Sleep is a natural gift that all humans possess.

We each have the ability to shift through rich states of consciousness every night.

Every human experiences the creative, healing, and spiritual journey of sleep countless times in their lives.

Sleep is a healing elixir: even if we never pay it much attention, a good night’s sleep will always work its magic, replenishing our bodily systems, balancing our hormones, integrating our memories, and floating us through the rejuvenating spaces of deep sleep.

Sleep offers us thousands of adventures every year in the form of movie-like dreams and the rollercoaster ride of pre-sleep imagery and sensations.

Sleep is the creative centre of human ingenuity. Throughout time, many great scientific and artistic inventions have emerged from sleep and dreams. The answers to humanity’s biggest questions can be discovered when we explore the mysteries of sleep.

We can find out who we are, why we are here, and what happens when we die. We can figure out the nature of time, space, and consciousness, and grasp how to free ourselves from cycles of misery and embrace our higher nature.

Sleep may play an illuminating role in our evolution as we dive deep into all that it has to offer.

Our distant ancestors had a very natural relationship with sleep. Their downtime fitted seamlessly with the natural cycles of day and night. Today, we are a dark-deprived society: electric lights and the blue light of backlit screens keep our brains buzzing long after we should have gone to bed. When our brains don’t receive a signal of darkness, the production of sleep hormones is delayed.

Harvard Women’s Health Watch estimates that over 60 percent of women are not getting the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep each night, and this is the same situation for most Americans, according to a 2005 National Sleep Foundation survey.

This means that many people are chronically sleep-deprived, losing an average of an hour of sleep each night. By the time they reach the age of thirty, they will have missed out on thousands of hours of sleep.

When we don’t get enough sleep, we are more likely to gain weight or catch a cold, and the risk of developing illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes grows. The good news is that the detrimental effects of accumulated sleep debt can be recovered when we relearn how to embrace restful sleep. As Stanford psychiatrist William Dement says, “When you put away sleep debt, you become superhuman.”

The Casper-Gallup State of Sleep in America 2022 report found a strong connection between mental health and a good night’s sleep. People who rated their mental health highly were six times more likely to report getting high-quality sleep.

Lack of sleep has a huge negative impact on physical and mental health, and it’s becoming urgent for us to make time in our lives for sleep. This doesn’t have to be hard—in fact, it can be delightfully easy to make small but essential changes to our approach to sleep. The practices in Elixir of Sleep are designed to give you creative ideas and nourishing techniques to improve your ability to relax and let go so that you can cultivate the healthy habit of blissful sleep.

Elixir of Sleep does what no other sleep book has done: it offers a comprehensive Sleep Quiz to help you discover your unique sleeper and dreamer type, along with twelve Sleep Solution Programmes to fast-track you to the most effective techniques to deepen and enhance your sleep experience.

There is something for everyone among the sixty-plus practices in this book. They cover everything from sound healing to breathwork, and insomnia solutions to lucid dreaming tips.

You’ll connect with power animals and guides, learn to channel sexual energy into spiritual bliss, heal nightmares, and release fear in all states of consciousness. You’ll discover the marvels of your own sleep intelligence and find your way to a good night’s rest. As you implement these powerful practices, you’ll experience a real shift in your sleep, dreams, and waking life.

[The above is an excerpt from the Introduction to Elixir of Sleep: Practical Solutions for a Good Night’s Rest. Reproduced with permission from Llewellyn Worldwide. Copyright Dr. Clare Johnson, 2025.]