Joseph Murphy - 10 Masterpieces You Have to Read Before You Die 2

Prayer, A Form Of Sleep

Your conscious mind gets involved with vexations, strife and contentions of the day and it is very necessary to withdraw periodically from sense evidence and the objective world, and commune silently with the inner wisdom of your subconscious mind. By claiming guidance, strength and greater intelligence in all phases of your life, you will be enabled to overcome all difficulties and solve your daily problems.

This regular withdrawal from sense evidence and the noise and confusion of everyday living is also a form of sleep, i.e. you become asleep to the world of the senses and alive to the wisdom and power of your subconscious mind.

Startling Effects Of Sleep Deprivation

Lack of sleep can cause you to become irritable, moody and depressed. Dr George Stevenson of the National Association for Mental Health says, “I believe it can safely be said that all human beings a minimum of six hours sleep to be healthy. Most people need more. Those who think they can get along on less are fooling themselves.”

Medial research scholars, investigating sleep processes and deprivation of sleep, point out that severe insomnia has preceded psychotic breakdown in some instances. Remember, you are spiritually recharged during sleep, and adequate sleep is essential to produce joy and vitality in life.

You Need More Sleep

Robert O'Brien, in an article, “Maybe you Need More Sleep,” in an issue of The Reader's Digest , reports the following experiments on sleep:

“For the last three years experiments have been in progress at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, Dc. Subjects – more than one hundred military and civilian volunteers – have been kept awake for as long as four days. Thousands of tests have measured the effects on their behavior and personality. Results of these tests have given scientists astonishingly new insights into the mysteries of sleep.

“They now know that the tired brain apparently craves sleep so hungrily that it will sacrifice anything to get it. After only a few hours of sleep loss, fleeting stolen naps called lapses, or micro sleep, occurred at the rate of three or four an hour. As in real sleep, eyelids dropped and heartbeat slowed. Each lapse lasted just a fraction of a second. Sometimes the lapses were periods of blankness; sometimes they were filled with images, wisps of dreams. As hours of sleep loss mounted, the lapses took place more often and lasted longer, perhaps two or three seconds. Even if the subjects had been piloting an airliner in a thunderstorm, they still couldn't have resisted micro sleeps for those few priceless seconds. And it can happen to you, as many who have fallen asleep at the wheel of a car can testify.

“Another startling effect of sleep deprivation was its attack on human memory and perception. Many sleep deprived subjects were unable to retain information long enough to relate it to the task they were supposed to perform. They were totally befuddled in situations requiring them to hold several factors in mind and act on them, as a pilot must when he skilfully integrates wind direction, air speed, altitude and glide path to make a safe landing.”

Sleep Brings Counsel

A young lade in Los Angeles who listens to my morning radio talks told me that she had been offered a lucrative position in New York City at twice her present salary. She was wondering whether to accept or not and prayed prior to sleep as follows: “The creative intelligence of my subconscious mind knows what is best for me. Its tendency is always lifeward, and it reveals to me the right decision which blesses me and all concerned. I give thanks for the answer which I know will come to me.”

She repeated this simple prayer over and over again as a lullaby prior to sleep and in the morning she had a persistent feeling that she should not accept the offer. She rejected the offer and subsequent events verified that her inward sense of knowing, because the company went bankrupt a few months following their offer of employment to her.

The conscious ind may be correct on the facts objectively known, but the intuitive faculty of her subconscious mind saw the failure of the concern in question and prompted her accordingly.

Saved From Certain Disaster

I will illustrate how the wisdom of your subconscious mind can instruct you and protect you relative to your request for right action as you go to sleep.

Many years ago, before the Second World War, I was offered a very lucrative assignment in the Orient, and I prayer for guidance and right decision as follows: “Infinite Intelligence within me knows all things, and the right decision is revealed to me in divine order. I will recognize the answer when it comes.”

I repeated this simple prayer over and over again as a lullaby prior to sleep and in a dream came the vivid realization of things to come three years hence. An old friend appeared in the dream and said, “Read these headlines – do not go!” The headlines of the newspaper which appeared in the dream related to war and the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Occasionally, the writer dreams literally. The aforementioned dream was undoubtedly a dramatization of the subconscious mind which projected a person whom I trusted and respected. To some a warning may come in the form of a mother who appears in a dream. She tells the person not to go here or there, and the reason for the warning. Your subconscious mind is all-wise. It knows all tings. Oftentimes it will speak to you only in a voice that your conscious mind will immediately accept as true. Sometimes your subconscious mind will warn you in a voice which sounds like that of your mother or some loved one which may cause you to stop on the street, and you find, if you had gone another foot, a falling object from a window might have struck you on the head.

My subconscious mind is one with the universal subconscious and it knew the Japanese were planning a war, and it also knew when the war would start.

Dr Rhine, director of the Department of Psychology at Duke University, has gathered together a vast amount of evidence showing that a great number of people all over the world see events before they happen, and in many instances are, therefore, able to avoid the tragic event which was foreseen vividly in a dream.

The dream I had, showed clearly the headlines in the New York Times about three years prior to the tragedy of Pearl Harbor. In consequence of this dream, I immediately canceled the trip as I felt a subconscious compulsion to do so. Three years later the Second World War proved the truth of the inner voice of intuition.

Your Future Is In Your Subconscious Mind

Remember that the future, the result of your habitual thinking, is already in your mind except when you change it through prayer. The future of a country, likewise, is in the collective subconscious of the people of that nation. There is nothing strange in the dream I had wherein I saw the headlines of the New York newspapers long before the war began. The war had already taken place in mind, and all the plans of attack were already engraved on that great recording instrument, the subconscious mind or collective unconscious of the universal mind. Tomorrow's events are in your subconscious mind, so are next week's and next month's and they may be seen by a highly psychic or clairvoyant person.

No disaster or tragedy can happen to you if you decide to pray. Nothing is predetermined or foreordained. Your mental attitude, i.e. the way you think, feel and believe determines your destiny. You can, through scientific prayer, which is explained in a previous chapter, mold, fashion and create your own future. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap .