Yoga Nidra

There are different approaches, ideas and definitions of what Yoga Nidra is, both the practices that support it, and the state of being that it uncovers.

Its heart and soul is ultimately a spontaneous, wild intelligence that wants to work its own magic and mystery with/through you. 🙂

It’s useful to consider different approaches and feel into how they resonate with your own direct experience, giving some breathing room to make your own connections and discoveries along the way.

What does Yoga Nidra feel like to YOU?

• Does it feel like awareness in the space between waking and sleeping?
• Does it feel like being ‘awake’ while asleep, or is it more subtle and nuanced than that?
• Does it feel like subtle awareness in deepest, dreamless sleep?
• Does it feel like awareness in/of waking, dreaming AND deep sleep?
• Does it feel like awareness of a vast wilderness that is teeming with subconscious, unconscious and superconscious energy?
• Does it feel like all of these and more, and beyond even that?!

Here are some resources I have used as jumping off points for my learning exploration, in case they are helpful for your own. 🙂

Articles & Websites:

Indu Arora ~

• De-constructing Yoga Nidra

International Journal of Yoga Therapy ~

• Defining Yoga Nidra: Traditional Accounts, Physiological Research, Future Directions

The Yoga Nidra Network ~

• Supporting Independent Practice of Yoga Nidra

Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati ~

• Yoga Nidra: Yogic Conscious Deep Sleep

Jason Birch and Jaqueline Hargreaves ~

• Yoga Nidra: An Understanding of the History and Context

Books:

Richard Miller, PhD ~

• Integrative Restoration Institute
• Yoga Nidra: A Meditative Practice for Deep Relaxation and Healing
• The iRest Program for Healing PTSD

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother ~

• The Yoga of Sleep and Dreams – The Night School of Sadhana

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche ~

• The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep

Kamini Desai ~

• Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep

NC Panda ~

• Yoga Nidra: Yogic Trance – Theory, Practice and Applications

Pierre Bonasse ~

• Yoga Nidra Meditation: The Sleep of the Sages

Uma Dinsmore Tuli ~

• Yoga Nidra Made Easy

Dr. Sarah Mednick ~

• Take a Nap! Change your Life

Trisha Hersey ~

• Rest is Resistance