traditional tibetan yogas

[cygnus]

a lot of the threads here on the subject of dream yoga don't actually involve its main practice - just the preliminary practices, which are like continuous reality checks. the sleep practice divides the period of sleep into four segments, roughly divided by two hours each. each involves a position to lie in, a visualization, or a breath practice. the essence of the practice is to bring presence of mind into your dreams, thereby stimulating lucidity. the main reason i'm writing this is because i'd like to hear from some other people who use this method. feel free to comment on anything you do with your daily practice as well, but more importantly i'd like to discuss progress anyone has made with the sleep practice. to summarize the practice: 1. when first going to bed, lie on your right side (left side for women) and visualize a red sphere of light in your throat - the quality of sleep should be peaceful. 2. at the next waking, lie in the same position and take 7 conscious breaths, holding the breath in the belly with the muscles at the floor of the pelvis, and relaxing completely upon the exhalation. visualize a white sphere of light in the third eye chakra - this segment emphasizes clarity of mind. 3. next lie on your back (possibly with your head on two pillows to elevate it), take 21 slow, conscious breaths, and visualize a black sphere in your heart region. 4. finally, lie in any position and focus on a black sphere at the base of your spine - this will be the last waking period before getting out of bed in the morning. -- it's important to sort of... merge with the visualizations and stay with them as you fall asleep so that you carry that awareness into your dreams. the colors and locations of the visualizations and the positions to sleep in correspond to qualities of sleep that contribute to increased lucidity.

[Mariano]

Yeah, I read them , but I didn't want to do them because I must go to school, for example, and If I want to use an alarm to wake up I would disturb my family. but when the moment comes, I think I will try this, but first I want to accomplish my day practice bye! (that info is from the tibetan yogas of dream and sleep, a great book, to make your mind grow in all aspects)

[cygnus]

hey mariano! i don't use an alarm anymore for the same reason - what i do now is drink a lot of water before bed and when i wake up so that i naturally wake up several times. the sleep practice doesn't interfere with anything... but i look forward to when you get the time to work on it! and yeah - that book is pretty great.

[Shift]

cell phones on vibrate ftw

[cygnus]

yeah shift, i used to fix my phone to my hand with a wrist band and set it to vibrate - i prefer to wake up naturally, though... and i'm always thirsty i became lucid the other day because in the dream i was still visualizing a sphere in my chest - it definitely increases your awareness when asleep. these methods are my favorite.

[bigCHEESE77]

This looks.....interesting. I've never before tried any yoga type methods. I might possibly give this a try. First, what is "chakra"? and what is your "third eye chakra"?

[baronbrocoli]

The tibetan sleep yogas aim not only to achieve lucid dreams, but a different form of dreams in which one experiences only conciousness and no imagery. I tried to use these yogas for a while and they really are great! I might come back to training my concentration that was so hard for me lol... Anyways I really recommend the book its really interesting! BTW meditating before sleep always increased my dream's vividness and my recall! I used to meditate for like 10 minutes

[TJuulsgaard]

This looks.....interesting. I've never before tried any yoga type methods. I might possibly give this a try. First, what is "chakra"? and what is your "third eye chakra"? "Chakras" are energy-centers that are present in your body. You can activate them by bringing awareness to them - which is what you are doing by visualising different things in them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra The third eye chakra is placed just a few inches over the point between your eyebrows.

[TJuulsgaard]

Yeah, I read them , but I didn't want to do them because I must go to school, for example, and If I want to use an alarm to wake up I would disturb my family. but when the moment comes, I think I will try this, but first I want to accomplish my day practice bye! (that info is from the tibetan yogas of dream and sleep, a great book, to make your mind grow in all aspects) You don't need an alarm clock. The cycles doesn't need to be exact, and you gradually sleep lighter, so you will wake up easier when getting used to the practices. The light sleep is also making it easier to attain lucidity in your dreams, so not doing the night exercises could be reason to failure. You don't need to do all exercises every night - you just need to learn them in the correct order. The first gives power to the next and so on. You could start with doing first exercise while going to sleep and then IF you wake up (even if it is 5 hours later) do the next exercise - as the exercises take effect and you get the neccessary strength (and sleep lighter) you can go on to the 3rd and 4th exercise accordingly. In my month of dedicated dream yoga I have only come to my night 3rd practise 4-5 times - and never the 4th.

[SKA]

Interresting, finally someone brings information on how to get lucid in a clearcut way. I will be trying this for sure.

[cygnus]

thanks you guys for clarifying. .. it's definitely a good idea at first to let the process unfold naturally: you don't have to press yourself to do all four in one night, in fact you could just work on one section for a few nights to get comfortable with it. the sequence is important though once you can bring it all together. dividing the night into these sections and sleeping lighter with more clarity is definitely conducive to lucidity and in my opinion is more reliable and easier to develop over time than a typical WILD. your awareness and development of lucidity is more of a gradual progression than just a "lucid or fail" result. dream and sleep yoga are used to have dreams of clarity and clear light dreams. a dream of clarity is typically one in which your recall is very good and you may be lucid. a clear light dream is interesting because it involves being lucid and abiding in non-dual awareness, in which case you may realize the illusory nature of your experiences and rest in non-action within the luminosity of your awareness. (sleep yoga is a more advanced version of this in which you train yourself to become lucid in sleep.)

[Shift]

I thought I'd report in. I've been listening to meditation shit on youtube recently. I passed out during a chakra one that I had incredibly relaxing music. As I was drifting off I thought about attempting these exercises, because I'm getting sick and my throat is sore and the first visualization was a black spot in your throat, which I had no trouble visualizing because I feel like death and pain are highly concentrated in my tonsils right now But, I fell asleep too quickly I'll try again, though. As far as the FOUR AWAKENINGS, what's the deal? Do you set an alarm? Because I wake up way more often than that (as we all do), and not at regular two hour intervals. Do you disregard natural/artifical awakenings except for intentional awakenings every two hours? So that your natural awakenings don't count in the counting?

[cygnus]

You don't need an alarm clock. The cycles doesn't need to be exact, and you gradually sleep lighter, so you will wake up easier when getting used to the practices. The light sleep is also making it easier to attain lucidity in your dreams yes, you can use your natural awakenings. and you shouldn't be falling asleep when meditating, shift haha . you're striving for awareness of the movements of your mind... and like i said earlier, you want to merge your awareness with the visualization when falling asleep so that your mind is clear of other thoughts, but your visualization isn't so rigid and external that you can't fall asleep. the practice as a whole is effective, but don't push yourself to do the whole sequence when you're new to it.

[Shift]

yes, you can use your natural awakenings. and you shouldn't be falling asleep when meditating, shift haha . you're striving for awareness of the movements of your mind... and like i said earlier, you want to merge your awareness with the visualization when falling asleep so that your mind is clear of other thoughts, but your visualization isn't so rigid and external that you can't fall asleep. the practice as a whole is effective, but don't push yourself to do the whole sequence when you're new to it. Ah yea, I ignored his posts because it's your thread, not his, and I didn't know if you agreed or not. Yea, I wasn't really using it for meditation, but really to relax and help me pass out. The calming music was more important to me than some woman saying chakra every few minutes hehehe I'll strive to do better if I ever meditate for real, though

[cygnus]

i'd like to hear as many people's experiences as possible... shift, i think the easiest way to start out with meditation is to do sound meditation - you can listen to some downtempo music and observe it without judging. whenever your mind starts to wander, bring it back to your sense of hearing. then you can turn off the music and extend this to natural sounds, and then maybe another method. --- one of the supportive practices for dream yoga is zhiné, or calm abiding, which is what i do. it's helpful because it reduces your internal dialogue and like baronbrocoli mentioned, it works well if you meditate before sleep.

[Shift]

I actually have synesthesia to music so if I were to listen to it while meditating, like I do when I'm asleep, I'd just be watching it move around... I'm not sure if that would be good or bad for meditating. I find the it the coolest and most relaxing thing in the world, but it definitely causes me to actively and attentively focus on the music. Keeping my mind from wandering would not be an issue, it's almost like watching something good on tv.

[TJuulsgaard]

Ah yea, I ignored his posts because it's your thread, not his, and I didn't know if you agreed or not. Sorry - didn't mean to sound like a "bezzerwizzer" and taking over the thread

[Mariano]

Ok, you are forcing me to do Sleep Yoga too!? that's what you wanted? eh ?? EH?? ok. I recommend reading the book to have a better source of info. tibetan yogas of dream and sleep by tenzin wangyan rinpoche I can give it to you if you want , I have it on PDF ok.. I will tell you my results on my thread "my dream yoga journey" bye

[cygnus]

no one is forcing you to do anything, mariano! i've read the book you're talking about like two and a half times. and no, you weren't a bezzerwizzer, TJ.

[Mariano]

the only problem with night practice will be the school time. I go to bed at 10:30 and must wake up at 6:30. do you think it will interfer with my sleep? I really don't want that...

[cygnus]

well you're not waiting for sleep paralysis or anything like in a typical WILD, and i wouldn't say it disrupts your sleep - it doesn't for me. i actually feel like i've slept better when i have several natural wakings throughout the night; since i fall asleep more times my body thinks it's gotten lots of sleep.

[bigCHEESE77]

I would like to try this. something new. But how exactly do you "merge yourself with the visualization?"

[cygnus]

you want to merge your awareness with the visualization when falling asleep so that your mind is clear of other thoughts, but your visualization isn't so rigid and external that you can't fall asleep. i'm not sure if i can explain it any more... but if you try it out feel free to ask more about this if you can't get a feel for it. ---- anyone who has experience with dream yoga - if you want, go ahead and clarify whatever topic comes up if i don't do a good job of it. thanks!

[Mariano]

people, to understand what cygnus says, I really recommend reading the book. the books has all the details you need to do this practice. I uploaded it to rapidshare, enjoy! on this book all of your doubts will be answered. http://rapidshare.de/files/47879824/...Sleep.rar.html

[A dreamer168]

There is a very good CD by Lama Surya Das on this subject