"Looking at sleep solely through waking-world eyes is like looking at a glorious night sky through dark sunglasses." - Dr. R. Naiman

We are caught in 'wakism' - a subtle but harmful addiction to ordinary waking consciousness that limits our understanding and experience of sleep. Actual sleep can't be reduced to squiggly EEG tracings, neurophysiology or the night cascade of neurotransmitters. As important as an objective biomedical view of sleep might be, it is insufficient since it largely disregards the experience of the sleeper. It dampens the sensual dimensions of sleep, which are most evident in dreams.

In Nidra (Sanskrit term for sleep) we will explore sleep from a physiological process to a deeply personal experience and from the medical to the mythical so we may cultivate a heartfelt devotion to an intimate relationship with sleep and dreams.

Students will learn the following:

• What is sleep and what is dreaming?

• The epidemic of sleep and dream loss

• Circadian rhythms, BRAC, sleep stages and chronotypes

• Insomnia - etiology and evaluation

• Management and treatment of insomnia

• What is 'body, mind and bed noise' and how to manage it

• Substantiate the negative consequences of long term use of sleeping pills

• CBT-I: Evidence-based insomnia interventions used by therapists

• Transpersonal dimensions of sleep

• Yoga Nidra, Lucid and Liminal Dreaming

• Dream incubation and interpretation

• Oneirogens: herbs and roots, OBEs, consciousness hacking