Whenever I faithfully practice a hatha yoga routine (faithful meaning not just “getting through some poses” but rather, really breathing deeply, concentrating intently, going slowly, feeling the stretch, pausing for a moment, etc.), strange things happen to my sleep and dreams. It occurs as soon as the same night’s sleep, after a yoga practice that evening, but seems to cumulate in intensity according to the frequency of practice (e.g. daily practice building up much more effect than sporadic practice). What happens is that I’ll WAKE UP feeling fully rested after just a short cycle of sleep, possibly only a couple of hours or less in length. I fully remember a vivid dream experience upon that waking. Once, I was even woken up BY the noise in my dream – I snapped awake hearing the loud chatter of a large crowd, then realized I had been awoken by the sound of my own dream. Although I enjoy the feeling of being fully rested and having a more conscious dream life, I know that there’s no way that short cycle sleep could count for a whole night’s worth, so it’s annoying in terms of scheduling. I have to get back to sleep right away, feeling that some perfectly good consciousness must go to waste. Also, when I wake up or go to sleep after yoga, I see strange random images popping up, sometimes moving images, but usually still-frame images, which are not dream imagery because they are not part of a dream (not even part of a lucid dream), and they are not my imagination because I really see them randomly and without thinking them, and thought makes them go away. Sometimes, they are foretelling – I’ll see an image pop up that I’ll see later in the day and it’s something I didn’t know I would be seeing that day. After several days of yoga I can start having precognitive and lucid dreams. Normally I’m a very deep sleeper and a night person, but yoga helps me sleep earlier and wake up more refreshed and have all these sleep/dream-related experiences.
Why do the sleeping habits change, and why are my dreams so much more conscious? Why do I see those strange images? Is it the third eye, or what?
- I post this here because this is unrelated to my physical progress. I never make physical progress. I have always been (since late childhood) about as stiff as a board. I do yoga not to celebrate flexibility, but because I’m stiff, and it’s always been that way.