How To Practice Yoga In Your Sleep
Some time ago, maybe it was winter, I was chatting with veteran yoga therapist, Lee Shinefield. Lee was practicing yoga therapy before IAYT certification was a thing. As I do sometimes, I scribbled notes as we spoke. Months later I pulled out a piece of paper to doodle upon, and I saw the scribbles from this conversation and they connected me back to the conversation with Lee. According to the only known record of this conversation, Lee and I talked about how our nervous systems are all connected, how tears are a physical connection to emotion, and, “What is dark matter and what does it mean in the body?” The yoozh for yoga therapy people.
There was also this note, “Arni Mindell Dreambody.” This catches my attention, because now I’m working with the Tibetan practice of Dream Yoga, which is exactly what is sounds like — practicing yoga in your sleep. And it’s way harder than practicing when you’re awake, for me anyway. But what is "Dreambody” and how might it relate to yoga and yoga therapy? Veteran procrastinator, I leapt at the chance to learn something new (sometimes known as googling). And here is what I found:
To me, this sounds a lot like yoga therapy. No, they did not use the word yoga and mentioned nary a single yoga pose. So what gives?
What is Yoga Therapy?
According to the IAYT, which offers certification to yoga therapists and accredits yoga therapy schools, “Yoga therapy is the professional application of the principles and practices of yoga to promote health and well-being within a therapeutic relationship that includes personalized assessment, goal setting, lifestyle management, and yoga practices for individuals or small groups.”
This definition is obviously for official purposes. Should a law need to be passed or a court case somehow involve yoga therapy, it’s good to have an official definition. But this definition does not tell an actual human what yoga therapy is or does or how it will work in their life. It certainly does not tell me this. So, to figure out what yoga therapy is, I consider how yoga has been therapeutic in my own life.
It began when I was about eight years old and I sat on a blanket on the floor in front of a mirror, crossed my legs, and stared into my eyes. I have no idea why I did this, but it felt interesting. It felt . . . different. Before long, my mother came in and, true to her nature and her youth at the time, she said, “Stop doing that. It’s weird.” I stopped.
But many years later, I found myself exhausted after work and increasingly unable to move, with pain in my feet and legs, and digestive problems. Of course I thought nothing was wrong. I wasn’t listening to my body. Time passed, and one evening, lying on a sofa exhausted again, my eyes glanced an old book on yoga by Bikram. Something made me move to the floor and try out a pose. It was hard, but it felt interesting. It felt . . . different.
I wanted to feel that interesting-different in the body some more. And this time I listened. Long story short. This became a part of my life, learning about, practicing, and teaching yoga. Along the way many other interesting-different things started to happen in my life too. The work I was doing, it became crystal clear, was not right for me. And a few other things were not right either. A trip to the doctor revealed autoimmune disorders run amok. Thanks body, for shouting at me until I finally heard you.
What ensued — after assurance from medical professionals that NOTHING can be done for autoimmunity — was a complete life change that included yoga practice, breath work, meditation, vegetarian diet, new ways of thinking, new relationships, new sense of being, and new ways of accepting change.
As I write this, autoantibody tests are negative. And things feel more right, but I’m still paying attention. Yes, I still learn, practice, and teach yoga. But yoga is just a lens through which I pay attention. By paying attention in the body and to the body, I know myself better and live more authentically. It also helps me connect more intentionally with the world around me.
What is Dreambody?
Back to Dreambody work, which seems similar in this way. From what I gather, Dreambody involves using sight, sound, inner body feeling and movement “to find what is to be discovered and enhance awareness of these experiences.” It can also involve amplifying, or exaggerating, and “unfolding the initial signal.” As for the Dreambody itself, it’s described as “a non-consensus reality, sentient, pre-signal experience manifesting as symptoms and unpredictable motions.”
I checked in with Lee about this. Having experienced both, he finds that what Dreambody and yoga therapy have in common is taking into account that everyone perceives experience through the senses differently, e.g., some people respond more to sight, sound or touch. And they both encourage the experience of “dropping in,” connecting with the body, our internal processes, and noticing our way of being in that moment. The essence of both is being fully present with what is happening now.
“Aha!”, says a friend when I tell her about this. “So when I keep ‘dropping’ my phone, that inadvertent motion when my hand seems to be flinging it away from me is actually my rising awareness speaking through my body about something that I don’t consciously understand yet?” Yep, that seems like what they’re saying. “But noticing the body and what it’s telling me in life AND in dreams? It’s hard enough listening to the body while I am awake!”, she exclaims. I agree. But once you know that you really can do this, what is the alternative?
Are you listening to your body? Read about how yoga therapy helped Meghan with life-long anxiety.