I would like to solicit others' experiences with regard to kundalini and sleep. Has kundalini changed anyone's sleeping patterns? For the last several years I have been unable to sleep through the night. At best, I wake up several times a night feeling hot, drink water, which seems to cool me down, and fall back asleep. At worst, I have to eat a snack in the middle of the night, because my stomach has the feeling of emptiness and starts sending signals to my head. Sometimes it's very hard to fall back asleep, and yet I seem still to need around 8 hours per night, and have to take naps the next day to catch up. Though I've experienced many good things as a result of k. energy, it's hard to see this as a grace -- it's disruptive. The k. awakening occurred about 10 years ago, and the sleep stuff started about 5 years ago. I'm also become much more sensitive to noise and little movements -- have to sleep with earplugs. I'm only 33, so I don't think this is due to age. Any advice or commiseration welcome. The feeling of heat in the body and the stomach/head connection tell me that this is k. related.

PG, that's really young for a K awakening. I can imagine that your senses and physiology become over-stimulated.

You don't mention any meditation practices you're doing at this time in life. If any, does reducing them, or doing them earlier in the day help? How about exercising?

For a sleep-aid, you might consider taking Melatonin; it's the body's own "sleep drug," so it's pretty safe.

No problem sleeping, here, but I've experienced all of what you're describing at times.

Thank you for the response. I will give the melatonin a try.

I do meditate. I was raised Christian, but the awakening began in the context of hearing talks on eastern philosophy and became full blown when I tried meditation. Several years later I returned to Chistianity and decided to become Catholic. I have continued meditating/praying through the years, though not always with the same regularity, but the energy remains active regardless. Contemplative prayer seems to help it advance through the various blocks, and this does lead to greater self-knowledge and freedom. I find Keating's books helpful b/c I have experienced some intense moments of "unloading." I do feel ambivalent about the K. energy sometimes, though, because of these sleep issues. My metabolism was high before the K. started, so perhaps this would have happened anyway. Who knows. Life seems to involve a lot of unknowns. Your book has been helpful through the years. In all, I don't think I would reverse things, because the energy has healed and still continues to heal me of many undesirable qualities (along the lines of what you describe in your book) and makes me more aware in my dealings with others. It is strange sometimes, though, to be living with this thing that isn't even on the radar screen of most people (including people like my parents, to whom I've never mentioned it). I also wonder sometimes whether I'll ever get through all the blocks to divine union. Your experience was more concentrated, perhaps because you spent so many hours of each day in prayer. My life does not currently allow this.

P.S. Exercise does help ease the transition into sleep, but it doesn't resolve the waking up and needing to drink water or eat.

PG, I wish I could tell you that all was well with me and K process, but it's nowhere close to all being "resolved." I just don't bother to talk about this stuff with too many people, for as you noted, what good would that do. I view this as part of the cross I am to bear in my life and have come to accept that there will always be wierdness of some kind going on within me -- that this is "normal." So the thing to do is to learn what helps, and what frustrates; it's just that practical.

A few people I know have found it necessary to cut back on centering prayer, as it over-stimulates the process. You might read the thread in Christian Spirituality Issues, especially some of the links in the opening post.

I've had times when hunger and thirst were obstacles to sleep. What I did was keep a piece of peanut-buttered bread by the bed, along with a glass of water. When/if I needed to eat it, I just did. Within minutes, I was able to sleep again.

So you do what you gotta do to get by.

Yes, I have taken breaks from meditation at times, and I find now that the unloading is often triggered by experiences in daily life, vs. occurring in meditation. Meditation has become a way of allowing what has already been triggered to come forth, whether it be something consoling or something that needs letting go. Then again, I do still find that meditation helps maintain a level of inner calm. Still, I agree that too much is not good.

Would you say that you are grateful, on the whole, for the fact that k. energy emerged?

That's a good question, PG. Through the years, this process has become so much of a "given" in my life that I don't think much of it in terms of gratitude or not. The predominant attitude I have is one of acceptance.

If I could have chosen whether or not to have this, I would not have chosen it.

If others ask me if they should "go for it," I tell them NO!

I think it best if a process like this chooses us, especially in the context of one's spiritual growth. Then, it will do its work unto that end, and there I have to say that it has done some wonderful things.

Because of the kundalini process working under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (I hope and pray, at least), I have been healed of anxiety, shame, resentment, and other poisons that provide fuel for the false self system. This doesn't mean I am free from sin, perfect, etc., only that the energies pushing the compulsivity of the false self have been removed. Therefore, I have more inner freedom and a clarity of awareness that was missing before the process began. I also have more habitual experience of intuitive insight, which was strong before, but which now seems to be my normative modus operundi. So this is all good, to be sure, and if the only way to come to this freedom and clarity is through the fires of kundalini, then, yes, it is very good.

OTOH, I live with certain limitations that I did not have before. There is the experience of what I call "instant karma" in that I pay immediately for indiscretions of thought, diet, reading, etc. The constraints are not so narrow as to prohibit something of a normal life to unfold, but they do prevent me from "going and doing" the way most people do. A quiet, simple lifestyle seems best, but that isn't always easy to realize in this culture, nor with a job and family. Still, on the whole, I am mostly able to look after my needs, and any negative consequences I experience are not usually the fault of external circumstances, but of my own indiscretions.

I hope this helps.

Phil,

Thank you for these reflections. I find my experience to be very similar, and it's reassuring to hear what your experience is like further into the process -- that it's not radically different. I share the ambivalence and sometimes anxiety about not living a "normal" life -- I sometimes wish I had more room to maneuver. But I'm also finding that the energy has likely caused me to pay more attention to my physical and mental health. For example, last night a few minutes after getting in bed, I noticed some random energies that felt like anxiety going from my stomach to my head. I knew from experience that if I didn't get up and meditate b/f bed, in order to "clear out" whatever it was, I'd wake up four hours later with more intense anxiety. So I meditated, went to bed, and was fine. Since I started this thread, I've been more assiduous about getting out into the sun early in the day, exercising, and eating frequently, (as well as occasionally meditating) and the combo is helping me sleep better. I still have to wake up to drink water once or twice, but I find that I'm not having to snack as much in the middle of the night. Thank you for the comraderie via this discussion board -- I think it's helped.

Heh, yes -- better pay attention to those quirky things that show up and need to be resolved through prayer / meditation. If not, it could be a long night or a bad day the next day.

I share the ambivalence and sometimes anxiety about not living a "normal" life -- I sometimes wish I had more room to maneuver.

Exactly! But in my case, at least, there are "normal" periods each day which enable me to get some work done and provide for my family.

I've come to accept my situation as providential unto my salvation. I.e., who knows what would have become of me without it? Maybe I'd have developed terrible addictions or done serious damage to my family. Whatever the case, accepting the pains and limitations as part of what it means to bear the cross of Christ enables me to situate the process in the context of Christian spirituality. Then there are the gifts that have come with it, as mentioned above, which are very nice indeed!

Yes, I have normal periods each day too. Otherwise I don't know what I'd think of it.

I think in my case it was providential too. Like you I didn't seek this out. I didn't even know what it was when it first happened, and it happened around the third time I meditated! And I started to get the symptoms the first time I ever attended a spiritual talk. Seems something was itching to happen, in other words. And it happened at a period in my life when I was feeling very worn out with my habitual ways of seeking happiness. Immediately after the awakening my awareness of my inauthentic tendencies increased. Had this not happened, I think I could really have gone down some wrong paths, including failing to marry my spouse, which I really would have regretted. In the wake of the awakening there opened for me a sense of vocation that I had not yet had, and eventually I found my way into catholicism, which has been a blessing on the whole. The journey hasn't been entirely smooth -- but this is usually due to lingering negative habits/unhealed aspects of myself. This past winter I went through a real dark night, brought on by a big external change -- for the better -- but a big change in my life. I hadn't been doing much meditation for the past few months, but I resumed it during this upheaval and it really got me through. I think the change had triggered a deep anxiety from childhood or something. Anyway letting the energy work in prayer really brought me through, and I feel it's been a breakthrough of some sort, because I have a deeper awareness of when anxiety is ruling my perspective and am now less likely to let it drive me into unproductive behaviors and more likely to bring it to prayer for healing. The unloading was intense -- as though I was vomiting up something from my stomach, as you see in some depictions of Hindu gods. Something really had to get out. Again, I hadn't been meditating for some months, and really resisted doing it at first when the anxiety came on -- I wanted to run the other way from my psyche!! But once I sort of let myself "sink into" the emotion (when all else failed!), the process of unloading seemed to take over and I felt better when I let it. It was quite a relief. This happened over a period of weeks and then subsided (not all day every day, of course -- but when I felt it coming on I'd retreat for a few minutes and let it unload).

Kundalin energy has changed my sleep completely. I often have full awareness while I sleep. I find it interesting that I can sit back and watch my mind think and dream without having a level of attachment. My sleep has also been reduced a lot. Like 4 hours a night at the most.

Thanks for sharing, PG. It sounds like, all in all, there's been some good fruit coming from this process for you. Those who equate kundalini with the work of the devil might be surprised to find that, in your case, it helped bring you to marriage and Catholicism.

One thing I've found is that this process is incompatible with stress and emotional pain; it wants to move it out of our system. This includes old stuff and the new disorders that we continually generate. Making time for prayer / meditation has become part of my daily schedule to stay close to God, but also for what I call "energy hygeine." If things build up, there can be some truly bizarre somatic phenomena. There doesn't seem to be with me much of an ability to stuff things down any more; it just wants to come right out, sometimes as a kind of nausea, as you noted as well.

Thanks for reading thread and for these comments. It helps me know how others manage this.

Phil, you say you would not have chosen this experience if you had the choice. I have to say the opposite for me.

You seem to have been a very thoughful spiritual person before yours started. I however was a cold-hearted loser. I was destined for hell.

This experience woke me up. I have since then found Christ and made significant changes in my life.

I don't take things for granted anymore and everyday appears to be another miracle of life. I am like a junkie, I can never get enough.

I had to go to a sleep specialist and he prescribed
sunlight between 8-8:30 AM and melatonin for my diagnosis of phase-delay. (Nothing to do with Rep.
Tom DeLaye, but more insidious.) Mellow tone-in
produced unusually vivid dreams but left me feeling
hung-over, as did the Valerian Root. Oh, well...