Yoga Nidra For Vivid Dreaming

Hello and welcome back to Your Journey Yoga.

My name is Natalia and tonight we have a yoga nidra practice for vivid dreaming.

Give yourself a few moments to physically settle in wherever you are.

Allow yourself to fidget and move around.

Make adjustments so that the body can really sense that it can trust in stillness.

Perhaps that means that you adjust your pillow,

Your blanket,

Or just snuggle in a little more deeply into your bed or whatever surface you're on.

And as you're adjusting and settling into stillness,

Let yourself engage with more intentional and deep breaths,

Allowing the breath to be a cue to the mind and the body that this is a time of presence,

Of stillness,

And that it's okay to allow whatever happened in your day to dissolve now.

This time is for you,

For your dream world.

Give yourself permission to slow down in this moment and begin to trust in rest and trust in stillness.

And as you have started to find this stillness,

Allow yourself to take a couple more big full deep breaths,

Letting your exhales be as slow as possible.

Yoga nidra can support our dream world because it helps us connect with the liminal state between waking and sleep.

It is a practice of keeping the mind conscious while the body rests,

Which can also be helpful for lucid dreaming if that's something that you're trying to do.

It's important to remember that this is a practice and you may need to return to this meditation or to other yoga nidra practices to really hone in on lying in the liminal space between waking and sleep.

So it's okay if you do fall asleep in this practice.

We're going to begin with a sankalpa or an intention.

So as you settle in more deeply,

Give yourself a moment to connect with an intention that you have for the kind of sleep you would like to receive,

The kind of dream you would like to receive.

And let this be a moment of trusting your intuition as well.

Perhaps something came to mind quickly.

Maybe you trust that.

Or maybe it feels difficult to connect with an intention right now and that's okay too.

Give yourself a few breaths to settle on a seed that you would like to plant.

You might even specifically ask your psyche or your dreamer to show you a sign or a message in your dreams.

As we move into this practice,

You might notice that you connect with a state that feels like dreaming but you're not quite there.

This is the space that we want to be in,

In yoga nidra.

You begin to touch the same inner landscape where your dreams do arise.

With practice,

This awareness can help us remember our dreams more clearly and understand the messages more deeply.

So as you come into contact with this threshold space,

You can allow images to come and go.

Pay attention to the sensations that you feel.

Allow narratives and stories to drift through without grasping or pushing away.

Allow yourself to simply notice what arises as though you are watching your dream unfold from within.

Notice where you feel your breath most prominently in this moment.

Notice the coolness of your inhale,

The warmth of your exhale and the subtle expansion and contraction of the belly,

Of the chest and allow the breath to be in its most natural state.

You don't need to change it or control it,

But trust in its flow.

The breath knows what to do,

Your only job in this moment is to just notice it.

Without changing the breath,

How deep does it go and how far does it expand?

Is there a color associated with your breath and can you see it with your mind's eye in your body?

Continue to breathe naturally as you bring your awareness up to the crown of your head.

What do you sense here?

Maybe you can feel the hair on top of your head,

Perhaps you can sense your skull.

Imagine softening the skin on the crown of your head,

Maybe inviting a sense of spaciousness.

What if you could breathe through the crown of your head?

Allow this relaxation and spaciousness to travel down the back of your head to the base of your neck.

Notice if you're holding anything in the back of your neck,

Even subtly.

Fully,

Fully releasing anything you're holding in the back of your neck.

Feeling the weight of your head where it's resting.

Letting this relaxation travel down through your forehead,

Relaxing your brow,

Letting the eyelids be as soft and as heavy as they can be,

Letting the muscles of the eyes relax as well,

Coming into stillness.

And as you do this,

You may even notice if you can see things from behind your eyelids.

Could be shapes,

Colors,

Shadows or maybe nothing at all.

Just allow the eyes to be relaxed and still and see if you can sense the space behind your eyes,

Between your ears,

Bringing warmth and spaciousness to this space as well,

Letting the ears be open,

Perhaps even noticing if there are any sounds that you can hear beyond this audio,

Even if it's just the sound of your breath.

Trace the shape of your left ear with your mind's eye,

All of its crevices,

Its curves,

The softness of your earlobe and begin to trace the shape of your right ear,

Noticing if it feels the same or different from the left.

Let this awareness travel down into your jaw,

Fully releasing the muscles of the jaw,

Creating a little space between your teeth and giving the tongue an opportunity to rest.

Noticing what the inside of your mouth feels like,

Sensing the warmth of your throat,

Imagining it opening and softening a little bit more,

Sensing the top of your shoulders,

Noticing what sensation is alive here,

Both inside the shoulder and externally,

Feeling where the shoulders are connected to the surface beneath you and also any sensation that may be rolling around on the inside of the shoulders.

Is there a temperature,

Texture you can feel?

Letting your awareness settle in your left shoulder,

Traversing down through the upper arm to the elbow,

This point of connection between the upper and the lower arm,

Sensing your forearm,

Your wrist,

Your left thumb,

Pointer finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger and pinky,

Feeling the entire space of your palm,

Noticing any sensation here,

And perhaps you find that you can even feel into the liminal space just beyond your left hand,

Let your awareness travel back up the left arm,

Over to the right shoulder,

As you traverse your awareness down into the right upper arm,

Connecting with the elbow,

Feeling your forearm,

Your wrist,

Your right thumb,

Pointer finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger and pinky,

Feeling your entire palm,

And again just let your awareness settle on any sensation you can pick up on here,

Maybe that awareness extends into the liminal space just beyond the physical hand,

Letting awareness travel back up your right arm,

Feeling your collarbone,

Sensing the center of your chest,

And finding your heartbeat,

Feeling the physical and the energetic space of the heart,

Feeling its physical aliveness,

As well as anything that is alive energetically or emotionally,

Not to fix or to change,

But simply to notice,

To hold space,

To feel.

Without changing the breath too much,

Maybe you attempt to breathe more intentionally into the heart space,

Even just with your mind's eye,

Trusting in the wisdom of the heart,

Trusting in its whispers and its desires,

Knowing that it plays an important role in your dream world,

Feeling the way the breath subtly expands and contracts both sides of your ribcage,

Feeling the support of your diaphragm just beneath your lungs,

Sensing your belly,

Its softness,

And its subtle rise and fall as you breathe,

Letting your awareness travel more deeply into your pelvis and your hips,

Sensing your gut,

This space where so much wisdom lives,

Allow your awareness to settle deeply here for a moment,

Connecting with the wisdom that resides in your gut,

The things that you already know,

But maybe cast aside from time to time,

Perhaps you recall a moment when you knew something to be true and what that felt like in your gut,

Or a time that you knew the difference between intuition and anxiety and the difference between those two and how it feels in your gut,

Let your awareness travel into the left glute and the front of your left hip,

Traversing the top of your thigh,

The back of your thigh,

The left knee,

The calf,

The shin,

Your ankle,

The heel of your left foot,

The top of your left foot,

Sensing all of your toes in the fullness of the sole of your foot,

And again perhaps you can sense the liminal space just beyond the physical foot,

Let your awareness travel up the left leg over to the right glute in the front of the right hip,

Sensing the top of the right thigh,

The back of the right thigh,

The right knee,

The calf,

The shin,

Your right heel,

The top of the right foot,

All of your right toes in the entirety of the sole of your right foot,

Noticing what sensation is present here,

Maybe sensing into the liminal space beyond the right foot,

Allow this loving conscious awareness to encapsulate the entirety of your body,

Sensing every sensation as being interconnected,

Even as they ebb and flow and move through different parts of the body,

It is all part of your own unique web,

Your own inner universe.

You're welcome to revisit any part of the body that feels particularly alive,

Just being mindful of not trying to change the sensation you're feeling,

But just noticing it,

Letting it ebb and flow,

Get stronger and to dissolve as it pleases.

As you connect more deeply with your body,

Trust in any images that come into your vision space,

Any intuitive whispers you may hear,

Honor them,

And also let them be released,

Trusting that you won't forget,

And that these whispers will meet you in your dreams,

Instilling a bit of trust into your sankalpa as well,

Knowing that there's no need to ruminate on it,

To grip it,

Simply by planting the seed,

You are engaging in a deep practice of trust with self,

With your soul,

Trust in the magic of your dream world,

Trust in what your soul has to show you,

You have everything you need as you continue to deepen into this practice.