Borderline between dream and reality. Waking and sleeping Falling asleep

Wakefulness and sleep are two physiological states of human activity, which are caused by the activity of certain centers of the brain, in particular, the hypothalamus and subthalamus, as well as the locus coeruleus and the raphe nucleus, located in the upper part of the brain stem. Both of these periods are cyclic in their structure and are subject to the daily rhythms of the human body.

The rhythm of the internal clock

The mechanisms of wakefulness and sleep are still being studied and there are at least several theories of how our internal clock works. Being in a state of wakefulness, we consciously react to any stimuli, being fully aware of our connection with the outside world, our brain activity is in an active phase and almost all vital processes occurring in our body are aimed at absorbing and rationally spending energy resources coming from externally in the form of water and food. In total, the psychophysiology of sleep and wakefulness is due to the regulation of various systemic structures of the brain, which, in particular, contributes to the accumulation of information received when we are in a state of activity and its more detailed assimilation and distribution into departments during sleep.

Five stages of sleep

The state of sleep is characterized by the absence of activity directed to the outside world and is conventionally divided into five stages, each of which lasts approximately 90 minutes.

1. The first two of them are the stages of light or light sleep, during which breathing and pulse rate slow down, however, during this period we can wake up even at the slightest touch.
2. Then come the third and fourth phases of deep sleep, during which there is an even greater slowdown in the heartbeat and a complete lack of response to external stimuli. Waking up a person who is in a deep sleep stage is already much more difficult.
3. The fifth and final phase of sleep is medically referred to as REM (Rapid Eye Movement). At this stage of sleep, breathing and heart rate increase, eyeballs move under closed eyelids, and all this happens under the influence of dreams that a person sees. Experts in the field of somnology and neurology claim that absolutely everyone has dreams, just not all people remember them.

At the moment of falling asleep, as well as at the end of the deep phase of sleep, we enter the so-called borderline state between sleep and wakefulness. During this period, the connection of consciousness with the environment reality, is present in principle, but we do not fully associate ourselves with it.

Sleep and wakefulness disturbances can be caused by various psychophysiological factors, such as an uneven shift work schedule, change of time zones during air travel, etc. But the reasons for the disturbed activity-rest rhythm can also lie in certain diseases, in particular, narcolepsy or hypersomnia . In any case, for any more or less pronounced violations of the cyclical states of wakefulness and sleep, it is advisable to consult a specialist.

Lately I've been hearing expressions like "lucid dream", "reality control through a dream" and so on. Everyone can roughly imagine what it is. In the morning, usually leaving the state of sleep for a split second, falling into a state of wakefulness, we hang somewhere in between))) I repeatedly caught myself in this amazing intermediate state, when you can seem to control dreams: thinking out the plot to be where you want and with whom you want ) In a word, you become the director of your dream) But is it a dream?))) Or is it already a kind of projection onto reality??)) And can we ourselves control the immersion in this intermediate state?)
Of course!)) Everything is possible!) We only invent the impossible for ourselves, so as not to do anything)))))) So one of the ways of conscious "immersion" is the practice of yoga nidra.

yoga nidra is the twilight state of mind between wakefulness and sleep.
What are the bonuses??
With the help of regular practice, you can achieve previously inaccessible results in the development of human abilities - intellectual, creative, spiritual, in calming the mind, increasing vitality, healing, curing diseases, etc. With the help of yoga nidra, the body self-heals. Due to the complete relaxation of the body and mind yoga nidra rejuvenates and revives the physical, mental and emotional aspects of the individual. One hour of yoga nidra is equal to three to four hours of full-fledged deep sleep.

Who should practice?
The practice of yoga nidra is especially recommended for those people who suffer from fear, tension, obsessive thoughts and other disharmony. It is indicated for those who wish to develop greater awareness and purity of thought.

What is the point??
Yoga Nidra is a powerful mindful relaxation technique that has nothing to do with falling asleep. Such relaxation cannot be compared with the so-called "rest", when we sit comfortably in an armchair, armed with a cup of coffee, a drink, a cigarette and a newspaper in front of the TV. It is more sensual entertainment than relaxation (or relaxation). Yoga Nidra, on the other hand, is a lucid dream, a special systematic method of complete physical, mental and emotional relaxation. The term "yoga nidra" consists of two words: "yoga" - union, unity (or one-pointed consciousness) and "nidra" - sleep. Outwardly, from the side, it may seem that a person practicing yoga nidra simply falls into a dream, while in reality his consciousness continues to function, penetrating the subconscious. That is why yoga nidra is often called psychic sleep, deep relaxation with inner awareness, when on the verge of sleep and wakefulness spontaneous contact with the realm of the subconscious and the unconscious. Yoga nidra leads to a state of relaxation due to the distraction of consciousness from external impressions and its immersion in the innermost depths of the psyche. If consciousness separate How from external perception, and from sleep, it is filled with power that can be used for various purposes, such as: strengthening of memory, accumulation of knowledge, increase of creative abilities, transformation of the whole personality.

How to achieve?
Yoga nidra brings consciousness to the borderline state between sleep and wakefulness and is performed lying on the back in a pose called shavasana yoga. There are three well-known states of consciousness: wakefulness, dreaming and deep dreamless sleep. Yoga Nidra allows you to reach and stay for a long time in the fourth state of consciousness - intermediate - between sleep and wakefulness. This state of superconsciousness is called turia. In yoga nidra, the body is asleep and the mind is awake. It allows you to release and dissolve "blocks and tensions hidden deep in the subconscious and creating obstacles for us in the realization of our goals. This is achieved through several techniques -" rotation "of consciousness in different parts of the body in a certain sequence; breath monitoring in different parts of the body and counting inhalations and exhalations; evoking "bodily" memories of various sensations; visualization, built on the use of symbolic images that direct consciousness to a state of harmony and meditation. When the body is completely relaxed, the mind also becomes relaxed, and its activity is supported by the movement of consciousness through the body, tracking the breath, experiencing various sensations, creating mental images.

How long?
The duration of a yoga nidra session is 30-40 minutes.(source: www.kazanyoga.info/travels/yoga_nidra/)

Picture of brain activity during yoga nidra ( university research in Copenhagen):www.yogin.ru/parser.php

If you can't sleep for a long time or have nightmares...
Whatever the Copenhagen studies say, we trust our own experience, the experience of our relatives and friends more. My friend, who practices like me, now takes shavasana every time before going to bed (lying on her back, arms along the body, palms up) and begins to meditate, imagining that with every breath all the cells of her body are filled with oxygen and hundreds of buds of beautiful flowers bloom in body. After such meditations, she quickly falls asleep and has sweet dreams. One day, after a hard day, she fell asleep without meditating. And what do you think?? She had nightmares, in the morning she woke up broken.
As far as I understand from a few years of life experience, our brain needs a mood, like a musical instrument. If he is upset. the tone is broken, the sound is disgusting. Therefore, it is necessary to tune not only musical instruments, equipment and other equipment around you, but also your brain, consciousness, body, soul)

There are still a lot of teachings on managing dreams, and no matter what we study, the main thing is to understand: why do we need it)

Sweet dreams and positive vibes!

55. Be aware of the gap between wakefulness and sleep

The third technique for self-remembering: At that moment of sleep, when sleep has not yet come, and external wakefulness has already disappeared - at this very moment Existence is revealed.

There are some turning points in your mind. In these moments you are closer to your center than at any other time. You change "gear" and the moment you change gear you are going through neutral. This neutral position is closer to you. In the morning, when the dream goes away, disappears, and you feel awake, but not yet awake, when you are just in the middle of waking up, you are in "neutral gear". This is the moment when you are no longer asleep, but not yet awake, right in the middle. You are in neutral gear. In the transition from sleep to wakefulness, your consciousness changes its entire mechanism. It jumps from one functioning mechanism to another. Between these two mechanisms there is no other mechanism, there is a gap between them, a gap. Through this gap you can get some idea of ​​your essence. The same thing happens in the evening when you jump back from the waking mechanism to the sleep mechanism, from the conscious to the unconscious. For a moment there is no mechanism, there is no pressure of the mechanism on you, because you have to jump from one mechanism to another. If you can be aware between these two moments, if you can become aware between these two moments, if you can remember yourself between these two moments, then you will get some idea of ​​your real being.
How to perform this technique? When you are about to fall asleep, relax. Close your eyes, darken the room. Just close your eyes and wait. Sleep is coming, just wait, do nothing, just wait! Your body is relaxed, the body becomes heavy, feel it. Feel it. Sleep has its own mechanism, it starts working. Your waking consciousness disappears. Remember, because the moment will be very subtle, the moment will be atomic. If you miss, you miss. It is a very short period - one moment, a very small interval, and you will change from being awake to sleeping. Just wait, remaining fully aware. Keep waiting. This will take some time. This will take at least three months. Only then can you get some hint of the moment that is right in the middle. So don't rush. You can't do it right now, you can't do it tonight. But you have to start and you may have to wait a few months.
It usually happens suddenly within three months. It happens every day, but your awareness and meeting with this gap cannot be planned. It happens. You just keep waiting and one day it happens. One day, suddenly, you become aware that you are not awake and you are not sleeping - a very mysterious phenomenon. You may even be afraid because up to now you have only known two states: the waking state and the sleeping state. But you do not know the third state of your being, when you are neither asleep nor awake. The first time you encounter this condition, you may be frightened. Don't be scared. Everything that is new, that was not previously known, must cause some fear, because this moment, if you experience it again and again, will give you new sensations too: you will be neither alive nor dead, neither this nor that. This is the abyss.
These two mechanisms are like two hills, you jump from one peak to another. If you stop in the middle, you will fall into an abyss, into an abyss without a bottom, you will go on falling, falling and falling. This technique is used by the Sufis, and before they give this technique to the seekers, they also give another practice, just as a safety measure. Whenever this technique is offered in the Sufi system, another technique is given before it, which is that you close your eyes and imagine that you are falling into a deep well - dark, deep, bottomless. Just imagine falling into a deep well - falling, falling and falling, endlessly falling. There is no bottom, you cannot reach the bottom. Now this fall cannot stop. You can stop it, you can open your eyes and say there is nothing more, but the fall cannot stop by itself. If you continue, the well is bottomless, and it gets darker and darker.
In the Sufi system, this exercise must first be practiced with a well - with this bottomless dark well. It's nice and helpful. If you practice this exercise and realize its beauty, its silence, then the deeper you fall into the well, the more silent you will become. The world remains somewhere far away, you feel that you are flying far, far, far away. Silence grows with darkness, and there, in the depths, there is no bottom. Fear takes over your mind, but you know it's just imagination, so you can continue.
Through this exercise you become more accustomed to this technique, but then when you fall into the well between wakefulness and sleep, it is no longer imaginary, it is a real fact. And here, too, there is no bottom, this abyss is bottomless. That is why the Buddha called this empty void shunya. She has no end. Once you know it, you also become infinite. This idea is difficult to have while awake. It is impossible, of course, to have it during sleep, because then the mechanism functions and it is difficult to disconnect oneself from this mechanism. But in the evening and in the morning there are other moments - just two such moments in twenty-four hours - when it is very easy, but you have to wait for it. At that moment of sleep, when sleep has not yet come, and the outer wakefulness has already disappeared - at that very moment Existence is revealed, then you know who you are, what your real being is, what is your true existence. We are false when we are awake, and we know it very well. While awake you are insincere, unnatural. You smile when it would be more natural to cry. Your tears also cannot be trusted. They can only be a façade, a ceremony, a duty. Your smile is fake, physiognomists might say that your smile is just painted on. There are no roots in it, a smile is only on your face, only on your lips. It is nowhere else in your being. It has no roots, no other parts of the body. She is forced on you. Smiling does not come from within, it is imposed on you from outside.
Whatever you say and whatever you do is false, and it is not at all necessary that you are doing all these false things of your life consciously - not at all! You can be completely unconscious - and you are! Otherwise, it would be very difficult to carry on this false nonsense all the time. This happens automatically. This falseness goes on while you are awake, it goes on even while you are asleep - in a different way, of course. Your dreams are symbolic, not real. It is amazing that even in a dream you are not real, natural, even in a dream you are afraid and create symbols.
Now psychoanalysts are all the time analyzing your dreams. They have a very good business because you cannot analyze your own dreams. They are symbolic, they are not real. They talk about something only with the help of metaphors. If you want to kill your mother and get rid of her, you will not kill her even in your sleep. You will kill anyone else who looks like your mother. You will kill your aunt or anyone else, but not your mother. Even in a dream you cannot be sincere. Then a psychoanalysis is needed, a professional is needed to interpret – but you can describe everything in such a way that even the psychoanalyst will be deceived.
Your dreams are also completely false. If you are real while you are awake, then your dreams will also be real. They will not be symbolic. If you want to kill your mother, then you will have a dream in which you are killing your mother, and then no interpreters will be needed to show what your dream means. But we are so fake. In a dream we are alone, but still afraid of the world and society.
Killing the mother is the greatest sin, and I don't think you have any idea why this is the greatest sin. This is the greatest sin, because everyone has a deep enmity towards the mother. This is the greatest sin, and you are so trained, your mind is so conditioned, that even the thought of hurting your mother is sinful. She gave you life. All over the world, in all societies, the same thing is taught. There is not a single society on earth that would not agree with this - that the murder of a mother is the greatest sin. She gave you life, and you kill her?
But where does this teaching come from? Somewhere deep down there is a possibility that everyone is against their mother out of necessity - because the mother not only gives you life, but she is also the instrument by which you become false, she is the instrument for forcing the unreal on you. She made you what you are. If you live in hell, then she took part in this, the biggest part. If you are suffering, then your mother is here somewhere, she is hidden in you, because the mother gave birth to you and raised you - or, in fact, threw you out of your reality. She faked you. The first lie happened between you and your mother, the first lie happened between you and your mother - the first lie!
Even when there is no language yet, and the child cannot speak, he can lie. Sooner or later, the child begins to realize that many of his feelings are not approved by his mother. Her face, her eyes, her behavior, her mood - all show that something in it is unacceptable. Then he starts suppressing his feelings. Is there something wrong. The language is not yet there, his mind is not yet functioning. But his whole body starts suppressing. And then he begins to feel that sometimes something is approved by his mother. He depends on his mother, his life depends on his mother. If his mother leaves him, he will be gone. His whole existence is centered on the mother.
Everything that the mother says, does, shows, all her behavior matters. If the child smiles and the mother loves him, gives him her warmth, feeds him milk, hugs him, then he is learning to be a politician. He will smile when there is no smile in him, because he knows that in this way he can persuade his mother. He will smile a fake smile. Then a liar is born, a politician appears. Now he knows how to fake, and he learned this in his relationship with his mother. This is the very first relationship with the world. When he becomes aware of his suffering, his hell, his confusion, he will find that his mother is behind it all.
There is a good chance that you feel hostility towards your mother. That is why every culture insists that killing the mother is the greatest sin. Even in thoughts, even in dreams, you cannot kill your mother. I'm not saying that you should kill her, I'm just saying that your dreams are also false - symbolic, insincere. You are so false that you cannot even have real dreams.
These are our two false faces, one appears when we are awake, the other when we sleep. Between these two false faces there is a very small door, an interval. Through this interval, you can get some idea of ​​your original face, of the face you had when you were not in contact with your mother and therefore with society, when you were alone with yourself, when you were - but not this and that, when there was no separation. There was only the real, the unreal was not. You can take a look at this face, this innocent face between these two machines.
Usually we don't think about our dreams, we think more about our waking hours. But psychoanalysis is more concerned with your dreams than your waking hours, because it knows that in your waking hours you are a big liar. In dreams, at least something can be caught. In sleep you are less aware, you don't force things, you don't manipulate them. Then you can catch something real in them. During your waking hours you may be a chaste monk, but you repress your sexual desires. Then it will impose itself on your dreams, your dreams must be sexual. It is very difficult to find a monk without sexual dreams - rather impossible. You can find a criminal without sexual dreams, but you cannot find a religious person without them. A debauchee may not have sexual dreams, but not so-called saints, because whatever you put in while you are awake will come out during your dreams and color them.
Psychoanalysts don't deal with your waking state because they know it's a 100% lie. If one can get some idea of ​​the real, it is only in dreams. But tantra says that even dreams are not so real. They are more real - and this seems paradoxical, because we think that dreams are not real - they are more real than your waking hours, because then you are less alert. The sense organs are dormant, something may come out, the repressed may manifest itself - symbolically, of course, but the symbols can be analyzed.
Throughout the world, the symbols manipulated by man are the same. When you are awake, you may speak different languages, but when you sleep, you speak the same language. All over the world the language of dreams is the same. If sex is suppressed, then the same symbols appear in a dream. If the passion for food, the passion for food, hunger is suppressed, then the same symbols appear - or similar symbols. The language of dreams is the same, but there are still problems with dreams because the language is symbolic. And Freud may interpret it one way, Jung another, and Adler some third. And if you are analyzed by a hundred psychoanalysts, there will be a hundred interpretations. You will be even more confused than you were before, more confused by a hundred interpretations of the same thing. Tantra says that neither when you are asleep nor when you are awake are you real. You are real only between these two states. So don't mess with waking or with sleep and dreams. Pay attention to the gap, be aware of the gap between them. Catch a glimpse as you transition from one state to another. And once you know when that gap is, you become its master. You have the key, at any time you can open this gap and enter it. Another dimension of existence opens up, the dimension of the real.

Recently, I have come to the conclusion that of all the modern and non-modern "parapsychological" practices known to me, the most productive is working with the state. No bat wings, no :-) Even Sufi circling - with this approach, only a means, not a goal.

And one of the most interesting and practically useful states that I have "tasted" in the last six months is a slip between sleep and reality.

This is the state when you didn't fall asleep very much, or didn't wake up very much :-). In my case, for some reason, it works easier on waking up than on diving into sleep. Metaphorically, this can be expressed in the form of an iceberg:

The picture is simple - let's imagine all the knowledge available to a person as a single iceberg, in which consciousness is a small but open part; and the subconscious is big, but hidden. By fixing most of our attention on consciousness, we are awake; fixing most of the attention on the subconscious - in a dream. The transition to the state of sliding is the fixation of attention on a narrow strip between sleep and reality.

It's like in that song: "I slept a little, a little, but in a dream I dreamed oo-oo". Yes.

Benefits of being in this state:

1. Great integrity, unity of one's personality. "Sliding", you get the pleasure of being.

2. The ability to receive direct, most relevant knowledge at the moment. For example, when I first went into "sliding", I was visiting a friend. An internet video was included in which an American in his 30s fluently squealed about wrestling in English. I must say right away that my English is good, but far from excellent, especially in terms of spoken language - so I didn’t really perceive what he was talking about. And wrestling didn't really interest me either. "Sliding", I not only understood his every word - without translating, with all the intonations and phraseological units, I also imbued with his state, empathized with him. The second time in "sliding" gave me the true name of the person next to me. Upon awakening, having told about this, he received confirmation: a person from childhood dreamed of this name, and his mother should have called him that if his grandmother had not intervened.

I don’t use special methods to transition to sliding, but Salvador Dali used similar states. And he used the following method to enter, which he called "sleep with a key in his hand": he sat in a comfortable chair with armrests, put a metal key in one (relaxed!) hand - so that when he, falling asleep, finally relaxed, the key fell to the floor and woke him up. Attention did not have time to plunge deeply into sleep, and the artist could remember a couple of images from a dream upon awakening.

7-8 years ago I practiced this method, however, without much success - either a falling key (spoon / fork / anything metallic and not very heavy) hit the floor so quietly that I did not wake up; or, when I put a metal bowl close at hand, the sound was so deafening that the image of the dream could be lost due to fright. But, in any case, this practice gave a certain effect - who knows: if I had not done it then, whether I could now transfer consciousness to a sliding state by an effort of will.

Try it - you might succeed. But remember, the main thing is inner effort, practice is only a means.