Should You Sleep Alone?

Energy hygiene for empaths, Manifestors, Projectors, and Reflectors

“Relationships are not bound together by sleeping together. They’re bound together by meeting each other.” - Ra Uru Hu

Should you be sleeping alone at night?

First off, this isn’t about shoulds. Rather, think of this post as a permission slip if sleeping alone feels correct for you but is something you’ve been making yourself wrong for or are afraid to voice to your bed buddy.

Let’s be real: whether you’re married or casually hooking up with someone, giving them the boot from your bed is generally considered a bad thing. Like, you’ve got intimacy issues, dude.

And I’ll be honest. The first time I heard someone share that she slept in separate bedrooms from her partner — because of her energy sensitivities — I thought it was weird. BUT her marriage is one of the healthiest, most supportive ones I’ve ever seen. Not to mention she’s a sought-after love and relationship coach.

This was the first time I questioned the societal assumption that sleeping apart means relationship trouble.

Human Design on Sleeping Alone

More recently, I came across the okay-ness of sleeping separately in my study of Human Design, which is a system of self-discovery that combines different esoteric systems, like astrology, into one quantum system. Instead of 12 signs, there are 5 energy types in Human Design. Finding out my energy type has given me, and countless others, validation to live my life as I need to and not as society tells me I should.

Again, question all shoulds.

According to Human Design's founder Ra Uru Hu, sleep is a time to “cleanse your aura of conditioning,” so that you can “wake up in the morning as yourself.” Conditioning simply means picking up the influence of others, including societal messaging, and confusing it as our own. He suggests that all energy types sleep in their own space as a way to protect your aura when you’re most vulnerable, aka when you’re unconscious.

I’ve also heard Human Design experts say sleep is the time our body heals, which is why sleeping alone in our own aura is important — again, to give our aura a chance to clear itself of all the gunk we’ve picked up throughout the day.

If the word “aura” sounds too woo woo for you, here’s some scientific research on the existence of organisms’ electromagnetic "biofields"that surround and influence their biology. And another that addresses biofield interactions.

For the Manifestor, Projector, and Reflector energy types sleeping alone is especially important. This is because these energy types have an undefined (sometimes called “open”) sacral center, which means they are open to the influence of other people’s sacral energy which has a go-go-go quality that these 3 energy types aren’t designed to handle.

Here’s my undefined sacral center circled in pink on my Human Design chart, called a bodygraph. I’m a Projector energy type.

If you’re a Manifestor, Projector, or Reflector, and sleeping next to someone every night who has this motor center defined (all Manifesting Generator and Generator energy types), it can be too stimulating and keep you up. So can their dreams.

NOTE: There’s financial privilege, of course, to sleeping alone. But even if you share a one-bedroom or studio apartment with your partner, you can always take a blanket and pillow to the couch or the floor a few nights a week. See if you notice a difference sleeping out of their aura.

Also, pets have auras too : )

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The Empath’s Survival Guide on Sleeping Alone

I came across another case for sleeping alone in Dr. Judith Orloff’s seminal work for empaths and highly sensitive people.

Orloff writes in The Empath’s Survival Guide:

Consider separate beds or bedrooms. Sleeping with someone else can be overrated. Most of us spend our childhoods sleeping alone, and then we’re expected to share our beds as adults. That’s a hard transition for many empaths. It’s an expectation created by society that hurts those of us who don’t fit the stereotype. (p. 96)

According to her experience as a psychiatrist, empaths are more sensitive than the general population to input and stimulus, including electromagnetic fields and other people’s emotions and stress. Around 20% of the population are considered highly sensitive, which in my book is a significant number!

Furthermore, sleep is very important for empaths to calm their nervous systems, especially because when the highly sensitive are tired their already overly-permeable filters against outside energies are down. I also like that in her book Dr. Orloff recognizes the importance of dream life for empaths. You don’t want your bed buddy’s tossing and turning to disturb that!

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In conclusion, sleeping alone doesn’t have to become dogma. Don’t do this every night if you don’t want to. Maybe a few nights a week of sleeping alone is all you need to feel more like yourself.

As always, communicate your wants and needs to your partner or your partner-for-the-night. And listen to theirs.

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To learn more about your unique Human Design, book a 1:1 reading with me. I help people make better love, career, and life decisions for themselves.