"Looking at sleep solely through waking-world eyes is like looking at a glorious night sky through dark sunglasses." - Dr. R. Naiman
We are caught in 'wakism' - a subtle but harmful addiction to ordinary waking consciousness that limits our understanding and experience of sleep. Actual sleep can't be reduced to squiggly EEG tracings, neurophysiology or the night cascade of neurotransmitters. As important as an objective biomedical view of sleep might be, it is insufficient since it largely disregards the experience of the sleeper. It dampens the sensual dimensions of sleep, which are most evident in dreams.
In Nidra (Sanskrit term for sleep) we will explore sleep from a physiological process to a deeply personal experience and from the medical to the mythical so we may cultivate a heartfelt devotion to an intimate relationship with sleep and dreams.
Students will learn the following:
What is sleep and what is dreaming?
The epidemic of sleep and dream loss
Circadian rhythms, BRAC, sleep stages and chronotypes
Insomnia - etiology and evaluation
Management and treatment of insomnia
What is 'body, mind and bed noise' and how to manage it
Substantiate the negative consequences of long term use of sleeping pills
CBT-I: Evidence-based insomnia interventions used by therapists
Transpersonal dimensions of sleep
Yoga Nidra, Lucid and Liminal Dreaming
Dream incubation and interpretation
Oneirogens: herbs and roots, OBEs, consciousness hacking