, is there a scientific reason why dreams fade so quickly? That they seem to be like, as you said, almost ethereal? It's like they're just— we wake up, we have vague memories, something might trigger us later in the day. But if we don't, like really ruminate on that dream when we first wake up. It just kind of fades away.

Yeah. So I, I once read a piece of research that said if we remembered every single dream we had, our brains would be so big we would need to carry it around in a shopping cart, right? So that was— that kind of does make the point that we're not meant to remember every dream that we've ever had. Um, but, uh, at the same time, I do think that there is something to be said for paying attention to them, you know, when they are particularly noisy or when they're trying to get our attention. So an example of that is recurring dreams. People will often have a recurring dream over their lifetime, or certainly during periods of stress. And so that's where those dreams will, will kind of start to get our attention, and we might decide that we want to explore them. But yeah, I don't think we're designed to, to remember every single dream that we had, um, but I think certainly the ones that are important important. They're worth exploring and maybe pushing into longer-term memory by writing them down and exploring them in a bit more detail.

Yeah, you know, and I also think it's interesting that, you know, we said dreams are unique, and dreams are— they can be situational, and we have— we have each have our own language, our own dream language. But there are some common dreams, and you talk about some of those in the book. So explain, because people that haven't studied this may not realize the dreams I'm having are similar to dreams other people have.

Yeah, so again, I talk about a few of these in the dream. Some of them, there are common dreams that people have after a bereavement, for example. So, um, one of the most common dreams that people will have after a bereavement is that they're lost and they can't find their way home, or they can't find their car, or they can't find, you know, something that has personal meaning to them. So that feeling of loss, if you like, is is, is the representation of loss, literally feeling lost in the world and just not knowing where they belong or where they fit in. So that's one example. But another type, um, certainly of anxiety dreams that people have, a really common one that I've spoken to people about over the years, is that they dream about losing their teeth. And this is actually another common dream that people have if they are fear— if they're fearful of loss. So in some cultures and some traditions, the interpretation of the teeth dream is different depending on which parts of the world you go to. The interpretation of the tooth dream is different. So, um, in the UK, and I think it's the same in, in the US, if you, um, lose a teeth— a tooth as a child, uh, you exchange it for money. So we have the Tooth Fairy, and, and we might exchange our tooth for money with, with that perspective. So if that is our tradition, if that is the, the environment that we've grown up with where where during the day, if our, if our tooth has fallen out, we would exchange it for money, then teeth would symbolize that feeling of loss of status, or it's something to do with money or wealth or status. Whereas in other parts of the world, um, to dream of losing a tooth is a fear of losing a loved one. You know, if you like, the tooth is bone, bone represents the body, um, and so for some parts of the world, to dream of losing a tooth is, is a fear of losing loved one. Um, and so again, you can understand why people get nervous about that. They, they get understandably nervous about dreams of losing teeth because of their, their tradition of believing that it's something to do with the death of a loved one. So yeah, common dreams are— it's one of the reasons I encourage people to keep a dream diary, because you will find that there are patterns in your dreaming over time. I've kept a dream diary for years, and I remember, um, when I was first starting out on this journey about 20 years ago, and and I just wasn't sure about where I fitted in and what I was going to be doing. I knew I wanted to go into this arena, but I wasn't sure where I fitted in. And it was only years later when I look back at my dream diary, and I am talking about sort of 15, 20 years ago, that I saw that I kept having this recurring dream that I couldn't find a parking space. So that, if you like, the parking space was the symbol for me trying to find where I fit in. Uh, and so, and it was only by looking at that, it was only when I started to realize I kept having this recurring dream of trying to find a parking space that I realized that that's what I was navigating at the time. So that's how dream diaries could just be so valuable to help us understand, you know, where we're, where we're going, what we're doing, and what's happening. Yeah.

And a couple other dreams that you talked about in, in the book, which I've had, like, I, I have a dream a lot of times of like being back in school I'm sitting there, I'm given an exam, and I haven't been in that room a day in my life. Or I'm walking through the hallway. And I know I'm supposed to be going to class, but I don't know what class I'm going to. Or I'm at an airport, and I'm catching a plane, but I have no idea what time the plane is coming. I've had that dream since I was a little kid.

Yeah, I know, it's fascinating. And again, this is where the dream diary can be really useful, because often people find especially where they've had a recurring dream that they've had their whole life, so since, since school, they will, um, they will be able to notice that there's a pattern to it. So sometimes people will find that they have the dream that they're back at college taking an exam that they weren't ready for. So they've arrived, as you said, they're in the classroom, they don't know why they're there, they don't know what they're studying for, then they're told that they've got an exam that they just weren't ready for. And so often that is representative of a period of stress. Stress. So just as when you were back at school, maybe taking your exams or studying for a test, you would have felt an element of stress around that. And it's almost like the dream imprints, you know, imprints on our memory, or that memory of school imprints in our minds so that the next time you feel stressed, it's almost as if your dream, bit like a friend coming along and saying, you remember how stressed you were at college? You're that stressed now. And so it's almost like the dream is reassuring you that, you know, you've been here before, you've got through this before, you're be fine. But I'm just reminding you that you're as stressed now as you were then. And so that's where the— yeah, that's, that's where the dream diary can be helpful.

Wow, I never thought of that way. And I love, I love that interpretation of it also. Because I could sort of have the dream, but it seems random because I don't keep a diary of it. It's just like every once in a while I'll have, I'll have that dream. So yeah, that's like I said, the thing about the book, it really prompted me to think about, because there's several, we don't have time to go through all of them right now. But I'm like, I've had all these dreams, you know, I'm like, and I didn't, I thought I was the only one. But I do want to talk about flying dreams. I think flying dreams are really cool. And I didn't realize how common those were.

Grief to Growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach? If you're grieving or know someone who is grieving, his book Grief to Growth is a best-selling, easy-to-read book that might help you or someone you know. People work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at www.grieftogrowth.com. Www.grief2growth.com, or text growth, G-R-O-W-T-H, to 31996. If you'd like to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/grief2growth, www.patreon.com/grief2growth. G-R-O-W-T-H, to make a financial contribution. And now back to Grief 2 Growth.

Yeah, so I mean, in, in when I've been talking to people again around the world, when I've spoken to people, there are these kind of real, almost like a top 3 or a top 5 common dreams that people have. One is the, the losing tooth dream. And the other one is, another one is this flying dream. And what's been so interesting about the flying dream, when I've spoken to people, I don't know, when you have your flying dream, how are you flying? Flying in your dream? What, how, what does it look like?

Well, the way you describe in the book, it's more like Superman, but it's kind of like, or sometimes it's not even flying, it's just like floating. Like I could just, I'll be like in a crowd of people and I'll just rise up about 20 feet in the air and just kind of move along.

Yeah, I love that. And, and so when I've spoken to people over the years, there's been almost two people are never quite the same. So there'll be people that associate with the, you know, like Superman and you're going through the air that way. Um, and then there will be other people. Um, so when I fly in my dreams, I fly like Iron Man. So I have, I have thrusters in my hands, and I can— if I push the thrusters down, I go up, and if I let the thrusters off, I come down. If I lean forward, I go forward. If I lean back, I slow down. So, um, it's really interesting because I've spoken to people over the years who— and these are the flying dreams where you're literally flying, you're not— it's not in an airplane, you are, you are literally flying as if, you know, you are Superman. And, um, and, and so many people— I've met people that swim doing breaststroke or, you know, front crawl, um, like they're swimming but they're actually swimming through the air. And the interpretation for that again has been varied over time. For some people, it's, um, they're not feeling grounded. So there's something about— there's something happening in their life at the time that they just don't feel connected. They don't feel grounded. It's almost as if there's just no space between their, uh, their feet. There's nothing underneath their feet. They feel groundless. But for other people, um, and I use the metaphor deliberately, there we would consider them to be high flyers or high achievers and life is just great. So they will have these flying dreams where, you know, their life is just, they're soaring through the sky and experiencing that flying dream. So again, it's different for everybody. And again, that's where the dream diary can be useful because you might be able to connect with why you have the dreams where you do. And we do use metaphors when we're awake. We say things like, oh, you know what? I'm just flying at the moment. And so that makes sense that it would show up in our dreams at night. Same way as if, you know, I'm just floating on cloud nine. You know, we say things like that. That makes sense. When you, when you think about it, that that would then translate into a dream about that at night.

Yeah, I think, I think it's just interesting that so many people have flying dreams when obviously we can't fly. We've never flown before. But I know the feeling. I know what it would feel like if I could, because I've done it so many times.

Exactly that.

So I want to talk about insomnia, because insomnia— how big of a problem is insomnia?

So we know now that insomnia is a global problem. Organizations like the World Health Organization, Certain research recognizes something like 1 in 5 of us globally, so about 20% of the world's population suffer with insomnia. And when I talk about insomnia, I'm talking about trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, and certainly over a period of time. One of the things I'm careful to talk about in Answers in the Dark is that it's quite normal for us to have periods of poor sleep. If you've got a new baby in the house, you know, if you've just had a relationship breakdown, it's quite normal and you are built to withstand a period of poor sleep. Nothing bad is going to happen if you have the occasional poor night's sleep. It's more when it starts to interfere with our everyday life. And of course, the problem with that is we know that if we have a poor night's sleep, that affects how we feel during the day. And if how we feel during the day is anxious or upset, that's going to affect how we sleep or not at night. So it becomes this vicious cycle. You know, we don't sleep because we're not doing okay. And we're not doing okay, so we don't sleep. So inevitably what that means is that it's becoming an increasing problem. And some people, you know, they are quick to say that the introduction of technology, the availability that we have to people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, using our phones all the time, you know, that, that does have an impact. And that's fair to say, and I do talk about that a little bit in the book. But I also think we need to recognize, like I was saying earlier, we, we need to recognize the circumstances that we might be navigating at the time. It's not just, you know, using your phone, or it's not just drinking coffee that's stopping people having a bad night's sleep. Most people that I speak to know that they need to cut down on coffee, or, you know, they need to get an earlier night. But it's because of this, what I was describing earlier, this going down the plug hole at night, you know, when you are just so immersed in your own thinking that, that for me, you know, and I talk about in the book, there's some research that identifies that when we're awake at night, because we then start to worry, and now I'm not sleeping, and what am I going to be like in the morning? I'm going to be so tired tomorrow. And we kind of start getting caught up in those thoughts as well. And so of course we don't sleep. And so for me, I think, yes, we do need to talk about, you know, the basic stuff about the coffee and what have you. But I think we also need to talk about what's contributing towards that. And so much of it is what's happening in our minds at night.

Yeah, so I loved about the book, because you talk about sleep hygiene, which are things that we kind of know, we don't— sometimes we don't do them, but we kind of know what they are. But if you're not sleeping, that's not the only reason. And I love that you talk about the situational insomnia and the fact that our minds can tend to be racing. And one of the things I learned a while ago about, you know, not being able to sleep is, for me, do not look at the clock. Because if you wake up in the middle of the night, because that starts that cycle. I don't want to out anybody, but some people like, they'll look at the clock, and then they'll start calculating. And you said this in the book. Yeah, how long do I have to get to sleep? And then it's like, and then you look at the clock again, it's like, well, now I only have this long to get to sleep. Yeah, next thing you know, you're keeping yourself awake, worrying about the fact that you can't sleep.

Exactly that. And it's in the book, I explore these 3 big myths of sleep. And one of the myths in the sleep is that I talk about how we are just fixated with time as humans. Now in the 21st century, we are fixated with time and specifically we hate wasting time. So I've genuinely, I talk about this in the book, I've genuinely known people who have said to me that they woke up in the middle of the night, they couldn't get back to sleep. And so they've cleaned their entire house. House, or they've done their ironing or something, because they don't want to waste time. And so trying to encourage people that actually, firstly and most importantly, it's quite natural to wake up in the middle of the night. Your brain is wired with this lovely sentinel reflex that is almost like a bodyguard. That's just kind of— you wake up in the middle of the night, your brain is just saying, everything okay? Yep, everything's fine. And then you should just be able to go back to sleep. But because, like you were talking about, like it says in the book, we get caught up in this, oh no, it's, it's this time, and I'm I'm only gonna get, you know, X amount of sleep. And, you know, and then we start to calculate it. You know, this idea that we need 8 hours is just such a myth because everybody is different. Some people need 6 hours, some people need 9 hours. If you're poorly, you know, if you're sick, you're gonna need more sleep. So, but we've got so fixated with this idea that we need 8 hours sleep that if we don't get the 8 hours sleep, we, we think, you know, when we wake up in the night, we think, oh no, I'm not gonna get my 8 hours. And of course then we start again, we go down the plug hole again. This kind of catastrophic thinking about how bad it's going to be if we don't sleep. And ironically, that stops us sleeping. There is no way your brain is going to authorize sleep if you are tying yourself in knots about how much sleep you're going to get.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about the 3 big myths of sleep. What are the 3 myths?

So in the book, I talk about these 3 big myths of sleep. And the first one that I really kind of unpack is this 8-hour myth. It's the idea that we all need 8 hours sleep every single night. And we know that's— every time I've spoken to somebody about this, they'll say, actually, you know, I get by just fine on 7 hours, or I get by, you know, with 9. 9 is good for me. And actually, the research also supports that even if we did all need 8 hours sleep, we're not getting it. You know, the research supports that most people I know certainly don't get 8 hours sleep. So this whole thing about we need 8 hours sleep is a big myth, and I really try to unpack that. That's not to say that we don't need you know, time to sleep. But I say in the book, I talk about focusing on quality rather than quantity. So instead of getting caught up in this idea that you need 8 hours, just focus more on getting a good quality refreshing night's sleep. The other myth that are— that the second myth that I explore is that it's unnatural to wake up at night and that we, you know, we've got ourselves caught up in this idea that, you know, we're meant sleep for this 8-hour solid chunk in the middle of the night. And I really think that's— that I talk in the book about the research that supports the fact that we just weren't built that way. I mean, it would be lovely if we could split our days very neatly into these 3 sort of blocks of 8, where we've got 8 hours for work, 8 hours for play, and 8 hours for sleep. That would be really convenient, but we're just not wired that way. You know, we are designed to some extent for polyphasic sleep. We're meant to kind of— we wake, we go to bed, we wake We go back to sleep again. So this idea that we have this solid 8 hours sleep, whilst yes, it would be very convenient for many people, the fact that they wake up in the night, they think they're doing something wrong. They think, oh, I must have got this wrong. You know, I must have done something wrong. And so they end up invariably laying awake because they think, and now I've done something wrong and now I can't sleep. And then the other thing I talk about in the other myth I talk about is the fact that bedtime is not a specific time. And this links into the other two myths, which is, so what tends to happen is say I have to be up at 6 in the morning. If I've bought into this 8-hour myth, I will say, right, I've gotta be up at 6 in the morning. I'm gonna subtract 8 hours so that I get my 8 hours sleeping. So I need to be in bed by 10 o'clock.

Mm-hmm.

And we are just not built that way. We are just not built that way where we can program ourselves, you know, like robots to, to say to ourself, okay, I've got to get to bed at 10 o'clock because, and I've got to be asleep I've got to be up at 6 in the morning. What tends to happen and what I encourage in the book is that you start to notice when what we call sleep pressure builds. So that is when you start to feel sleepy, you know, your head starts nodding, your eyes start drooping. That is essentially when it's time to go to bed. So often when I say to people, when do you go to bed? They'll say to me, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 1:30, whatever. And yet actually the answer I'm looking for is when I'm sleeping. That's when we should be going to bed. And so that's not always easy, of course. People work shifts. I do, I speak with police officers and paramedics and they tell me that that's not easy when you've got to work a night shift. But nevertheless, that's another reason I talk in Answers in the Dark, I talk about power naps and the power of naps as well and how you can kind of refresh yourself if you're working shifts and things. So yeah, those are essentially the 3 big myths. The 8-hour myth is just ditch the myth. You know, if you think that that everybody is different. Focus on quality rather than quantity. Kind of get used to the idea that you may well wake up in the middle of the night, and if you do, that's natural. That's your brain working. You can just roll over and go back to sleep. Try not to indulge the commentary that you've done something wrong to wake up. And then the third thing is, yeah, just go to bed when you're sleepy rather than thinking, okay, I've got to be up at 6 in the morning, I'm going to work back 8 hours and be in bed by 10, because you might find that you're wide awake at 10 o'clock. That might not be your natural sleep time.

Yeah, I think it's great. But you know, but you did touch, touch the fact that we are so driven by the clock, right? So I might not get sleepy till midnight, but I know I have to be up at 6. So that, that's going to put a stress on me. But I want to— something that I got out of the book that I thought was— I've heard about sleep cycles all my, all my life. And I knew that we go through these different sleep cycles. But let's talk about sleep cycles specifically, and why that might be why we wake up during the night, because I never heard it put that way?

Yeah, so in the book I refer to sleep a bit like a bus, and essentially if you don't get on the bus when it comes round— so in other words, when you feel sleepy— you will miss the bus. You'll push through it, and so you'll then find that you're, you're not sleepy again for another hour and a half or so. And the sleep cycle, the way it works, it is shorter in children. For children it can be, you know, 45 to 60 minutes, but in adults predominantly it's an hour and a half to 2 hours depending on, you know, the individual. And so one of the things that I talk about is getting to know your sleep cycle. So if you know that you've got to be up at 6 in the morning or thereabouts, then if you know you start to feel sleepy at say 10 o'clock, then you could— if you know that your personal sleep cycle is about an hour and a half, then you can work forward and work out the best time to set your alarm.

Alarm.

So instead of setting your alarm for 6 o'clock, which might actually be when you're in the middle of deep sleep and you'll wake up— I talk about this in Answers in the Dark as the hangover effect. You wake up in the middle of deep sleep, your mouth is dry, you've got a banging headache, and that's why it's called the hangover effect. Um, you, instead of that, you just work forward, working out what your, your sleep cycle is. You can just work forward and work out, okay, well, I'm going to be naturally waking up or naturally kind of coming towards the end of one particular middle of sleep cycle at 5:30. So instead of setting my alarm when I'm going to be in the middle of deep sleep, I'm going to set my alarm for when I know that I'm going to be naturally wakeful anyway. So I'm not wrenching myself out of sleep. So yeah, that's, that's essentially where I'm coming from with the sleep cycles, is getting to know yourself a bit better, recognizing that sleep is like a bus. If you miss the bus, you're going to have to wait for the next one, which when I talk to people, it's about an hour and a half later. Um, and but just know that it will come, you know, the bus will come back. It's just you're going to have to make sure you're setting yourself up for a better night's sleep. So doing all the right things before bedtime, like winding down, less caffeine, those kinds of things, so that you start to feel naturally sleepy. And then, yeah, working out when you would naturally be awake based on— and I provide a kit in the book about how to work out those kind of patterns when you wake up naturally and that kind of thing.

Yeah, I've noticed. And for me, it's like It's like when I wake up on the weekends when I don't have an alarm, you know. And I, and so like, I get up, my alarm goes off at 6. But I'm, I found I'm getting into light sleep sometime between 5:30 and 6. That's, that's where I feel like that's why I'm waking up kind of naturally.

Yeah.

And it's interesting, because if I do go back to sleep during that time, then I fall into a heavy sleep, you know, instead of getting up when I'm in that, in that light, light sleep cycle. So I really love that about the book. And I love the fact that now we know that it's normal to wake up during the night. Because as you said, a lot of us think that we're doing something wrong. I should just go to bed, be knocked out, wake up, you know, that many hours later. That's a normal part of our sleep cycle, which I hadn't known before.

Yeah. So when we come to the end of our sleep cycle, we are naturally moving into a sort of a wakeful period. Some people don't even know that they've done that during the night. Some people will wake up in the morning and say, gosh, I had, you know, a great 8 hours sleep last night, not not realizing that they will have entered these wakeful periods just the night. They just don't remember it, right? Um, but for some people, of course, they do. They, they know that they woke up in the night. They remember that they woke up in the night. And of course, then if they buy into this narrative that they shouldn't be awake, that's when they start beating themselves up and saying, oh no, what's wrong with me? Why am I awake? So that's where I try and encourage people to remember it's just your brain working normally. I mean, that's not to say, you know, if people are are just waking up every 20 minutes or so, you know, or if they're, you know, they're just not sleeping at all, then of course they should go and talk to someone about that and get the help that they need. But I think we do need to normalise to some extent, you know, the idea that it's quite natural to wake up in the night, not least of all, as I mentioned in the book, because you might need the loo, you know, you might need the toilet, and Mother Nature is not going to wait for anybody. So, you know, if you've got to go, you've got to go. So your brain and your body is just working as it's meant to during the night. And if you can kind of get used to that, the idea that it's just responding to, to whatever else is going on in the environment, then, um, sometimes we can just roll back over and say, yeah, this is normal, I'm just going to go back to sleep.

Yeah, I think that's going to help a lot of people because, as I said, I think people, we think, okay, there's something wrong. We wake up, we look at the clock, we start doing the calculation. Um, for me, it's, it's just so freeing to know it's, it's normal for me to wake up during the night and, and I can, you know, and is part of the natural sleep cycle. And speaking of that, you use the term in the book I'd never heard before, orthosomnia.

Yeah.

Which— so I want you to explain to people what orthosomnia is.

So orthosomnia is where a person has got so fixated on the amount of sleep that they are getting that has created its own form of anxiety. So this is where people, for example, use trackers, sleep trackers that are attached to their on their wrist, and then they will wake up in the morning and they will look to see how much sleep they got, when they woke up, whether or not it was deep sleep, whether or not it was light sleep. And they become so fixated on that particular, that analysis, that result, that it is creating its own form of anxiety. And so this is quite a new thing. This is quite a new thing, and some attribute it directly to the creation of these trackers. And so this is one of the reasons I say to people, the best way to know whether or not you had a refreshing night's sleep or not is how you feel. It's not what your fitness tracker says, it's how you feel. But some people have got so kind of caught up that it's created its own anxiety that they start to then think, oh, you know, I'm not sleeping enough, I'm not getting enough quality sleep, or what have you. And instead, really, we're kind of tuning out to listening to our own bodies when our body you know, our body is speaking to us all the time. It's telling us that we're thirsty, we're hungry, we're tired. Um, and so yeah, the, the idea that we've got so caught up in how much sleep we're getting and how many times we woke up and whether it was deep sleep or not, um, it has created its own anxiety, which, which is becoming a real problem for some people.

Yeah. And you know, have you— having said that, I, I used to have a Fitbit, and I had the Fitbit and it's got the sleep tracker on it, you could get apps that were even more detailed. Yeah. And I know people who would get all caught up with like, this is how many hours of sleep I got. I didn't get enough sleep. And why was I in light sleep then? I want, I want that to be deep sleep. I want to always be, you know, in deep sleep. And that's, that's not the normal cycle. So I do have an Apple Watch now. Just, I want to say to Apple, about Apple, people ask them, why don't you have more detail in your sleep app? And they said the exact— they didn't use the word orthostatic insomnia, but they're like, we don't want to contribute to that because people were getting too caught up in, you know, not everything that can be measured, I guess, should be by, by that kind of data because we don't understand our own bodies and our own sleep cycles. And speaking of sleep cycles, I know we talked about sleep hygiene a little bit. Let's talk about what is the Sleep Cycle Repair Kit.

So the Sleep Cycle Repair Kit is essentially my offering of different ways that people can and start to think about how they might be able to improve their sleep. One of the things I talk about in Answers in the Dark is that when I talk to people about why they're not sleeping well, they will, um, they know, like I said earlier, they know all about the sleep hygiene stuff, you know, the, the tips, the, the habits that we have during the day that might stop them sleeping at night. So they're exercising too late, or they're eating too late, or they're drinking too much coffee. So most people know, but I've still offered some sort of top tips and I've actually offered a sleep hygiene type questionnaire so people can actually look at their habits during the day and see whether or not they might be able to improve those areas in some way, shape, or form. So that's part of the kit. But the other part of it as well is it moves into talking about some of the nighttime phenomena that we have. So that might explain some of the experiences they have, which again, we can often normalize as we're going through a period of stress or something like that. But I also offer mindfulness activities. And in my work, over certainly over the last 10 years, I have found that sleep is a proven— mindfulness is a proven strategy for getting a better night's sleep. And if once we know how to do it, you know, and I'm not talking about the mindfulness stuff that we, you know, those, those kind of short-term tricks that we might use. I'm talking about the authentic, which is the way that I was trained, the authentic mindfulness where we really kind of get used to this idea that thoughts are just thoughts. They don't need our time and attention. We can pick and choose which thoughts get our time and attention. And so authentically kind of looking back at what it actually means to be mindful and then kind of picking our battles, making decisions and good decisions about which thoughts get our time and attention. So I talk about that. I talk about the mind at night and how we can, start to manage the mind more helpfully. And that is using different types of mindfulness activity and different types of mindfulness tips. So I use things like mantras and affirmations that people can repeat to themselves during the night. A lovely one that I talk about, which is actually specifically for middle of the night waking, there's a beautiful mantra called, breathing in, I calm my body, breathing out, I calm my mind. And that is just such a lovely mantra to say in the middle of the night. You know, if you're your mind is swirling with all types of things, just saying those words in your mind can be enough to just bring you back to center and just help you get off to a lovely, refreshing sleep.

Yeah, I think that's so, so important. And I've discovered that myself in the last few years, that mindfulness is really the thing, because our minds, our minds are meant to be thinking. That's what they do. And I know a lot of people, when they think about mindfulness and meditation, they think it means turning your brain off. And we can't do that. So we— you've got to kind of give your brain something to do. So use a mantra as a great way of doing that. Or if you practice mindfulness during the day, learning how— okay, I'm not— I'm— I just refuse to have this thought. I'll have this thought tomorrow and put that thought out of your head. I was in— hurt my hip a couple weeks ago. I was in a lot of pain. I was trying to fall asleep. And the pain was just— I couldn't get uncomfortable. And so I finally just decided to really focus on the pain. This is kind of a different way of doing it. Instead of taking my mind off the pain, I really focused on the pain and what the pain really was. And then it started to fade, you know. It was still there, but I was— it wasn't all-consuming. And then I said, okay, now that I've done that, I'll switch my mind to something else. And I was able to fall asleep. It was really cool.

It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, it's amazing. It seems so counterintuitive to say, well, I'm going to focus on this thing that's really hurting me. And yet, and this is what I say to people, and it's the same with emotion, you know, whether we give the feeling a name or not, it's there anyway.

Right.

So one of the things I talk about in, in the book is that mindfulness is about managing the mind. It's not about clearing the mind. It's about managing and taming the mind and bringing it back home. You know, my, my teacher said to me, you know, a mind that is homeless is going to be be distressed. Anything that's homeless is going to be distressed. So we just need to bring the mind back home. And one of the ways of doing that, like you said, is just bringing our attention and just focusing on that feeling, but without getting caught up in the commentary about it. So whether it's physical or emotional pain, we just notice that it's there, but without getting caught up in the commentary about why it's there. So whether it's physical pain, like you said, and it's— I totally get it, you know, for people that would be saying that feels totally wrong to totally focus on that pain that I'm experiencing right now. But that's why I say to people, you're not focusing on the why the pain is there. You're noting that on the fact that the pain is there because it's there anyway, right? Whether you acknowledge it, whether you give it a name, whether you focus on it or not, it's there anyway. So it is that whole thing about— there's an element of acceptance to it. There's an element of recognizing and acknowledging it's there, but then giving ourselves permission to not get caught up in that dialogue about why it's there. So the way I describe it in the book is it's about becoming the observer of what's happening to us rather than the participant.

Yeah. And then another technique that I've used is like, okay, so you're in the night and you're thinking about what you need to do the next day, because we all, we all do that. We go to what we should have done before we go to what we need to do the next day. And, you know, I just tell myself, okay, what can I do about it right now? You know, what can— and the answer is always nothing.

Nothing.

So then just let it go, you know. So these are, these are ways that we can we can, we can use to control our mind. Because for most of us, it's like our minds are just running around doing what they want to do. And especially when we turn off the lights and close our eyes, they just go, they go crazy, and we're kind of chasing them around.

Yeah, yeah, it's exactly that. And it is, I say this, you know, to people that your, your mind just very much as you said earlier, your mind just wants something to do. And if you don't give it something to do, it will remind you of an argument you had 20 years ago that you wish you'd said something different, you know, or you'd approached it differently. And it is, it's— and it's always— I actually have a chapter in Answers in the Dark, I have a chapter called The 4 AM Mystery.

Yeah, I'm just gonna bring that up.

Yeah, it's this whole thing about, you know, people will say to me, why am I awake in the middle of the night? And again, I say to people, rather than focusing on the why, just notice on the what, you know, the fact that you are awake and what you can do to then help you fall back to sleep, whether it's mindfulness, whether it's using a mantra, however you want to define it. Um, but yeah, it is that whole thing. And, and, and of course, because we find ourselves awake at 4 in the morning, we then— that whole narrative starts again about, well, why am I awake? What woke me up? What's going on? Why can't I sleep? I'm going to be so tired in the morning. I'm not going to be able to concentrate. And of course, then we end up, like I say, going down the plug hole again. So it just becomes this, this vicious cycle. Um, but yeah, the 4 AM mystery is a, is a fascinating phenomenon. And, um, I give examples in the book about how if you watch a movie or you know, I think it even features in The Simpsons, you know, where Homer refers to 4 AM in one of his conversations in his mind. And it's that thing about, again, different traditions. They say that there's reasons why we have middle of the night waking. Some people say that it is because that's the time when we're reflecting or we're experiencing loss and grief, and that's why we wake up. If we're depressed or anxious, we do find that we wake up between 3 and 4 in the morning. But for other people, it will be— I mentioned mention one example in the book, it will be something really practical like someone's heating coming on at 4 in the morning, and, and that, and that wakes them up, you know. So it is, again, it's about being able to, um, and I give tools for this in the book about just kind of keeping helpful records so that you can start to think about what those patterns are and, and what might be contributing towards that.

Well, I, I've heard people say that, that, that witching hour, that, that somewhere between 2 and 4 in the morning is when spirit talks to them.

Yeah.

And I know for me, that's when I get my best ideas, um, is that time, that time somewhere between 2 and 4.

Yeah. And I, I say that actually in the book, I talk about that, you know, some people, um, poets, writers, um, creators— don't forget I mentioned Keith Richards, and, you know, he had the dream about the riff to I Can't Get No Satisfaction. Um, and, and so, yeah, people throughout history have have had some of their most spiritual, um, encounters or experiences in the middle of the night. And that's one of the reasons why in the book I have a chapter called Into Darkness. And it's, it's one of the reasons why I try to help people befriend the dark. So rather than seeing it as, um, the enemy, actually trying to befriend the dark a little bit and seeing if there is something that it can offer you. I know that for some people people, when they find themselves awake at that time of night, that's when they have the most awful thoughts, or, you know, they have the most difficult experiences. And that's why I say, you know, it's so important that you just hold on for dawn, you know, just hold on for the morning, because things often look so much better in the morning. But on the other side of that, like I say, there are creators and, you know, poets and writers and all those artists that have had these wonderful moments. And as I say, those spiritual moments in the middle of the night. And so there is something in just listening, you know, rather than trying to sort of fix it or sort it, you know, in a way that's unhelpful, is actually just listen and pay attention.

Yeah, I love, I love that chapter, Into the Dark. And then you talked about a message that you got at that time of the day. So I love that. That instead of, you know, the thing is, in our society, we've been taught to fear the dark. We've been taught that darkness is bad. And I love that, you know, the name of your book, Answers in the Dark. I love that chapter, Into the Dark, because we can learn to embrace it as a time of rest, a time of maybe even creativity, a time where new things can be born, and a time where, you know, magical things can happen, like what happened with you.

Yeah, absolutely. I talk about my own experience of that in the book. And to be honest with you, I think most of us— I was talking to a lady recently who said that she hadn't appreciated before that nighttime just brings this beautiful quiet and stillness that we can really just appreciate, even if we're not having profound moments of wisdom. In a world that just doesn't stop, there is something quite powerful about appreciating the stillness and the quiet quiet of the middle of the night. I mean, if you're someone that, you know, quiet makes you nervous anyway, then it's going to be harder. But if we can learn to appreciate the stillness and the quiet that nighttime can bring, then I think we will find those answers. You know, we can, we can work towards them. And for me, you know, one of the things I talk about, and I think it will surprise people, is that one of my particular answers was actually a person that reached out to me in the middle of the night. It wasn't a dream in that in that particular moment, it was a person that reached out to me in the middle of the night with a poem that I really, really needed to read. But yeah, for other people, it may well be that they wake up with a dream or they wake up with a profound insight, or like you said, you know, they have a spiritual experience in the middle of the night where they feel connected to the universe. You know, they feel as if they're part of it and they feel connected in that way. So yeah, there's definitely something to be said for reaching into the night. The darkness?

Well, you know, it reminds me, I think I'm just thinking about my daughter. When she was a little kid, she said, I hate sleep. It's such a waste of time. I will never— I wish I never had to sleep again. Of course, now she sleeps all the time. She's 25. But what I, you know, the thing is that scientifically, I think it's fascinating that our bodies have to shut down, that our bodies need that break. And you talked about in deep sleep, that's when our bodies do all the repairs and stuff. We know we need to dream. We know that people that don't dream go insane. I mean, literally, you can't— you cannot survive without dreaming. So my personal take on it is, we're spiritual beings in these bodies having this human experience. We can't stand it 24/7. We need a break. And some people say that that's the time we visit the other side, every night when we're sleeping, that we're visiting the other side. So whether you believe that or not, or whether you just really take the night as a time to reboot, you know, our computers can only run for so long, then they have to be rebooted. And the human body needs that. So I love this idea of embracing that, you know, and I know, for people, for me, you know, when you're in grief, this is really ironic. A lot of times, you look forward to that escape, you look forward to being able to close your eyes and shut down. And that's when you can't do it. So that's, that's where this book and your techniques and your understanding, or understanding really help people to claim that time back.

Yeah, thank you. And that's really where I was coming from with the book. I mean, the book took me around 10 years to write, and the reason for that was because there was just so much research and so much academic stuff that people were kind of shipping out in terms of why we don't sleep and what we need to do differently. And in the end, I just decided to talk about it in a way that I teach it, the way that I talk about it, just as I'm talking to you now. If we can just start to normalize some of our experiences is grief. You know, things like understanding people's grief and recognizing it for what it is, and then recognizing that, as just as you said, you know, we need that time to rest and relax. We cannot stay on the treadmill 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We need time to rest and recharge. And so if we can start to normalize some of these conversations, and that's how I talk about it in the book, I just— it's like I'm having a conversation with you. I'm just kind of talking about it in the way that I teach it, and hopefully that will bring people some reassurances that they're not getting grief wrong, that you know, they're finding their own way forward with a difficult time, um, and that there are things out there that might help.

Yeah, I love the style that you wrote the book in because, uh, frankly, that's the— a lot of times the subject can be academic and boring. It's just like you're talking now, you know, you've injected humor into it, um, you've made it, you know, really understandable for people that may— you know, we talk about sleep cycles and REM and, you know, light sleep and deep sleep, that might be— and that might turn some people off. But just understanding that this is normal. We don't just fall asleep and we're knocked out for 8 hours. And if you wake up in the middle of night, it may be because you have to go to the bathroom. It may be because your heat kicked on. Some people are very sensitive to noises. You know, one of the things my wife does is she wears earplugs every night. I was teasing her about it last night. I said, what are you blocking out? And she said, do you hear that, like, noise way off in the distance? And because we live near train tracks. And I'm like, yeah, I hear it, but I just naturally block it out. But her mind goes to whatever she hears. If something's creaking downstairs, you know, the house. So she wears earplugs, and it helps her to sleep better. So maybe we can learn little tips like that.

Yeah, amazing. And I do say, you know, it's finding what works for you and doing more of it. That's, that's essentially it's finding what works for you and doing more of it in a way that feels healthy, you know, and if you think if you play the long game, and you think to yourself, if I keep doing what I'm doing now, where am I going to be in a year's time? Whereas if it's something healthy and helpful, again, asking yourself that question, if I keep doing what I'm doing now— and this is one of the reasons I say to people, just stick with the mindfulness, you know, it's not for everybody, and I know that, and, and certainly you have to pick your moments when you're doing mindfulness, especially if there's trauma associated with your experience, then it's always better to speak to someone before you, you engage with that. But certainly, you know, try and stick with some of the practices, and you might You find over time, um, that things improve.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Delphi, it's been, uh, really wonderful having this conversation with you. Anything you'd like to say as we wrap up today?

No, just thank you so much for, um, this wonderful time with you today. Thank you so much for holding space with me. And if people do want to, um, find out more about the book, it does have its own website. So, um, answersinthedark.com is where people can find it.

Okay, so it has its own website. And your website is delphielis.com, is that correct?

Yeah, that's— they can find it there as well.

Yeah, it's Delphi, D-E-L-P-H-I. And Ellis is E-L-L-I-S. I do recommend the book. I think it's available. And I got a, I got a pre-release copy. Is it out yet?

Yes, it's out tomorrow. So it's, it's on Amazon. And it's on other, it's on other stores as well. So yeah, it's, it should be out tomorrow.

Well, I'm recording this on May 26, which is my birthday, by the way, May 26, 2022. So by the time you hear this, audience, it will be available on Amazon. And I do have a recommend it.

Thank you so much.

All right, Delphi, thanks. Have a great rest of your day.

Thank you. And you.

Thanks for listening to Grief to Growth. Brian hopes that you find this episode helpful, and will come back for future episodes. Brian's bestselling book, Grief to Growth: Planted, Not Buried, is a great resource for anyone who is coping with grief or knows someone who is. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support it, there are 3 things you can do to help. The first is to share the podcast with someone that you think it will help. The second is to go to iTunes, rate and review the episode. The third way you can support the podcast is by becoming a patron. Head over to www.patreon.com/grieftogrowth. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/grieftogrowth. Patreon.com/grief, the number 2, growth, and sign up to make a small monthly donation. Patrons get access to exclusive bonus content and knowledge that you are helping to spread the message of Grief 2 Growth. For more about Brian and Grief 2 Growth, visit www.grief2growth.com.

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