What is yoga nidra?
I first discovered yoga nidra in Chicago, during my yoga teacher training in 2013. I read the class description, it sounded up my alley, so I went. I distinctly remember the hustle and bustle of people ending their work day to get to class on time; suits were swapped for sweats, bike helmets and cross body bags flooded the lobby, and then suddenly there we were - strangers taking conscious naps a couple feet away from each other. Yoga nidra is a deeply nourishing practice that requires no movement. I was immediately taken with the practice. It was the best guided meditation I had ever done, and all I had to do was lay down and snuggle under a blanket. Inevitably there were snores, as people drifted from the liminal in-between state to full on sleep. I continued going, and even though I was just laying on the floor, my experiences differed each time. Sometimes I had a really hard time settling. Sometimes I’d drop in immediately. Sometimes I heard every word the teacher said. Sometimes I wasn’t sure where I went. Did I fall asleep? A couple times I had tears rolling down my face and I was like wait, am I crying? (I learned later that increased tear production is actually a totally normal sign of your parasympathetic nervous system activating - just means you’re relaxing!) Despite these differences, the framework of the practice was consistent, so there was a feeling of being held and supported wherever I was.
The teacher guides you through a period of preparation and settling (not unlike savasana, or the end of a yoga class) but then it continues to a body scan, breath awareness, and then a series of visualizations before students are brought “back to earth,” so to speak, and invited to gradually bring awareness back to their senses and physical body. Even so, teachers vary widely in how they offer the practice, in part because there are now a variety of approaches.
Some historical context, to honor the roots : The practice itself is very old. It is found in the Indian epic, the Mahābhārata, usually dated between 300 BCE - 300 CE but it wasn’t described as a specific technique, yet. In the Devīmāhātmya, a Hindu philosophical text, Yoga nidra is personified as a goddess - Nidra Shakti - with the power of sleep. It isn’t until Hatha yoga manuals in the medieval period that yoga nidra is mentioned as a philosophical concept and a state of awareness, and even then there is still no multi-step technique laid out. In the 1900’s, a wave of modern, western thinkers, including therapists and psychiatrists, became interested in relaxation practices, and this was the backdrop for Swami Satyananda’s teachings (whom many people credit as the founder of yoga nidra), and his popular Yoga Nidra book which was published in 1976. Yoga nidra translates to “yogic sleep,” but as yoga teacher Uma Dinsmore Tuli says:
“In fact it is not a sleep but an awakening. Yoga nidra is fundamentally paradoxical: what we present in contemporary approaches to yoga nidra is a series of techniques to be practiced in order to access states of awareness that arise effortlessly.”
The space between waking and dreaming is yoga nidra. We’ve all felt it before - it happens right before we fall asleep. The practice of it is simply an opportunity to hang out in that space a little longer.
Part of the reason I’m drawn to it, aside from the way it makes me feel (clear, connected, truly rested, calm, relaxed, creative, worthy) is that it is both simple and complex. There is usually an invitation mid way through to experience one sensation fully (for example, heaviness), the opposite sensation fully (in this case, lightness) and then to experience both at the same time. Uma Dinsmore Tuli says that,
“By moving the awareness between two opposites and then endeavoring to hold them together we provide an effective way to transcend logical, rational mind: manas (the capacity we have to experience thought and emotion) simply implodes, it cannot hold two opposing ideas together at the same time. This enforced silencing of the rational mind allows the subconscious to become more active, opening up a new space for intuition and creativity to flourish.”
By playing with opposites in this way, we start to see a couple things. One, that as quickly as our thoughts can make us feel one thing, they can make us feel the other….which begs the question: what is real? But also, when we practice holding opposites at the same time, we are rehearsing a larger skill: the ability to stay present with complexity. To not rush toward certainty. To let multiple truths exist without immediately choosing sides. In that way, yoga nidra is not just a state of being that invites deep rest, but a quiet training ground for empathy, imagination, and peace.