Yoga Nidra
An ancient tantric technique of inducing a state of total relaxation as well as expanded awareness. Also known as ‘yogic sleep,’ it’s been called “a shortcut to meditation.”
Total relaxation
When you are truly relaxed, your muscle and brain activity slows but your awareness expands. Lifted above fragmented thoughts and worries, you experience a liberating sense of peace and well-being, a euphoric release from anything and everything that troubles you. Timelessness.
Moving deeper into relaxation, we enter a state where brain activity slows almost to the point of sleep, but not quite. Yogic sleep, an extraordinary “body asleep/mind awake” state, also known as the twilight or ‘in-between’ state which we normally only experience fleetingly when waking up or drifting off to sleep, for example.
As physical tension and mental anxieties dissolve, you begin to sink into the inexhaustible reservoir of creativity that lies just below your conscious awareness. You experience flashes of insight and inspiration, dreamlike imagery, long-forgotten memories, and often lucid dreaming. An ideal state for super-learning, self-hypnosis, re-programming your mind, creative visualization, and dream recall. Not only a yogic tranquilizer but also a cure-all for psychosomatic illness. A regenerative state of total relaxation.
The methods employed
- Corpse posture
- Body awareness and relaxation
- Listening without thinking, i.e., mindfulness of sounds meditation
- Rotation of awareness through different body parts
- Manufacturing bodily sensations and feelings
- Breath awareness and breath counting
- Psychic breathing
- Circulation of consciousness along various energy channels
- “Time travel”
- Mental posture performance
- Creative visualization
- Autosuggestion: the 3 Ps
Did you know...
...that Yoga Intensive, Jayanta and Yoga for Stress all include a 30-minute guided yoga nidra?
