It is a basic insight in ACT that irrespective what body sensations, feelings or thoughts which occupy us, we can accept that and focus on our values and chose our ACTions and behaviour accordingly.
The problem with insomnia is that sleep is not a behaviour, nothing we can “behave” but a state of consciousness. Of course we can use exercises as muscular relaxation, mindfulness focusing on the body, as body scan or breathing which can relax us an increase the tendency to fall asleep. But it is clearly stated e.g. that in body scan we shall not fall asleep but be awake. Focus on body and breath will not led all the way to sleep, because in sleep we don’t experience, at least not normally, neither the body nor the breathing.
But I think there is a mindfulness exercise, which can bring us even closer to sleep.
When we close our eyes we see, so to speak, behind our eyelids lighted and shaded areas.
If we focus on these phenomena exactly as we do in the raisin exercise, that is focus on the seeing of lighted and shaded areas in all minute details and not evaluating or thinking about what we see, it is my experience that sometimes this can lead to more picture like phenomena. And sometimes more dreamlike sequences which can lead into dream sleep and so in to the cycles of sleep.
I have tested this exercise with a few clients, one with pain often preventing sleep, and it worked sometimes.
It is my hope that others in the ACT community will find this simple exercise worth testing and even develop it further.
Jan Pilotti
M.D. Child and Adolescent psychiatrist
B.Sc. Mathematics, Theoretical physics
Örebro Sweden
PS See also the clear and valuable article Lundh, L.G. (2005). The role of acceptance and mindfulness in the treatment of insomnia. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 19, 29-39. http://contextualscience.org/Lundh_2005
I think the excercise above can be used in the broader setting which the article clearly present.