Training attention for conscious non-REM sleep: The yogic practice of yoga-nidrā and its implications for neuroscience research.
Progress in Brain Research 2019 DOI: 10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.10.016 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Qualitative Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Conscious non-rem sleep Consciousness Neurophenomenology Relaxation practices Yoga-nidrā |
| Citations | 15 |
| Key points | Argues that the ability to enter yoga-nidrā, demonstrated in the 1960s Menninger Foundation studies, offers a promising but under-researched avenue for understanding consciousness, and that training competent subjects is a key methodological challenge. |
Abstract
The study of consciousness within cognitive neuroscience has been dominated in recent years by investigations originating from collaborations between neuroscientific investigators and Buddhist meditation practitioners. The results have been remarkable, particularly when quantitative and qualitative research methods have been combined as they are in the neurophenomenological methodology originated by Francisco Varela. The addition of qualitative data about the experience of the subject greatly enriches the interpretive potential of quantitative data and honors the ultimate subjectivity of all phenomena, if we accept consciousness as the universal first principle as some quantum physicists now do. This remarkable progress, however, has dropped a thread of inquiry begun in the late 1960s by the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas (the United States) under the leadership of Elmer and Alyce Green. Their studies of the conscious control of involuntary processes drew on collaboration with an Indian master of yoga meditation, Swāmī Rāma of the Himālayas, which opened a number of intriguing possibilities, which have yet to be followed up in detail with the most recent research tools and methodologies. Among these is the ability to enter the deepest, non-REM delta wave sleep while maintaining awareness both internally and of one's surroundings (yoga-nidrā). The particular interest in this ability lies not only in the benefits that accrue from especially deep relaxation and an especially pure experience of mindful awareness, but also from the yogi's description of this as a way to gradually learn to enter the deepest states of meditation (samādhi) and remain there even when otherwise active in the world (turīya). This chapter is one of a series hoping to elucidate that state from both traditional and contemporary descriptions of the state of yoga-nidrā, draw measurable hypotheses from these descriptions and discuss the methodological problems of conducting these investigations with sufficiently competent samples of subjects. The focus of this chapter is on training subjects who can become capable of entering the state of yoga-nidrā.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 6
- Functional connectivity changes in meditators and novices during yoga nidra practice. Scientific Reports June 5, 2024
- Conscious entry into sleep: Yoga Nidra and accessing subtler states of consciousness. Progress in Brain Research 2023
- Yoga-nidrā: A State of Mind, Not a Technique IntechOpen eBooks September 20, 2023
- Brain Connectivity Changes in Meditators and Novices during Yoga Nidra: A Novel fMRI Study bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) September 16, 2023
- On the Neurobiology of Meditation: Comparison of Three Organizing Strategies to Investigate Brain Patterns during Meditation Practice Medicina December 18, 2020
and 1 more in the library
Cites 8
- Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression August 21, 2006
- Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences November 8, 2004
- The meeting of meditative disciplines and western psychology: A mutually enriching dialogue. American Psychologist 2006
- Guiding the study of brain dynamics by using first-person data: Synchrony patterns correlate with ongoing conscious states during a simple visual task Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences January 22, 2002
- Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness Frontiers in Psychology September 4, 2018
and 3 more in the library