The Solulu method vs SATS: which one should you use?
SATS is one of the most powerful methods for people who can picture things clearly. You get drowsy in bed and replay a short scene of your wish come true until it feels real. Then it shows up in your life. For most people the Solulu method is the better pick. It gives you the scene to see, so you do not have to build it and hold it in your head. That also makes SATS easy. You watch your scene before bed and replay it as you fall asleep.
What SATS is, and why it is so loved
SATS stands for “the state akin to sleep.” It means the drowsy, half-awake feeling just before you fall asleep. Neville Goddard was a manifesting teacher from the mid-1900s. He taught that this is the best moment to plant a wish, so it hardens into fact in your life.
The phrase comes from his 1944 book Feeling Is the Secret, in the chapter on sleep. He wrote about being “in prayer, a state akin to sleep.” “SATS” is the short name people online use for it. The practice goes like this:
- Lie down in bed and relax your body.
- Let yourself get drowsy. Neville suggested simply feeling “I am sleepy, so sleepy.”
- Pick one short scene that would happen after your wish came true. Not how it happens, only the end.
- Replay it, seen through your own eyes, until it feels natural and real.
- Let yourself fall asleep in that feeling.
People love SATS because it feels like nothing else. The scene stops feeling imagined and starts feeling remembered. Then it shows up in your real life.
The drowsy moment is also a real and different state of mind. A 2021 sleep study gave people a puzzle with a hidden shortcut. Some of them spent at least 15 seconds in the lightest stage of sleep. They were nearly three times as likely to spot the shortcut as people who stayed awake (83% against 30%). The benefit was gone once they fell into deeper sleep.
That study was about creative ideas. It shows the edge of sleep is a loose, open state, just as Neville described.
SATS is one of the best known techniques of the Law of Assumption. It teaches that what you assume is already true hardens into fact in your life. SATS has one hard step that is easy to miss. You have to build the scene in your head and keep it there.
Each method in three lines
Both methods come back to one scene of the wish come true. SATS builds the scene in your mind. The Solulu method puts it in front of you.
- What you do: get drowsy in bed and replay one short scene of your wish come true until it feels real.
- How long: 5 to 15 minutes, at bedtime.
- What you need: a scene, a quiet bed, and the ability to picture it and hold it.
The Solulu method
- What you do: write one specific moment from the life you want and see yourself in it. Watch it every morning and night, with fresh pictures every few days.
- How long: a few minutes, twice a day.
- What you need: your scene, and a photo or mind movie with you in it. A mind movie is a short video of your wishes, with words and music.
Side by side
SATS and the Solulu method end in the same place: a scene that feels real, and a wish that comes into your life. SATS just asks far more of your imagination.
| SATS | The Solulu method | |
|---|---|---|
| Minutes a day | 5 to 15, at bedtime | A few, morning and night |
| Effort | High: you build and hold the scene | Low: you look and feel |
| Needs a strong imagination? | Yes | No, the scene is in front of you |
| What you need | A scene and the drowsy state | One scene, and a photo or mind movie of you in it |
| Best goals | Any goal with a clear “after” moment | Any goal you can turn into one moment |
| How people track progress | The scene feels natural, then normal, then it shows up | The scene feels like a memory, then it becomes part of your life |
Where SATS is better
SATS has real strengths, and some people should keep it as their main practice.
- Depth. Inside your own head, the scene can have warmth, sound, smell and touch. Few methods feel as real.
- The drowsy moment. SATS uses the moment when your mind is most open. That is the whole point of it, and it is a good one.
- No screen in bed. If you want your phone out of the bedroom, SATS needs nothing at all.
- Neville’s own method. If you follow the Law of Assumption closely, SATS is the practice in his own words.
- For people with a strong imagination. If pictures come easily to you, SATS is free, private and very strong.
Where the Solulu method is better
For most people, the Solulu method is the better choice. There are four reasons.
1. You see yourself living it
In SATS, the scene is only as clear as your mind can make it. On many nights, that is a blurry, flickering version. The Solulu method shows you your own face, sharp and in color, already living the scene. You are on the sofa with your person, their head on your shoulder. Seeing yourself in it makes it feel like a memory, not a wish. And what feels like a memory is what shows up.
In one well known study, people pictured themselves voting, seen from the outside. They were more likely to actually vote. Seeing yourself in the scene is powerful.
2. It does not depend on your imagination
This is the big one. The hardest part of SATS is not getting drowsy. It is holding a picture steady while you do. If you have tried SATS, you may know the problems. The scene keeps slipping. Faces will not come into focus. Or your mind wanders to tomorrow’s to-do list.
About 4 in 100 people have very dim mental pictures, or none at all. This is called aphantasia. For them, building a scene in the mind the way SATS asks is not possible.
Neville himself warned that “effort is fatal.” Straining to build a scene in the dark is effort. With the Solulu method, you do not build anything. You look at the scene, and all your energy goes into feeling it.
3. It never goes stale
Most methods give you the same words or the same pictures every day. After a few weeks, your mind gets used to them and the feeling fades. That is why so many people keep switching methods. The Solulu method makes refreshing part of the practice. Every few days, you swap in a fresh picture or the next moment in the same life, so the feeling stays strong.
4. It is easy to keep doing
SATS has only one moment in the day, and that moment is easy to lose. Some nights you fall asleep before the scene starts. Other nights you lie awake for half an hour, chasing it. Either way, it is easy to feel you “did it wrong” and stop.
The Solulu method takes a few minutes at two set moments: when you wake up and before you sleep. If one goes badly, the other still happens. And because the scene is in front of you, you cannot “fail” at seeing it.
Use both: the watch-then-loop routine
The Solulu method and SATS fit together well. Watching your scene first makes SATS easy. You replay something you just saw, instead of making it up.
- In bed, watch your scene for a few minutes. This is your photo or mind movie, with you in it. Turn your screen brightness down.
- Put your phone away, face down or across the room.
- Close your eyes and get drowsy. Let your body get heavy.
- Pick one three-second moment from what you just watched. Not the whole thing. Just one moment.
- Loop that moment, seen through your own eyes. To loop means to replay it again and again. When it slips, do not fight it. Remember the picture you just saw and go back into it.
- Fall asleep in it.
- In the morning, watch your scene again before you get up. That is the second half of the Solulu method.
Here is how it looks for an SP, short for “specific person.” That is the one person you want to be with. You watch this scene before bed:
We are on the sofa on a rainy Sunday, a blanket over both of us. Their head is on my shoulder. Half asleep, they say, “I could stay like this forever.”
Then you loop one moment from it: the weight of their head on your shoulder, and the words. Three seconds, over and over, until you fall asleep.
For a money goal, the scene might be:
I sit in my car outside the dealership, my car, keys in my hand, and call my mom. “Guess what I’m sitting in.”
The loop: the keys in your hand, and her happy scream down the phone.
For an exam:
I open the results email in the library, read the grade twice, and put my hand over my mouth so I do not scream.
The loop: your hand over your mouth.
If sleep is hard for you, keep this light and gentle. If screens keep you awake, watch your scene before you get into bed. A practice should make bedtime calmer, not harder.
When SATS goes wrong, and what the scene fixes
Most SATS problems come from building the scene from nothing. So most fixes start with seeing it first.
| What happens | Why | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| The scene keeps slipping away | Holding a made-up picture is hard | Watch your scene first, then replay what you saw |
| You fall asleep before you start | You waited until you were too drowsy | Watch your scene sitting up, then lie down and loop it |
| Faces will not come into focus | Faces are the hardest part of a scene to imagine | Use a picture that has your own face (and theirs) in it |
| You lie awake chasing the feeling | You are trying to force it | Stop, look at your scene once more, and let it go |
| It feels like a different scene every night | Nothing fixes it in place | Use the same scene every night for at least a week |
The verdict, by reader
For most readers, the pick is the Solulu method. People with a strong imagination can keep SATS as their night practice.
| If you are… | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New to manifesting | The Solulu method | No skill to learn first: you look at your scene morning and night |
| Someone who can’t picture things | The Solulu method | You see the scene instead of building it, which SATS cannot offer |
| Busy | The Solulu method | Two moments you already have, a few minutes each |
| Someone with a strong imagination | SATS, with the Solulu method in the morning | Your mind does the work at night, and the scene keeps it steady by day |
| Manifesting your SP | The Solulu method, then the watch-then-loop routine at night | You fall asleep inside a moment you have just seen |
How to start the Solulu method
You can start tonight, by hand or with an app.
- By hand. Write one scene with “I”, as if it is happening now. Find the closest photo you can with you in it. Look at it when you wake up and before you sleep. Then try the watch-then-loop routine. It is free.
- With the Solulu app. Solulu is the iPhone app we make. You describe the life you want and add your photos. You can also add photos of your SP, places, outfits, pets and things you want. The app makes mind movies with you in the scenes. Each one has a calm kaleidoscope opening, scenes of you living that life, affirmations and music. The calm opening makes it a good thing to watch in bed before you loop your moment. You get up to three new mind movies each week as your goals grow.
- Other tools. Record your own voice reading your scene. Or make a mind movie yourself from photos you already have.
Of these, Solulu is the easiest way to do the Solulu method. It also makes SATS easy, for the same four reasons. You see your own face in the scene, sharp and clear, not a blur you are trying to hold. You do not have to imagine it, because you have just watched it. Fresh scenes keep it from going stale. And it fits into two set moments, so you never lie awake trying to invent one.