Breathe Yourself Into Sleep And Lucid Dreams

Practice this simple, effective and deeply relaxing breath and awareness meditation that helps you fall asleep, improves the quality of your sleep, and may even lead to an experience of lucid dreaming.

Transcript

We'll begin this meditation and relaxation by spending a few minutes connecting with ourselves and with the present moment.

Firstly just check in with how you're feeling.

How you're feeling mentally,

Emotionally,

Physically.

And as much as possible really accepting what you become aware of,

Accepting exactly how you are feeling in this moment.

And rather than try and make any effort to change what we're experiencing or to create any particular experience,

The invitation is to become more deeply aware of the present moment,

Of your body and of your breath.

Just being open to the relaxation that often comes when we practice presence.

So checking how you're feeling,

Checking the sensations in the body,

Having a quick scan through from your feet all the way up to the top of your head.

Becoming aware of the energy,

The sensations,

The feelings throughout the body.

And also getting a sense of your immediate environment.

So getting a sense of the space just around your body,

The location of your body and the presence of your body in that space.

And through an awareness of sounds,

Getting an awareness of the wider space.

So by listening out to sounds near and far,

Loud and quiet,

Occasional and continuous,

Connecting to your wider environment.

And the invitation is to,

Throughout this relaxation,

See if you can really keep your awareness nice and open.

And we're going to move on to the breath now.

But try to avoid concentrating or focusing on the breath to the exclusion of other things.

So keeping the awareness open,

Keeping connected to the present moment through all your senses.

And simply we can start now by bringing the breath into the centre or the foreground of your awareness,

Allowing everything else of the present moment to still be there just as it is surrounding the breath,

Just slightly in the background of your awareness.

So feel the breath in the body as you breathe in and out.

Take a real interest in exploring all the different sensations of the breath.

And throughout this meditation,

Don't worry about your thoughts.

It doesn't matter what you think during this meditation.

You don't have to think anything in particular.

And using this breath to relax and drift off into sleep,

Your thoughts will be fairly random and unstructured and dreamlike as you fall asleep.

So the content of your thoughts is really not important.

Just allow them to do whatever they want to do.

And just notice that you can only be thinking in the present moment.

So whatever the thoughts,

Just remembering,

Realising,

Noticing that you're thinking in the present moment.

And you're also breathing in the present moment.

Thinking and breathing,

Keeping the awareness nice and open.

Usually for a mindfulness meditation,

I'd suggest not changing the breath at all.

Just being aware of the breath as it is.

And that's how we we're beginning now.

As this is a breath to help you sleep and to make it more likely that you may have more vivid and lucid dreams,

We will introduce just a couple of very simple techniques to work with as we breathe.

But first of all,

Just a few moments just getting used to your breath as it is now,

The natural breath.

And feeling the breath in the body.

Breathing more into the base of the lungs and not breathing much at all with the ribs.

Avoiding breathing into the top of the lungs.

So just check your breath and if you're not already doing so,

Introduce the breath with the diaphragm.

So in effect you should be able to feel your stomach rise and fall as you breathe in and out and not so much movement in the chest and the ribs.

So breathing in,

Feeling the stomach rise and for the out breath,

See if you can begin to really let go of the out breath.

Making the out breath nice and long and complete.

Maybe even breathing out what feels like a little more than you breathe in.

This way we can begin to extend and deepen and lengthen the breath.

Not by trying to breathe in more,

Just by really completely breathing out and then that will naturally lead to a slightly deeper and longer in breath.

So beginning to feel like you're really emptying the lungs on the nice long complete out breath.

Then allowing the breath back in and the stomach raising again.

Gradually having longer out breaths and in breaths.

Breathing nice and steadily,

Nice and slowly.

So this is the foundation of the relaxing breath.

Very simple,

Breathing in with the diaphragm and a nice long release of the out breath.

The next step is optional,

Not absolutely necessary,

But it can make the breath more relaxing and that's by restricting the breath so that you create a noise,

A sound as you slightly restrict the breath.

If you're familiar with this then you can just start doing it.

If not you can give it a try.

If it doesn't seem to make sense or doesn't work that's fine,

Just keep with this nice slow relaxing breath.

I'll exaggerate the noise a little bit just so you get the idea.

You're kind of just sort of restricting the airways a little bit,

Creating a bit of a noise for the air as you breathe in and out.

This can slow down the breath,

Make it more relaxing.

A bit like someone who's breathing quite noisily maybe in their sleep.

A slight restriction around the throat area creating a sound.

At first it can feel like you have to put a little more effort into the breath to keep it the same length and depth as you are restricting the airways ever so slightly.

It can really help you become more absorbed into the breath as that little extra attention is needed just to create this extra dimension of the breath and the sound.

Don't overthink it,

Either it will come or not and don't worry if it doesn't just continue with your usual relaxed breath into the stomach.

After a while it does start to feel natural and effortless and then the sound itself really adds to the relaxation.

Your breath becomes like a wave so you can listen and feel the breath.

The breath with this wave like sound becomes almost like a subtle mantra helps to quieten the mind and bring an even deeper relaxation into the body.

You may notice the breath gradually getting longer and deeper.

I sometimes naturally start to use my chest a little for the breath as well as it does get longer slower and deeper and that's fine as long as it's a nice slow deep breath it will still be relaxing for the body.

Just make sure you're filling from the bottom of your lungs so the stomach rises first and then just allow the breath to be as deep as is comfortable.

The final part of building up this relaxing breath to really help fall asleep and to sleep better is to really consciously feel and allow the body to relax with that long slow out breath.

So if it helps to have that thought,

That intention in your mind each time you breathe out to either let go,

Release,

Relax,

Whichever words work best for you so you begin to really let go of any tension in the body with every out breath.

Release the breath,

Release tension.

Letting go of the breath,

Letting go of any stress.

Relaxing the out breath,

Relaxing the body.

These are all the steps for a deeply relaxing breath to help ease you into a deep relaxing sleep.

If you want to add the opportunity for increasing the chance of lucid dreaming then we can add one more step.

Continuing with the thoughts of release,

Letting go and relaxing with the long slow out breath.

For the long slow in breath,

Having the thoughts,

The intention of really bringing awareness into the body.

This could be in the form of feeling more sensitive in the body,

Bringing that awareness throughout the body.

You could do it by feeling or visualizing light entering the body each time you breathe in.

Another way is to imagine or feel it's the whole body breathing in.

So each time you're breathing the whole body is receiving the breath,

The oxygen,

The awareness,

The light.

We'll have a few minutes of silence now.

Really releasing and relaxing with each out breath.

Really bringing in light and awareness into the whole body with each in breath,

Allowing the mind to be gently lulled,

Hypnotized by the the wave-like sound of the breath.

For the long slow in breath,

Having the thoughts,

The intention,

The intention of really bringing awareness to the body.

For the long slow in breath,

Having the intention,

The intention,

The.

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In the music in the music in the music music Thank you.

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Reviews

Liked the voice and instructions and tone of this guided meditation. And I went to sleep!

Wow! That was really excellent. Gently guided just focusing on the breast and rise and fall. And then a nice long quiet pause at the end with some gentle ocean waves. Loved it very, very soothing. Many thanks. ☮💖🙏

Thanks so much Stephen
Wonderful 🙏
I woke up at 3am and will see the sunrise
Indeed a special time to meditate. Will try in silence now 😊

This is such a beautiful meditation that made me feel relaxed and free from tension in both body and mind. The breathing techniques became my anchor to remain in my conscious state. I got closer to myself and experienced true freedom from within - so profoundly and peacefully. I loved each moment and left me with a sleepy head😴😌.

Stephen once again your guidance was excellent and gentle which adds more depth to your beautiful meditations. Thank you so much. 🙏🏻🤗🙏🏻✨💗