Awakening Sleeping Love

Sleeping love is like a bird in a cage. It exists, it lives, we can hear its song and its heartbeat. But it is unable to spread its wings and fly free. It is a situation that is familiar to many couples. They have a deep affection for each other and both know this. However, neither of the two express this affection completely and so it does not fill their lives with magic.

This feeling can be confusing. You may feel like you don’t love the other person anymore, even though you still feel affection. However, if you are afraid of losing him or her, you can already know that you are dealing with sleeping love. Yet you still have your doubts. Is it worth staying in a relationship that I no longer find exciting? Is it real love or just habit?

Almost all couples who have been together for several years have to deal with these kinds of questions. A group of researchers at Florida State University in the United States decided to ask themselves these questions as well. They designed a study to find out if introducing a specific change to a relationship could help it rekindle. The answer, they found, was yes.

From falling in love to sleeping love

We all know that the early stages of a relationship are the most exciting. In the first stage, which we call falling in love, it’s like living in another world. Of course we feel the familiar butterflies in our stomach. But beyond that, it’s like everything suddenly makes sense. And nothing is ordinary, everything is complete and real. It’s like finding the missing puzzle piece. When the puzzle is complete, it reveals a jubilant and beautiful image.

When we are in love we taste eternity. It’s such an extraordinary feeling that we never want to give it up. But as much as we want to keep it, the magic of those early stages is starting to spread. The butterflies don’t fly as wild as before. We discover that despite everything, even the infinite has limits. If love were a plate of food, we would have ruined its presentation (in part because we chose to) and started eating.

At this point, a literal disappointment takes place. It’s not uncommon for us to encounter aspects of that other person that we don’t like. We come out of our dream and return to reality, which is always a little disappointing. If we have a strong bond with our partner, we will manage to steer this change and move on to another phase. It is a less exciting phase, but also a more profound phase.

However, as time goes by, we can look back nostalgically on how we used to feel. This nostalgia is exactly what leads us to wonder if there is still love. Whether the love has simply changed, or is no longer there at all.

Maybe we don’t reject our partner, but we also don’t feel the same enthusiasm as we did in the beginning. We may not desire to end the relationship, but we may feel indifferent to the relationship. We also realize that the things we once did with love for our partner have now become something of a chore.

This is the phase that the researchers at Florida State University examined. They also discovered the key to reviving a relationship. Let’s see what this is.

How do you awaken sleeping love

Researchers found that where there was sleeping love, each person automatically associated their partner with a series of images and ideas. This happens unconsciously. So, for example, a woman sees her partner and her mind projects an image of slippers. Or a man sees his partner and thinks of a sink full of dishes.

Scientists wondered what would happen if they trained couples to change these automatic associations. With this hypothesis in mind, the experiment aimed to get each person to associate their partner with new, positive images. For example, instead of old slippers, the woman would see a puppy. And he wouldn’t see a sink full of dishes, but a cute little animal.

Psychologists used operant conditioning, a learning process in which the person received a reward every time they associated their partner with something positive, and was negatively reinforced or got nothing at all if they didn’t. The experiment was conducted among 144 couples who participated voluntarily. To achieve a more objective result, some couples were presented with positive images, others neutral.

The experiment showed that the researchers were right about ‘sleeping love’. Those who were conditioned to associate their partner with positive images felt that their relationship was renewed. Those conditioned with neutral images (they were shown an image of a fork, for example) did not notice any major changes in their relationship. It was shown that love is something that is changeable and that is tuned in the brain and is very sensitive to associations.

They showed that love can be revived by saving and strengthening the feeling. The key is to make connections between the images couples have of each other and positive stimuli. Perhaps that’s why couples who have a mutual appreciation and admiration for each other have no problem keeping their love alive and awake.