Poga Sleep

During one of the philosophy classes I dozed off for the entire 2 hours. Nothing new that I dozed off I do that in most of the classes (never for the entire duration though). But what was a new experience for me was that after the class I actually knew what was discussed in the class. Another day, another lecture I was wide awake and trying to make sense of what was the discussion all about, but for all the sense I could make the Prof. could have been speaking in Hebrew. By the middle of the lecture I was so frustrated I wanted to jump out of the window, but the thought of a midair collision with Basanti, the Bitch kept me rooted in my seat. You see Basanti has this habit of jumping in from the window, walking over to the next row and making herself comfortable next to the wall. Though she was more into sociology than philosophy and as far as I remember always jumped in in the beginning of the lecture and left after it got over, I still did not want to take a chance.

What was I saying before Basanti interrupted me. Oh yes, about dozing in the class yet making sense of it afterwards. I got to resolve the mystery today. A couple of days back I did a Yoga Nidra session at home and felt quite refreshed. Impressed I thought I should first read the book and understand how it works. This is what it revealed, I haven't finished reading the book yet. Yoga Nidra is a state of hypnagogic sleep. The state between being awake and falling asleep and it seems it is the best state to input data into the mind. It gets stored and you remember it. I won't get too technical here, it is just that the mind becomes more receptive in this stage. As you relax in Yogic Nidra but at the same time try to stay awake, you tend to maintain a relaxed state of awareness. So I was in hypnagogic state in the lecture that day, I was sleepy but I was making efforts not to sleep, so I was both asleep and awake and no wonder I could remember what went on in the lecture. In fact these days I seem to be making more sense of texts that I read in half awake state.

Hope not too many ambitious parents get an inkling of this. BSY might have to stop all their other activities and start mass production of the Yoga Nidra CDs. No but seriously, to all those overworked, sleep deprived, tired people, this is wonderful. I did a session again today and I have a feeling I might turn nocturnal tonight. I sure do plan to incorporate it into my daily schedule.