198: Dr. Jacob Liberman, Author & Pioneer in Light, Vision & Consciousness: How to Rewire Your Brain & Let Go for Better Sleep

Welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast. My name is Molly Eastman. I am the founder of sleep as a skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change as an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world. thinks about sleep.

‍

Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness.

‍

And I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today. To transform your circadian health. And by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before. 

‍

Welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast. Can light transform the way you sleep, think, and live in this episode of the sleep is a skill podcast. I'm beyond excited to welcome Dr. Jacob Lieberman, a true pioneer in the fields of light, vision, and consciousness. His groundbreaking work has been endorsed by some of the biggest names in health and spirituality, including Deepak Chopra.

‍

Bruce Lipton and Eckhart Tolle, Dr. Lieberman's work, luminous life, how the science of light unlocks the art of living, explores how light guides are every step influencing everything from our circadian rhythms to our state of mind. In this conversation, we uncover. How sunlight exposure can dramatically improve your sleep and stress levels.

‍

The connection between vision consciousness and intuition, why aligning with natural light cycles is the missing piece to better health, how he naturally reversed his own vision loss without glasses since 1976. And this episode is not just about sleep. It's about rethinking how we interact with light and the profound effects it has on our body, mind, and emotions.

‍

You won't want to miss this one. Now, real quick, we're going to jump right into the podcast, but first, a few words from our sponsors. Please check them out. They keep this podcast alive and running. Important question. Can you see the hand in front of your face in your bedroom? If so, you need to hear about our sponsor who is revolutionizing the blackout shade space and finally making it easy and affordable to get a truly blacked out bedroom.

‍

So challenging in the past, right? So introducing you block out the ultimate solution for creating the perfect sleep environment, ensuring total darkness, comfort, and control. So why you block out in particular? Well, a hundred percent blackout guarantee comes with this product provides temperature comfort all year round.

‍

So you keep your room warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. You block out helps in enhancing your sleep quality by maintaining a comfortable temperature, regardless of the season. Acoustic noise reduction. Enjoy a quieter sleeping environment with uBlockout Shades designed to minimize external sounds that can disrupt your peace.

‍

Ideal for urban dwellers or anyone looking to reduce noise pollution. Customizable and easy to install. Tailored to fit your space with a simple 30 minute installation process, uBlockout makes it hassle free to achieve the perfect sleep setting, ensuring your bedroom is a Sanctuary for sleep and for listeners of the sleep is a skill podcast, use the code sleep is a skill for exclusive 10 percent off and embark on the journey to unparalleled sleep quality.

‍

Remember light is the number one external factor affecting our sleep with you block out. You're not just investing in a blackout shade. You're investing in your health, well being and quality of life. So again, go to you block out spelled the letter you. block out and use code sleep as a skill for a discount. 

‍

What if you could actively calm your nervous system, reduce stress and set yourself up for deeper, more restorative sleep all while just lying down? Well, that's exactly what the align PMF mat does. And by the way, I've become. With this thing, my husband is always making fun of me because now all of our evenings are filled with me laying on this thing, but we know that stress and nervous system dysregulation are major culprits behind poor sleep.

‍

The alignment harnesses the power of PMF post electromagnetic field therapy to help lower cortisol, enhance relaxation and improve recovery. All essential for better deep sleep and waking up feeling truly restored. This isn't just another wellness gadget. PMF therapy is backed by science with research showing its ability to boost deep sleep, reduce inflammation and improve circulation.

‍

When I use the align mat before bed, I can literally feel my body unwinding like a. Full nervous system reset. If you're looking to supercharge your sleep support, stress, resilience, and optimize recovery, this is a tool worth trying. So head on over to my alignmat. com and use code sleep as a skill for 10 percent off, and let me know how it transforms your sleep.

‍

I'd love to hear your experience. And welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast. I know I'm often saying that I'm excited for the guests that we have on, but I'm truly, I'm really excited for this guest. And even before hitting record, I just was taken aback by his presence and wisdom. And I know you're going to really experience the same and so much more.

‍

So I'm excited to get into this conversation today. So Jacob, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. 

‍

Molly, it is a great pleasure. 

‍

Oh, well, the pleasure is mine as well, so this is gonna be fun. Of course, we were chatting about how this is called the Sleep as a Skill podcast, so maybe you can start, someone, at the beginning of how this big, huge conversation of, you know, light, consciousness, etc.,

‍

how you got into it, and then how that could bridge into this topic of sleep. 

‍

You know, everyone speaks about seeing the light. Or a light going off  in the head.  Uh, but very few people have any sense  of what light is.  We relate to light when we turn on the switch  in our offices or our bedrooms or our homes. 

‍

We relate to light when we go outside.  And our,  our body has a sigh of relief  the moment we step outside.  And we feel that light from the sun, but most people don't realize that every physiological function is light dependent,  that we respond to light  in many ways, just like a plant.  

‍

Yes. 

‍

A plant literally orients itself to receive  the optimal  dose of light that it requires. 

‍

And humans are also in a different way looking for the light when we think of light, we think of eyesight, we think of vision, because 98 percent of the light we receive enters via the portal called eyes,  what they call the windows of the soul,  and that light goes to many parts of the brain, but one part that's called the Seat of the Soul, the Peniel. 

‍

So, light  is a huge  topic that's incredibly mysterious. 

‍

Hmm. 

‍

Keep in mind that when the Bible speaks of light, They say the creative force, what many people refer to as God, is light. And then they describe light,  or they describe God,  as being something that is all powerful, all knowing, and everywhere at the same time. 

‍

What's fascinating is that when physicists look at the behavior of photons,  they seem to know exactly what's going on.  They seem to be everywhere at the same time,  and they seem to be able to behave in ways  that when we look at it, or when we examine it, we say, that's impossible. So, whether one is looking at light  in a religious fashion, or from a scientific perspective, or from a spiritual perspective,  where consciousness is equated with light,  You find that everybody's talking about the same thing, just using slightly different words.

‍

And so, um, I got intrigued by light  in 1971 when I was still in the. In the midst of my medical training and,  uh, had a young child that came into the clinic that I was assigned to work with  that had what they call the lazy eye or amblyopia.  And I used a technique  of light in that eye and within a short period of time was able to revive their vision to something we call normal or natural. 

‍

So I got intrigued by that.  I started utilizing light in the early 70s. My first real patient was my mother,  who had lost the eyesight in one eye,  and  had been under six different ophthalmologists for care  for about nine months.  And finally, my father said that I could see her. Wow. Because, you know, in your own family, you're never an expert.

‍

Yes, of course.  

‍

And  we were able to  regain. My mother was able to regain a significant part of her eyesight. Her emotional state  changed very dramatically.  And her life just opened up again. So, first of all, light is invisible.  You cannot see  light.  You experience brightness. But  that  Invisible energy of light is considered the foundational energy from where life emerges. 

‍

And 

‍

so the renowned theoretical quantum physicist David Bohm, who was considered Einstein's spiritual son,  said all matter is frozen light. 

‍

Everything 

‍

that  we experience as solid,  Is actually light energy that through some mysterious means  related to the perceptual mechanism that we have and this area of consciousness, which a lot of people speak about and very few people have a direct experience of  through some mysterious means. 

‍

Light is alchemized into life, and so I got involved in this  when I was in the vision care field, both as a clinician and vision scientist,  where it all took me  is this inseparable,  uh, state  between life  and light.  And what I discovered is how we relate to the spectrum of light.  Or a clearer way might be how we relate to different colors  is directly related to how we relate to different experiences. 

‍

And so in the very late 70s, when I first noticed that  everyone seemed to have colors they like and colors they dislike.  And everyone said, well, this color does this and this color does that. And I immediately knew that it couldn't work this way.  Any more than saying that everyone will respond to an apple in the same way. 

‍

We just don't.  Our response to something  is not related to there being some inherent quality in that something.  It's related to our relationship with it, or our receptivity to it.  And so,  when I first noticed this,  um,  I started noticing that people react.  In certain ways with colors they're comfortable with, and very differently with colors they're not. 

‍

And so in the late 70s, when biofeedback was becoming rather interesting, I bought a whole array of physiological monitoring equipment  and would hook my patients and friends up to this and then would have them visualize colors or look at colors and I discovered something really fascinating.  When we looked or visualized or imagined a color,  That we felt at ease with  our bodies responded  by a  sigh of relief  and our physiology just  calming down. 

‍

But when we look at or imagine colors that for whatever reason we were uncomfortable with  our body to one degree or another  would get activated into what we call the classical stress reaction. 

‍

Hmm. 

‍

And so I  took that discovery  and I've been working  with color or different portions of the light spectrum  and how people relate to them  to help desensitize them from  things in life  that catalyze stress that  that move them from a state of ease  To a state of dis ease  and  that's a lot of the work that I've been doing for many, many years.

‍

I mean, initially  I was list utilizing light by way of the eyes to treat all kinds of vision conditions and so on.  But then when I realized that light had a much deeper, deeper impact.  Initially it was, wow, can we improve vision?  But then I realized, wow,  this could change a lifetime.  And that's when it got really interesting for me. 

‍

And. When I used to train doctors,  I found that this was, there was an interesting response to this. People were incredibly intrigued by their own direct experience to this,  but most of them wouldn't invite it into their practices  because. It was deeper  than where they felt comfortable going.  It didn't require  bandaging up a symptom. 

‍

It had to do with  being there with someone  when someone is really going through a very difficult place.  And discovering that our body has a homing device  and that when  something takes us into an area that's unknown,  there's also something in our physiological GPS that brings us back home.  

‍

And so 

‍

there's a lot to discover about human nature  that you never learn  in chemistry or biology  or even in most clinical practices, because so much of medicine and so much of healing these days is about symptomatic relief. 

‍

It's about doing something  when everything in our system actually gets done without us.  So that's the journey that I've been on. I've  been fortunate enough to have some very profound  experiences in the process. Everything from  a profound transformation in my vision  that took me from years of wearing glasses  To now not having worn glasses since 1976,  

‍

and 

‍

I, I should tell your listeners that I'm 77. 

‍

So, uh,  this was not a momentary shift.  This was  something far, far deeper.  And what's was fascinating about my own,  um,  eyesight improvement  is it occurred  without any physical changes to my eyes.  

‍

Wow. It's incredible. 

‍

And so you say,  what did he just say?  So let me just repeat it again. We've been led to believe, and I was led to believe,  that you see with your eyes.

‍

But when all of a sudden  you can see 300 percent better and the prescription of your eyes hasn't changed a bit. Then you begin to question, what is the source of our seeing? Now, that same question  has been posed by spiritualists 

‍

for thousands of years.  But typically they don't say,  where are we seeing from? They want to identify  what or who is the seer.  

‍

And 

‍

so the question is, Who am I?  Who actually is there?  And,  of course, that takes us into a journey of  differentiating who we think we are and who is actually there.  In other words, differentiating  the persona,  which essentially means mask. 

‍

Which is the mask all of us  have been conditioned to wear  in order to be accepted in life, in order to be successful, in order to be admired. Whatever the terminology is,  but persona comes from the Latin persona, which means to peer through. In other words, the essence of the person is not the mask, but that which is peering through.

‍

And so my journey from all of this  was to discover  who or what is seeing and.  Where is that final set of eyes, if you will?  So  the last, um,  50 years of my life  have been about that.  Uh, it's included, um,  a lot of experiences.  That,  um, exemplified for me  this inseparable connection between what we call mind and body, which is foundational to  the whole field of mind body medicine.

‍

And,  but what's fascinating for me  is not how a state of mind  can be reflected in a state of body.  What's really of interest to me  is that  what occurs. When there's no point of view, in other words, when the seeing is not occurring through the filtration  of mind  where you have a direct experience,  another word for that is unfiltered awareness.

‍

Wow.  It's 

‍

not  people speak of unfiltered awareness and they use the expression mindfulness. Right. But mindfulness is the opposite of unfiltered awareness. It's really mindlessness. That's the place I currently reside in  a good bit of the time. And what's beautiful about it is that you realize that there's really nothing to think about. 

‍

And you begin to discover  that most of what we call thinking  is actually worrying.  And then if you're fortunate,  you begin to see what  this chatter is that we're hearing a lot,  and  you discover the truth  about what mind is, or what thinking is, and so on.  Now I realize that we've just entered a whole  terrain  that is rather broad, but  Why it is so important  is  the state in which we live in  is also the state in which we sleep in. 

‍

And so  to have a peaceful night's rest,  it's also important to have a peaceful day's existence.  And our relationship with life.  Must be harmonious.  I mean, there are all kinds of techniques we use for all kinds of things.  But techniques have a short lifespan. I've noticed 

‍

the real,  uh, discovery  is  how to have a successful life.  Not so much about how much money can we make?  How many awards can I get?  How many of this I can do?  You know, since the time we were all small, Molly, everyone asked the question, well, what are you going to be when you grow up,  as if what you are  is not. 

‍

Yet anything of significance. And so  we learn how to  be whatever we think we're supposed to be.  And the other question is, well, what do you do?  Hardly anyone asks  what moves you in your life?  You know, what brings a tear to your eye?  And  this is all really, really, really important, because  we have approached everything  mentally,  but we do not experience our experiences, our direct experiences,  That cannot really be described by words.

‍

Language is a very poor substitute  for life.  I mean, if we all go to an Italian restaurant,  we might see the word pizza. Right. But the word pizza has absolutely nothing  To do with the experience of biting into pizza,  nothing to do with it.  The word love has nothing to do with the experience of melting with someone. 

‍

So yet we've come to equate  language,  which is not very accurate to try to describe  a direct experience.  And this is probably why when we.  Express these things. We say, I think  I think means I don't know.  

‍

Yeah.  

‍

And the reason we don't know is because a translation  think life gets lost in the translation. 

‍

And what we call mind.  It's essentially, uh, the language center in the left hemisphere of the brain  that attempts to attach language  to something that's undescribable.  It attempts to put language on an intuitive experience.  And  the reason it is intuitive,  which essentially means  we see something, but the something is actually not there. 

‍

We sense something  that has yet not  taken form, if you will.  In other words,  we're seeing the invisible.  And Jonathan Swift said, Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.  And you listen to that and you say, Well, that's a nice expression.  But actually, he's 100 percent accurate.  And accurate, even physiologically,  uh, the back of the eye, the retina of the eye  is made up of millions of photosensitive cells, cells  that respond to light. 

‍

95 percent of those cells are very spaciously placed on the retina. They're called rods.  Rods are very often used. In night vision?  And they are  so sensitive  that it's almost difficult to measure that level of sensitivity.  5 percent of those cells are called cones.  Those are the ones you experience when you go to the eye doctor for your yearly exam and they put that instrument in front of your face and they say, which is better, number one or number two? 

‍

Yes.  

‍

Those The cones  are the discerning  or the judging part of the eye and brain, you could call it. It's like the mind's eye, but it's the mind's eye. Exactly. 

‍

And  

‍

it is what,  what it's designed for  is to carefully look at something when there's a  possibility that danger.  Is there that my survival is at risk. 

‍

So the intuitive part,  I'll tell you how sensitive it is. The rods of the eyes  are not only the most sensitive cells that exist in terms of their sensitivity to light.  There are no cells more sensitive to light than the rods.  And those cells are more sensitive than any technology we have ever created  that measures light. 

‍

Rods can detect and respond to a single photon.  Now, a photon is totally invisible, 

‍

so  we're designed to detect and respond  to the invisible. Why would you have something like that in place? Because It is so our survival  is important and so this part of the eye, which I, I sense is the heart of our intuitive system  is inseparable from our survival  and that intuition  for me are like the spokes on a wheel  that all meet at the hub  and the hub  is what I believe connects all living things. 

‍

And my sense is that's the source of what we call common sense.  Wow. The reason it's common is it's common to all living things,  and it's something that's inseparable from our survival. So the reason I'm sharing these things is so often you hear today, Oh, you just need to change your beliefs.  If you look up the word belief, it means the same as idea, thought,  hypothesis, concept, or theory.

‍

If you look up the antonyms  of belief, words that mean the opposite, you're very surprised because one of the words right there is truth.  In other words, belief means the opposite of truth.  Belief is a mental construct. 

‍

The  

‍

mind deals in belief.  Intuition  senses that which is or is not.  In other words, Intuition is to detect what's real, not what we think is real. 

‍

Why this is so important is we, we've spent our whole life  believing that we were more evolved than the rest of the creatures because  we could think and with thought you make choices and then there's right choices and wrong choices and  without spending too much time on that.  Um, I've discovered something about being choiceless.

‍

Choicelessness is contentment. 

‍

So true. Oof. 

‍

It's not about I like this one and I don't like this one.  It takes you beyond feeling good because something good happened  into a state of contentment  and most of my life  is guided by that intuitive sense  that I can't actually describe to you, but  I sense things  very often.

‍

This is a daily occurrence for me.  I will sense something or I will sense. Something about someone that I've never seen before  and something moves me  to,  to share with them  because  when I see someone  and their actions are actions of kindness  or.  Whatever it is that they're doing, they do  impeccably,  maybe bringing food to the table or bringing you your coffee or tea or whatever. 

‍

I am literally moved  to share with them  that I see them,  that I see the impeccability 

‍

that moves them.  And these actions are not things that we do.  They are literally what moves us even right now. Oh,  people listening might say, Oh, that's an interesting thing he said,  this is the secret. I haven't said anything,  things, things are coming through,  but I have no idea what the source is 

‍

or 

‍

how even it occurs.

‍

And the exciting thing about this.  It's I've had the pleasure aside from things like podcasts and online  programs and presentations, I've had the pleasure of speaking in front of live audiences  all over the world,  a little more than a couple thousand times. It all happens without any preparation.  If you mentioned a PowerPoint, I wouldn't know how to create one. 

‍

And people say, you mean you wing it? We were born to wing it.  It is in,  it is in coming in empty handed  that our life is filled with the experience, the direct experience  that literally calls all the wiring of our system to upgrade. Every experience literally  Updates and upgrades the software of our humanity  and not knowing  essentially means  you come in empty handed, you come in,  uh, with the blackboard  ready for something, but not full  

‍

of 

‍

something. 

‍

And  it's an incredibly powerful experience.  Uh, you all of a sudden find that less of your life is about what's going on out there  and more of your life is noticing things that  maybe we noticed as small children, but we forgot,  which is that there's a continual interaction going on  between whatever is moving this body  and this full system  and what is animating this universe,  whatever is moving the planets, is also moving us. 

‍

The planets do not move themselves. The trees do not move themselves. Even the animals don't move themselves. They are literally being moved.  We've come to interfere.  We have been trained our whole life  to make things happen.  But things are all happening on their own.  They were happening before we entered life. 

‍

And they will continue happening after we,  we are no longer here.  And  the freedom  is in the discovery of what's actually occurring.  And this is what gives us a good night's sleep. 

‍

If you've tuned into the show or followed any of our content here at Sleep is a Skill, you may have heard that everyone that we work with, where's the or ring.

‍

And as a result, we have amassed a very large database of or ring users and get to see what really moves the needle for people when it comes to their sleep measurably. Now, because we have so much data around sleep optimization, many ask what they can do to improve their sleep quality. And for years, my answer has been that one of the few things I've seen makes such an.

‍

overnight difference is the use of a quality cooling mattress topper, not just any ordinary topper that claims to be cooling with like gels or what have you, but an actual cooling topper that uses water and can be dynamically adjusted to suit your unique needs and preferences. And this is why I am so excited to announce that 8 Sleep is now an official sponsor of the podcast.

‍

I have tested various cooling mattress toppers and fan systems over the years, and none of them have come close to the innovative and customizable, seamless nature of the eight sleep system. Not only does it have an autopilot feature to intelligently adjust the temperature of the topper to work in alignment with your body's needs, but it also has additional features that truly set it apart.

‍

So with eight sleep, you can enjoy advanced sleep tracking, allowing you to monitor key metrics like heart rate, heart rate, variability, and sleep stages, all integrated seamlessly into the app. It also has a dual zone temperature control, which means that you and your partner can each set your own ideal sleep temperature.

‍

Plus the gentle rise wake up technology uses temperature and vibration to wake you up gently and naturally avoiding the jarring sound of an alarm, but it doesn't stop there. There's more, more, more. So the system even includes a smart alarm feature that wakes you up during your lightest. sleep phase. I know a lot of people have asked me about this and this is included in here within a customizable time window, ensuring you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to start your day.

‍

And for those of you who struggle with snoring, eight sleep has an anti snore feature that adjusts your sleep environment in real time to help reduce snoring and improve overall sleep quality. So this is truly a game changer for anyone serious about optimizing their sleep. So if you're ready to take your sleep to the next level, head on over to eight sleep and use the code.

‍

Sleep is a skill, all one word, at checkout for a discount. 

‍

Today, so much conversation is about,  uh,  circadian rhythms, and, um, in other words, it is our connection  with Mother Nature. 

‍

Hmm. 

‍

Now, in 2017, the  Nobel Prize in Medicine, uh, and physiology was won by three US scientists  that discovered the mechanism by which plants and animals and humans optimize  their inner workings. 

‍

By being in an inseparable connection  with the rhythms of day and night.  Now most people think of that, well that's light and darkness, but  circadian or 24 hour rhythms  are changing every second, every microsecond.  Throughout the day, the spectrum of light Is changing  and that is what's activating or deactivating different aspects of our physiology  and since light is invisible,  it is entering through the eyes and through the skin  continually. 

‍

Instructing every cell in the body  in terms of how it needs to orchestrate its internal function  and then synchronize itself  with the dance of life.  In other words, the whole purpose of light. Is to continually lead us into a state of oneness. 

‍

Oneness. Wow, what an interesting concept. That's also called non duality. 

‍

Hmm.  

‍

Those that experience a state of oneness, we say, Oh, they have awoken, or they are enlightened, or whatever. I guess what I'm saying is We,  as a living organism in nature,  we're not living life, we are life.  And what is moving everything is also moving us. 

‍

We have been observing life,  describing a commentary about it, and trying to  have things our way. 

‍

Mm. Yes.  

‍

This thing called mind  keeps creating things. We call them good ideas.  Um,  good ideas  are very interesting.  Looking back to my own life, I realized that good ideas always come with side effects. 

‍

And  

‍

so for me,  it's interesting to note  that  when, um,  life is guiding our movements, those movements do not create side effects. 

‍

It's almost like when you're, when you're trying to move your hand in a, when you're in the ocean or in a pool and you try to move your hand through it,  you feel resistance. The more you push, the more resistance you feel,  but if you just allow the currents to move  your arm or whatever,  you don't experience any resistance. 

‍

When we look at our life,  so much of our life is about dealing with the resistance  that we say we experience without any realization of how  our own  normal but unnatural movements are.  Impact  that, you know, before I mentioned, um,  what happens when there's no point of view  in the, uh, mid eighties,  maybe it was the later eighties, I was, um, invited to do a, an address.

‍

At a psychology conference  and, um,  it had to do with a lot of the things I've been speaking about and my work with color  and, uh, at the completion of, of the sharing, uh, people raise their hands to ask questions and I, there was, um, a young lady in the audience and I called on her  and,  um, she,  She said she was very intrigued with what I was saying about color and so on,  uh, and how  it seemed to impact people's state. 

‍

And her interest was because she was a neuropharmacologist  that had been working for years  on, um, foundational discoveries having to do with mind body medicine, or what we call psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology.  

‍

Uh. 

‍

And I asked her to speak about what she, you know, was noticing.  And she said, well, essentially, every thought or idea that we identify with is then reflected in the workings of our biology.

‍

And so she said, one's point of view  is inseparable from their state of health. And all of a sudden, what comes out of me, which was probably the first time I ever shared that,  I said, and what happens. If there is no point of view, and she said, Oh, my God,  I've never thought of that.  And she said, is that possible? 

‍

I said, absolutely.  And that, uh, woman and I, uh, became good friends.  And for many, many years, had dozens  of  really incredible discussions.  And her name was Candace Kurt.  And she wrote a marvelous book called Molecules of Emotion.  She was one of the pioneering scientists  from where the whole field of mind body interactions came from.

‍

Wow. 

‍

So, these kinds of things  For me,  are very important  because they not only, they not only optimize the quality of our life,  but they optimize the quality of our performance. They optimize the quality of our sleep. Much of my early career  was working with children.  Most of them  were diagnosed with some  vision issues or some sort of issues that were interfering with their learning ability. 

‍

They were called dyslexics or learning disabled or minimally brain dysfunctioned.  We had all kinds of diagnoses. For kids that were brilliant and in working with thousands of these kids, I discovered that it's not the disease that typically kills people. It's the diagnosis. 

‍

Yes. 

‍

It's the label. That even if you can eradicate it from the body, never gets eradicated from the mind  and because we  have been so conditioned to identify ourselves as the mind, it's my mind.

‍

I can change my mind and all that,  that  all those beliefs.  are impossible to get rid of. I learned this from watching my mother, God bless her soul.  She  had to deal with cancer four separate times. And the first one was so severe. That they said she'd live a month. I think she lived another 50 or 51 years.

‍

Wow.  And, um,  what I learned was that  even when the cancer was removed from my mother's body,  every time she had an ache or a pain or a concern, Oh, I wonder if the big C is back. 

‍

Hmm. 

‍

And so  when we label children,  With some term that indicates they have a problem learning, when in most cases,  they're learning in a way that's natural for them, but may be different than what we use in our educational system, it's such a violation.

‍

It cripples them. They become adults. With a very  concretized belief, something is wrong with me.  

‍

And we see that with sleep, too. So people that say, oh, I'm an insomniac, I can't sleep, and even if they, you know, maybe deal with an acute period, then they might be fearing that it returns, or just, you know, the one off night that we might all have, then it sparks the, oh no, is it back?

‍

Yeah, you're speaking so much in what you just said. I mean, that's just one comment. 

‍

I want to share with you that I'm not speaking theory.  Um,  I'm a,  a very good sleeper.  

‍

I'd, I'd imagine that. 

‍

But I can tell you  that  many years ago, after  a relationship suddenly ending,  and it was totally unexpected, as we say, it seemed to come out of nowhere,  about  a year and a half after the initial incident.

‍

I started having panic attacks. 

‍

Mm. Yeah. 

‍

Now,  anyone that's ever had panic attacks,  where one moment you're fine, and the next moment you're tingling, and you're sweating, and you're in a cold sweat, and you can't get warm, and your body's shaking, and sometimes I would experience 20 or 30 in a day.  

‍

Wow.

‍

Really? 

‍

And I spent six and a half years.  Between 1978 and middle of 1984, attempting to traverse the most frightening terrain of my life.  So I, I share this with you  and with our listeners because  I'm just like everyone else.  No one is going to escape this lifetime without losing a parent or a friend or God forbid, a child or getting a diagnosis that you didn't expect, or  all of a sudden losing  a significant amount of money or your job or what,  you know, we say shit happens. 

‍

But we forget that that same four letter word is what makes flowers grow.  We call it fertilizer. So  perturbance,  agitation, disturbing the status quo is not only something that occurs in life, it is perhaps the most critical factor in the ability of a system to expand.  Whether it's in physics or chemistry or biology, that aggravation or perturbance is what disturbs the status quo and allows for a new level of evolution to occur.

‍

There's a reason we say, oh, it all comes out in the wash. What makes it come out is not the water or the detergent, it's the agitation. So, these are things we've never learned.  Right.  So agitation occurs, and something must be wrong. Perhaps something is actually right.  

‍

Wow, I feel like this could bring such peace to the listener, especially since commonly when people are showing up listening to this podcast, they might be going through some sort of strife that's, you know, affecting kind of the most, you'd think, primal aspect of their life, like how they're sleeping at night, and so to kind of have that perspective shift and this new way of looking at this is just huge.

‍

And I'm really curious, given that you have gone through these periods, thank you for sharing vulnerably about that period of time because I think I certainly can relate to periods of time like that, but I'm sure listeners can too. And so now that we know that you're such a good sleeper on the other side, definitely excited to hear how you're managing your sleep today.

‍

But before we get into those questions on your sleep, I know this is a huge topic because there's just so so much gold that you brought up here. I don't even know how to unpack it all. And yet I'm curious of putting a bow on this topic as it relates to sleep. Just want to give you opportunity to say any closing thoughts before we shift to how you're managing your sleep.

‍

Well, the first thing that comes is I don't manage it.  Sleeping is natural. Not sleeping is normal. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

It's really about coming back to what's natural.  My father used to say the day has 24 hours.  8 hours to work.  Eight hours to play and eight hours to sleep, he would say.  Don't confuse the eight hours,  you know?

‍

In other words, don't work 14 hours because it's then going to take away from something else.  Most people today, their normal life is totally unnatural. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

I mean,  most of us are living indoors. 

‍

Yes. 

‍

We've been led to believe the sun is not good for you. Right. So we're in offices during the day.  We're sitting in front of computers.

‍

Not only is the light coming off the screen very different from the spectrum of sunlight, that's why it has such disturbing qualities to it,  but  we have two eyes because our neurology is designed to have three dimensional vision, to see, to see depth. to see deeply into things. Yeah. When we're looking at a flat screen or reading a book,  that three dimensional,  highly evolved system  is basically forced to function in only two dimensions. 

‍

And the moment that happens, You have stress.  90 percent of our life experience comes in via the eyes. So that stress not only impacts the eyes in a negative way, which is why declining vision is the biggest health epidemic in the world. That's why everyone is wearing glasses. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

It's because of the visual stress.

‍

And the lack of natural light. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

And then we spend all day.  

‍

Yes. 

‍

Looking at tiny little screens,  which limits  our field of awareness. What people call consciousness  is an ocean of awareness.  It's infinite. It's not your consciousness or mine.  It's an ocean of consciousness from where everything  is derived.

‍

And it has no point of view.  I sometimes refer to it as the eyes of God. So what I've come to notice is that  all of us are aware when the mind is active.  We can hear that little chatter.  And sometimes we find ourselves interacting with it.  Now we've all been led to believe that that's my mind, that's me.

‍

It's me working things out and so on.  But it's no more me  than when  my wife and I are watching something on TV. I might be moved by it,  but I never have the feeling that I'm the television.  

‍

Yes.  

‍

The reason  all of us are aware  of what's occurring in the external world, what we are feeling somatically, and when the mind is agitated, Is because who we actually are is something that is noticing all this, it doesn't notice it  and say, well, I'd like it to be different.

‍

Just notices it.  And so  if you're aware that the mind is talking, realize that you're aware of it because you're not it.  What you're noticing.  It's the language center of the brain  doing what we've all been trained to do our whole life. Think ahead. Right. Are you going to lose your mind?  Um,  I've lost my mind. 

‍

And losing your mind does not mean that you go crazy. 

‍

I appreciate that. I think that can be soothing to a lot of listeners. 

‍

It's very, very soothing. And in terms of sleep, why all this is important is that.  Whether we have an alarm clock or not,  even if our shades are pulled,  something awakens us in the morning, and once it gets us out of bed, it might walk us to the bathroom to use the bathroom or to brush our teeth, and life just takes us from one thing to the next.

‍

It does it automatically. In fact, What catches our eye is looking for us. Interesting. I mean, most of the time we've been led to believe that my eyes are for looking at what I want or what I want to do.  In actuality, the light that is catching the eye  and moving the eye reflexively toward it,  is essentially  letting us know what the next thing is. 

‍

That requires us. 

‍

Hmm.  Wow. Okay. There's so much there, and I so appreciate you just, I feel like, channeling this information. Let me just add this, 

‍

this one thing. In the evening, there's a point where everyone notices that the body just yawned. Now, I pay attention to those things.  I don't say, yeah, no, I'm gonna go work for a while.

‍

No, I wanna watch this show. When I start to notice that change,  I get in, I lay down and I peacefully go to sleep sometimes within seconds because  in life and in. Biology. Timing is everything. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

So  one of the things that's important is to notice  how our body guides us in these things. And  I use, you know, like everyone else, there was time in my life.

‍

I go to sleep at midnight or 1 in the morning or whatever it is. Most of the time I'm in bed by  8. 30 or 9.  

‍

Very circadian aligned. 

‍

Or, or 8. Yeah. And.  And my body sleeps and  I hardly ever get up during the night, maybe once,  but not on a regular basis. So, and sleep is magnificent. Most of the healing of the body  occurs during the night  when we're not interfering with it by doing and thinking and so on and so forth.

‍

Yes.  So,  you know, obviously, things like not working at your computer or your cell phones at night, uh, if you're going to have night lights, they should be red 

‍

rather 

‍

than white or blue. Uh, if there's any technology in your space and you can cover a lot of the LEDs. Are blue. That's absolutely what you don't want.

‍

Cover them with a little blanket or a towel or something. Um, those things are are  very valuable to do or wearing a blue blocking glasses. If you're going to be on the computer for a while at night.  But I think the most important thing is to try to notice  how life naturally awakens 

‍

us, 

‍

naturally moves us throughout the day, and then puts us to bed.

‍

There isn't  any part of our physiology  that is designed to initiate action.  It is all responding  to something that is animating everything.  And our bodies  are naturally tuned into these rhythms and  difficulty sleeping and a lot of the other difficulties that we have  are because we've been conditioned to believe things that are normal but totally unnatural.

‍

Yeah, totally. Oh, so much there. And you, it sounds like broke down for us what your evening sleep routine looks like right now of just really tuning into your body and getting more connected to this, you know, piece of nature. So then our second question would be what might we see in your mornings as it relates to your sleep?

‍

Because with the idea that how we start our day can impact our sleep. 

‍

I'm excited in the morning. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

And that's been changing recently. I used to just jump out of bed and get moving.  Very recently, I've been sleeping more  and  enjoying it. Yeah. And when I get up, when my eyes open, rather than just getting up, I just start to allow the gradualness 

‍

to be there. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

And, um,  it's a lovely experience. It's  Taking me from  the tendency to get things done  to  allow myself to just be moved in a very gradual and easy way. So, yeah, very recently, you know, I've always been like a. Eight hour, eight and a half hour sleeper. And, um,  we took a trip to Europe, and when we got back, of course, there was some jet lag because there was a twelve hour time difference. 

‍

And all of a sudden I was sleeping ten hours.  And nine and a half hours. And, um,  I noticed that  now I'm sleeping more.  And  just enjoying it. I think it's one of the  benefits. of being in the fourth quarter of my life. 

‍

I like that. It's an intuitive sleep.  

‍

And there's nothing in me that  feels old.  I feel incredibly inspired in many ways. 

‍

Even more so than in the past, you know, where right now I feel like what really excites me is the art of living. 

‍

Wow, that's beautiful. And,  

‍

and sleeping is a very,  very beautiful part of our life. 

‍

Mmm, I  love that. You know, 

‍

when, when, when our head hits the pillow,  there's a sigh.  All the troubles are over. 

‍

The worries are left behind.  There's nothing else to concern ourselves with.  And  we have that every night  throughout our life.  And then at the very end of our life,  that occurs. And there may not be an awakening the next morning. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

But it's like you've done all your work.  You've done everything that needs to be done. 

‍

To be done.  And  it's very important to notice our nature and, you know, there's an old expression. Do what you love, love what you do, and the world will come to you.  Um, I always say each of us are like different type of tree.  And if you're an apple tree,  your purpose in being is to create apples. 

‍

Hmm.  

‍

Most of us.

‍

Our apple trees trying to create bananas. 

‍

Yes. 

‍

It's not going to happen. 

‍

Exactly. And so 

‍

it just creates a lot of stress. And so  very important just to see what, what makes us tick.  What do we love  to do? Um, and  I very much enjoy  helping in whatever way I can. And  having live interactions like you and I are having today, which.

‍

You know, we've never met. We don't really know much about the other.  And yet, we realize Oh wow, we're talking about things that are of importance to both of us, 

‍

and 

‍

perhaps many of us.  That's where I like to stay, you know, spend my life, and that's where my life seems to take me.  

‍

Yes, okay, so good. And totally want to be respectful of your time, so just, uh, the last couple things, what nightstand, and to date, what has made the biggest change to how you think about your sleep?

‍

The only thing on my nightstand? It's a lamp and a little box of Kleenex. I never really used a box of Kleenex.  So I'm not even sure why it's there.  There's really nothing on my nightstand. When I get into bed, 

‍

You're ready for bed. There's nothing out. Yeah. I just  

‍

ready to bed. And, um, in terms of. What's made the biggest shift in my sleep  is how I live my life.

‍

My life is my meditation. It's not,  I sit for 20 minutes and do an exercise.  I meditate when I'm making the bed.  I meditate when I wash the dishes,  when I go shopping, when I respond to emails, when I pay the bills. Everything gets done when it enters my awareness. Because it doesn't enter my awareness. Now, because it's supposed to be done later,  the timing is everything, so it enters my awareness now, because this is the moment. 

‍

I don't put off anything, because what I'm aware of isn't the mind telling me to do things.  It comes out of nothingness. I don't even know from where it comes, it's just all of a sudden I move. To do something. So  I take care of everything that calls to me during the day  and then that's all done.  So at the end of the day,  there's nothing left.

‍

Yeah, 

‍

it's not. I don't have a pile of stuff to do tomorrow.  And tomorrow is fresh and often I go to sleep at night  and I'm thinking about my cup of coffee in the morning.  

‍

I love that people could learn so much from that, myself included, just the beauty that that is. And, and I so appreciate you sharing part of your journey of, you know, how it was all those years ago when you had the fears and you know, which we can, many of us can relate to and to know that that is possible for that we can achieve that, that that's.

‍

It's something that's in the realm of possibility is just really beautiful life gets 

‍

better.  

‍

Thank you. 

‍

Life keeps getting better. We're not getting older. We're getting fuller. It's not we go up and then we come down. 

‍

Yes.  

‍

Just keep going up  until every ounce of everything is utilized,  and then we just return to the light we've always been.

‍

Oh, what a beautiful full circle. Wow. Okay, so I know that people listening today are going to want to know how can they continue to hear more of your wisdom, you know, be a part of your world, follow you, read about you, etc. What are the best ways to do that? 

‍

Obviously, I'm on social media. Sure. 

‍

Yeah, 

‍

they can visit my website, which is Jacob Lieberman dot org.

‍

O. R. G.  I should tell you that my website is not about selling you stuff,  so it's not I  I've never advertised my services. And most of my work,  other than  that I'm working on a fifth book right now, which is a memoir and  doing these kinds of things, most of my work is I mentor people. I have a very small number of clients  that  I mentor in relation to their life.

‍

And my 

‍

work is not doctor, patient or coach  a client.  Um,  you know, all of us encounter places in our life that we've never been before. 

‍

Yeah.  

‍

And in those times, we'd like to hold our mother's hand  or the hand of a close friend. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

And so the relationship that I enter into with My clients  is just a special sort of friendship,  and I incorporate my work with color, taking them through that so they can benefit from that. 

‍

And then we meet on Zoom like this.  And whatever is happening in their life becomes the curriculum that we are attending to, and almost all of it is about them coming to the realization that nothing is wrong with them.  

‍

Oh. Beautiful. I think for many, many listeners, the idea that that's possible and, and that you have those services to support that journey is like music to people's ears.

‍

So thank you for the work you do for the time that you've given us just for, you know, coming. blank canvas and sharing all this hard won knowledge and channeling that in such a beautiful way. So thank you. Thank you. 

‍

Thank you, Molly. This couldn't have happened without you. Thank you for reaching out. Yeah, this was a wonderful way of beginning my day.

‍

And, um,  I  will look forward to meeting you when you're closer. 

‍

Yes! 

‍

I would love that. Just have a wonderful 2025. This is a  new beginning and let us all just.  Embrace it. 

‍

Yes. Oh, well, thank you so, so much. Appreciate it.  You've been listening to the Sleep is a Skill podcast, the top podcast for people who want to take their sleep skills to the next level.

‍

Every Monday I send out the Sleep Obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun fact, I've never missed a Monday for over. Five years and counting. And it contains everything that you need to know in the fascinating world of sleep. Head on over to sleep as a skill.

‍

com forward slash newsletter to sign up. 

‍