The Magic of Sleep Thinking: How to Solve Problems, Reduce Stress, and Increase Creativity While You Sleep

by Eric Maisel, Natalya Maisel

Imagine solving problems and increasing creativity  while you sleep ! Grounded in current brain research, this book introduces a simple but revolutionary program that shows how to do just that by learning to tune into your brain's deepest intuitions. Case studies of ordinary people demonstrate how to use sleep thinking to tackle anxiety, weight gain, anger management issues, poor school grades, and more through a bit of self-inquiry, new bedtime and morning routines, and a few other lifestyle changes and additions.
Dr. Eric Maisel presents clear, useful information relevant to anyone working through any sort of personal, creative, or career-related. Readers learn how to use their own brainpower to extract important information from sleep thinking, yielding answers that lead to actions and actions that lead to change.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help

241 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 20, 2018

About the author

Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is the author of more than 40 books in the areas of creativity, coaching, mental health, and cultural trends. He is a psychotherapist and creativity coach, and writes for Psychology Today and Professional Artist Magazine and presents workshops internationally.

Reviews

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange book. Though there does seem that there is something deeper to reflect upon here. This book is how to do something called “sleep thinking “ which is the phenomena in where purportedly sleep can bring about the answers to personal riddles.

The connection between sleep and answer solving seems to have a long line of anecdotal support amongst scientists, philosophers, writers, engineers and on it goes. From the famous dreams of Descartes where he was struck with eureka moments , to the discovery the nature of the hearts electrical chemical signaling - the dreams of thinkers supposedly lay at the answers.

And this book tries to give you some techniques. Do they work? Unclear. Have I tried any? No. But I’m interested by the idea, however taboo it may be. I would love to see studies - even if the methodology would be a pain.

Recommended :
Those curious feeling interested in something a little bit different

[Danielle Huddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A MUST read book for every human!

I don't even know where to start praising this book... it covers every conceivable detail to productively sleep think in a reader friendly format of story telling, informing and teaching techniques that made my process of beginning sleep thinking work easy and fun while I gained immediate results and am expecting to gain more and more as I follow the well laid out steps of sleep thinking. I am so grateful I came across this book!

[Book Him Danno · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am like many I can't seem to sleep. It escapes me nightly to the point I think myself taking cat naps throughout the day.

I have tried everything and when I mean everything I mean EVERYTHING. new bed, new pillows, moving the bed,, sleeping pills over the counter and prescription. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't work.
When I saw this book as a chance not only to review but to try something new.
I can't say this book had anything I hadn't already tried but it did give me some insight into why I might not be sleeping as well as I hoped it.

I give some of the ideas a shot and while they didn't always work I think stress is a huge reason why sleep escapes so many and this book as quite a few ideas I want to try though out the next year in hopes I will be able to add to this review.
Thank you to Netgalley an the publisher for the advance copy

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting in ways to prime yourself to solve problems or gain insights through your dreams. I want to read this thru again.

[Josh Clement · Rating 2 out of 5]

The gist: if you go to bed thinking about some question that you really want answered, sooner or later you will get an answer.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the the title implies, this book contains a lot of pointers and techniques for solving all kinds of problems (and therefore reducing stress), change personality traits and awaken your creativity. How? by guiding, training or simply letting your brain do what it naturally does best: problem-solving. Even if this book might seem to be focused on thinking while sleeping, it also gives tips and exercises for solving problems while you are awake. If you have read about NLP, reframing, lucid dreaming or cognitive psychology (to name a few) then the contents of this book might feel familiar to you at one point or another.

This book consists mostly of case examples of people using sleep thinking to solve an issue. Eric Maisel presents a 18 steps program to facilitate the natural sleep thinking process of the brain. There are so many examples, that I would expect that you can identify with at least one of them or with their problem (problems about roomates, changing jobs, socializing, teenager doing drugs, dealing with step-kids, artists, writers, etc). In my case, I was a bit disappointed as I was expecting a more factual approach focusing on the method, background and troubleshooting without using so many case examples that, at some point, started feeling more like positive testimonials or as a way to convince that sleep thinking works (which I know it does, because I have intuitively done it, and therefore got bored at most of the story parts, which were a lot). However, I did find the method and tips given of great help in general, specially the six anxiety-management strategies, think in 20s exercise and 12 tips for upgrading your personality. As you can see, it gives advice for happiness and well-being in general, not just sleep thinking, so it suits best those who want an easy to understand self-help book, specially if you are new to this subject. However, If you are looking for a scholarly/ scientific approach, I wouldn't recommend this one, this is more a hands-on practical book. So, if the latter is what you are looking for, by all means read it. I got my eArc from NetGalley