Tai Ming Medical Lecture Hall - pure traditional Chinese medicine, combining medical care and nursing care.

"Sleep" means "go to bed" or "sleep peacefully". There is a famous saying in traditional Chinese medicine that "when a person lies down, blood returns to the liver." This means that when a person lies down, the excess flowing blood is not used and is hidden in the liver.

"Bed" means "immersion". For example, if you put a dry towel into water and soak it, a lot of water will be hidden in the towel. When the spirit of a person's heart enters the blood of a person, it is called immersion.

Why can’t many people sleep? He would say: “I’m very sleepy too, but I wake up just when I’m about to fall asleep.” This is called “difficulty sleeping”, which is because the soul or spirit It cannot be immersed in blood.

Let’s look at “sleep” again. There is "hang" in this word. Where does it hang? It's not eyelid droop. Many people can't sleep with their eyelids closed. It means the eyes are downturned.

When the "Huangdi Neijing" talks about madness (which is also the early stage of depression), it mentions a word - Shiju. What does it mean? It means rolling your eyes, looking up, turning your eyes upward. This kind of person will never be able to sleep.

So Taoism has a sleep technique for cultivating the mind: first, close the eyes, then look down, eyes to the nose, nose to the mouth, and mouth to the heart. Therefore, the word "hanging" does not refer to the problem of eyelids or eyelids, but to the force or direction of Qi that controls a person's eyeballs.

According to research, in ancient times, slaves were blinded in one eye as a sign of their slave status. The kind of people whose eyes were stabbed are called "people". Therefore, the state when the eyes are blind is called sleep. People may not fall asleep until night, and some may daydream.

In ancient Chinese medical books, there is a disease called "inability to sleep" instead of insomnia. This is a relatively typical symptom of insomnia and is a symptom of excessive heart fire. What does it mean? It means that you can't lie down. When you lie down, you have to stand up and walk around underground. You may even have to walk all night.

From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine’s understanding of dreams, the above words are involved. So what is a person like when he is awake? Let’s introduce a few more words about being awake.

Jue (second tone). Generally speaking, we would say that dreams are subjective feelings. Feelings and feelings are subjective. I feel it but you don’t feel it. I feel it but you don’t feel it. So what is the difference between these two words? "Jue" does not convey the heart, while "Sense" touches the heart.

For example, there was a popular ironic limerick in the past that said, "Touching my wife's hand is like my left hand touching my right hand, but I don't feel anything at all." In fact, upon closer inspection, "it seems like the left hand touches the right hand", which means that there is still consciousness, but there is no more emotion in the heart, and there is no sense of electric shock. This means there is consciousness but no feeling.

When we sleep, do we feel hot or cold? Of course we do. When it’s hot, we push off the quilt; when it’s cold, we pull the quilt next to us. This means that there is still sleep, but this sleep does not affect our sleep. If a person, after falling asleep, always hears the tap in the bathroom that is not closed tightly and the sound of "beep, beep, beep" that no one else can hear, but he can hear it, it means that he is "preoccupied and hypersensitive." Where is sensitivity? It lies in "feeling". So he couldn't sleep. There was something going on around him, and he could feel "the Zhao family's dog glanced at me again." This shows that there is something wrong with his mind.

The traditional form of "Ning" is "thing". There is a house above, there is a house to live in, there is food to eat, everyone has gone home, and finally the heart is at peace. Therefore, in ancient times, it was common to call a daughter "Guining" when she went home to visit relatives. Nowadays, we often understand "roosters and dogs are restless" as meaning that chickens and dogs are jumping around. In fact, it is not the case. It means that neither chickens nor dogs return to their nests. When a person sleeps, he will withdraw his mind into the body, specifically into the liver and hide it in the blood. When sleeping, a person who is very sensitive will let his mind go out, so he will feel something, his body will feel something, and he will not sleep well.

To put it simply, modern medicine refers to "feeling" as the spinal nerve reflex system, which does not use the heart or the brain. For example, there is a glass of boiling water here, and I take it back as soon as I touch it. This is called sleep. Does this require overthinking? If you think first: boiling water will be very hot, it will hurt, it will cause infection...and then you take your hand back, it will be too late. "Feeling" is an instinctive reaction of the body.

From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, this reflex of the spinal cord nerves in the brain is called "jue". For example, when you see a beautiful girl and can't help but take another look, this is "awareness".

It’s not that you are attracted to her at first glance and fall in love with her. Some people even have physiological reactions when they see some sexy people, but that is just "feeling" and they are not tempted.

Traditional Chinese medicine calls this system of immobility "po". We would say: "This man is really courageous." Chairman Mao also said, "His physique is barbaric." The only thing that dominates the human body is the movement of the brain, which is "po".

The system that directs higher levels is the system that involves people's emotions, emotions, and desires. Traditional Chinese medicine calls it "Shen." At night, "little death" occurs. A large part of the gods rest, but there is still a part of the gods that are still working. We call this part of the gods that is still working into their souls. They are like two sides of a coin. The side during the day is called God, and the side at night is called soul. What does "being obsessed" mean? It means sleeping during the day and working at night. This is infatuated, contrary to the joy of life, and does not follow the laws of yin and yang changes.

Both "hun" and "PI" contain the word "鬼". Ghosts will return. The state of returning to the original point after death is called "ghost". This is not a feudal superstition, it is just a state of human spiritual activity, which is stretched when alive - there is a god called Shen, a masculine one, and a ghost after death. Then, the kind of spiritual activity that occurs in the state of "little death", when the little flame of the god or god is extinguished, has the meaning of the word "ghost". In addition, what do "white" and "cloud" in "hun" and "po" mean? In fact, they both mean speaking, such as "so-and-so cloud", "unintelligible", and "dialogue".

"Po" also means the moon and moonlight. When the moon starts to reflect a little sunlight and a crescent appears, it's a new moon. The new moon is an inverted C shape, and the C-shaped moon is called a waning moon. The new moon gradually grows from a little bit to a full moon. This process is called "life force" in ancient astronomy. From the full moon, it slowly becomes smaller until it disappears, which is called "death soul".

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that sleeping means we live under the light of God during the day. At night, when people lie down, the blood returns to the liver, and the soul is hidden in the liver. At this time, the body is still working, that is, the spinal nerve reflex system I mentioned earlier is still working, while some nerves in the brain, or some areas of the cerebral cortex are in a resting state.