Dr. Matt Walker

I think it's absolutely fascinating because that morning time period as well can be, for those who are struggling with sleep, especially difficult.

And you and I have spoken on this podcast series about sort of awakening at night or later in the morning when you really want to be asleep and it's just a struggle to get back.

And as you noted there, he was saying they often come in underslept.

And my suspicion is that they're probably getting sleep at the front end in part because they're heavily medicated, but self-medicating in terms of helping their sleep.

But then of course, because they are asleep, they can't continue to medicate.

So which part of sleep is fragile?

It's those morning hours.

And therefore, if you have something that is a compensatory tool, that is not going to be the trigger of saying, just get back into bed, get under those sheets and sleep.

Sleep doesn't work like that.

Sleep is not something that we do.

Sleep is something that arrives to us with us.

And if it's not, you can't force it.

And it's a bit like someone's name, in fact, quite the opposite, that the harder you try to remember, the further you push sleep away.

And when you stop, it all of a sudden comes back.

But I love this idea of inserting something like that as a compensatory tool.

And that's why I think you and I have discussed openly here, in fact, on this series, at some point we're going to collaborate and we're going to look to see exactly what is happening

electrically at high fidelity mapping inside of the brain when we are going through these liminal states.

And what is the benefit of that?

Is it a very similar benefit for sleep?

One thing called sleep, one thing called these liminal states, or they both operate on the same highway in terms of mechanistic transaction benefits.