“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Two periods of three hours apiece would be quite sufficient for most people, if the proper suggestions were given before sleep — suggestions that would insure the body’s complete recuperation. In many cases ten hours sleep, for example, is actually disadvantageous, resulting in a sluggishness both of mind and body. In this case the spirit has simply been away from the body for too long a time, resulting in a loss of muscular flexibility.

There are many variations, in fact, that would be better than your present system. Ideally, sleeping five hours at a time, you gain the maximum benefit, and anything else over this time is not nearly as helpful. Those who require more sleep would then take, say, a two-hour nap. For others a four-hour block sleep session and two naps would be highly beneficial. With suggestion properly given, the body can recuperate in half the time now given to sleep. In any case it is much more bracing and efficient to have the physical body active rather than inactive for, say, eight to ten hours.

You have trained your consciousness to follow certain patterns that are not necessarily natural for it, and these patterns increase the sense of alienation between the waking and dreaming self. To some extent you drug the body with suggestion, so that it believes it must sleep away a certain amount of hours in one block. Animals sleep when they are tired, and awaken in a much more natural fashion.

Your food should be divided within the twenty-four hour period, and not just during the times of wakefulness — that is, if the sleep patterns were changed as I suggest, you would also be eating during some night hours. You would eat far less at any given “mealtime,” however. Small amounts of food much more frequently taken would be much more beneficial than your present practice in physical, mental, and psychic terms.