I think it’s a fair suggestion that is adjacent, I do think the mechanisms are different enough that it’s wrong though. Some of what we know of the mechanisms of dreaming and emotional regulation through sleep are gone through here (Dreams, Emotional regulation) and one of the questions there is to what extent yogic sleep is similar to REM sleep.
For your lucid dreaming angle, I would say the main dangerous thing is the inhibition of bodily action that leads to this spiral of anxiety when you can’t move? (Sleep paralysis)
I’m like ~70% (50-90%) certain that this does not occur during yoga nidra and that yoga nidra is a technique that actually helps you if you’ve had these problems before.
I also read this book to get the vibe of it, it doesn’t have the best epistemic rigour but the person writing it has a psychiatry practice specifically focused on yoga nidra and one of the main things that this person claims it helps with is PTSD and sleep related problems. I think it has a specific activation pattern that can be very healing if done correctly, if you’re worried you can probably find a ACT psychologist or similar to do the practice with but I do think it is one of the safer practices you can do.
I am not personally worried about it; I don’t think I’m in the at risk group.
From the people I know in the lucid dreaming community, I have just a couple of reports of people with diagnosed schizophrenia who tried lucid dreaming and it made their symptoms worse. To which the general view seems to be: if it makes your symptoms worse, don’t do it. I don’t have adequate evidence on whether yoga nidra is safe or not; I think a reasonable approach would be to use caution and stop if you start getting bad symptoms.
Also personally, I don’t find sleep paralysis to be a big deal. I know some people are really freaked out by it. But sleep paralysis isn’t the actually risky thing that’s the concern here (the actually risky thing is psychotic symptoms that persist)
I think it’s a fair suggestion that is adjacent, I do think the mechanisms are different enough that it’s wrong though. Some of what we know of the mechanisms of dreaming and emotional regulation through sleep are gone through here (Dreams, Emotional regulation) and one of the questions there is to what extent yogic sleep is similar to REM sleep.
For your lucid dreaming angle, I would say the main dangerous thing is the inhibition of bodily action that leads to this spiral of anxiety when you can’t move? (Sleep paralysis)
I’m like ~70% (50-90%) certain that this does not occur during yoga nidra and that yoga nidra is a technique that actually helps you if you’ve had these problems before.
I also read this book to get the vibe of it, it doesn’t have the best epistemic rigour but the person writing it has a psychiatry practice specifically focused on yoga nidra and one of the main things that this person claims it helps with is PTSD and sleep related problems. I think it has a specific activation pattern that can be very healing if done correctly, if you’re worried you can probably find a ACT psychologist or similar to do the practice with but I do think it is one of the safer practices you can do.
I am not personally worried about it; I don’t think I’m in the at risk group.
From the people I know in the lucid dreaming community, I have just a couple of reports of people with diagnosed schizophrenia who tried lucid dreaming and it made their symptoms worse. To which the general view seems to be: if it makes your symptoms worse, don’t do it. I don’t have adequate evidence on whether yoga nidra is safe or not; I think a reasonable approach would be to use caution and stop if you start getting bad symptoms.
Also personally, I don’t find sleep paralysis to be a big deal. I know some people are really freaked out by it. But sleep paralysis isn’t the actually risky thing that’s the concern here (the actually risky thing is psychotic symptoms that persist)