Dream yoga is an ancient Tibetan art, but it is not yet a well-known form of yoga. The monk Rimpoche made it more known in the West and this form of yoga can definitely be of added value. If only that, if you master the technique, you can use the average eight hours of sleep even more efficiently. How does it work?

The basics of dream yoga

Through the exercises you master, you learn to become clear in your sleep and this continues during the day. This clarity provides balance in emotional outliers and you create peace in your head. In Rimpoche’s book, the very shepherd man explains that Tibetan Buddhism views both dreams and what we call the real world as unreal. We see things from desire and aversion and we are driven by emotions. Dream yoga teaches us to see through this illusion. After all, in everyday life you can try to keep your emotions under control, but when it comes to dreams, things are a bit more nuanced.Dreams go uncontrollably and dart from side to side. With dream yoga you can give more shape to your dreams. Control, but not for the sake of control itself, but to give it more structured content. Dreams become longer and clearer and studies have now been done when it comes to poor sleepers. Sleeping and being awake become a little closer together, which means that poor sleepers benefit from it. As strange as it may sound, you have to set your alarm at night.

Exercises

Source: Jan Nijman, PixabayMeditation Regular meditation helps in every situation to become more balanced and not to get carried away by emotions. Meditation is slowly becoming established and goes beyond some alternative floating, as it has long been seen. Meditation can be different for everyone, but start by keeping it small. You do this by dedicating short sessions to it and visualizing something or quoting a mantra. Slowly but surely you can work towards sessions where you completely loosen up and dissolve thoughts. Your head slowly clears and you relax completely. Which means that whether you do dream yoga or not, meditating is always good for body and mind.

Sleep ritual

Start working towards a calm environment. The message is actually that your mind should go to sleep peacefully. Everyone can have their own ritual for this and where one person calms the mind with some incense, the other does this through a warm bath or some relaxation exercises. Make sure you sleep in a quiet room with what you like, beautiful, soothing, what you are attached to, etc. These can be beautiful images on the wall, but can also be done using soft materials on the bed or a beautiful image on the wall. a prominent place.Sit or lie down quietly and visualize a protective environment around you. These may be ancestors that you visualize, but those who believe in guardian angels can also visualize these. What matters is that you feel safe and comfortable, like a warm blanket around you. Try to hold on to the feeling. Not everyone can sleep well on their side, but this is recommended in dream yoga. When you are ready to sleep, sleep on the left side as a woman and on the right side as a man.

To clean

You clean by re-visualizing the thoughts you had during the day. Doing this before you fall asleep will make your dream clearer. Normally the dream phase is used to process everything of the day, by anticipating this, your dream phase becomes clearer. You then reinforce your dream phase by firmly resolving to remember your dream. Do this consciously and also focus on it as soon as you go to sleep. Especially in the beginning, it is good to commit what you dreamed to paper as quickly as possible the next morning.

Make your dream

As soon as you lay your foundation and your dreams become clearer, there will be room in your mind to give more meaning to them yourself. In your dream, visit your favorite holiday resort, be who you wanted to be as a child and whether that is Superman or Pino is irrelevant. By practicing this, your mind slowly loosens up and your limitations in thought process dissolve. You can then apply the latter in your daily life and create space for how you want to further shape your life and fully utilize your talents.

Finally

As with so many things, practice makes perfect. Don’t expect to master this in a few days. But as long as you work on it contentiously, you will notice that you are making progress. If you are not (yet) ready for this kind of thing, take your time. There is a time and a place for everything.