Yoga Nidra

Satyananda’s classic system (Bihar School) runs roughly eight stages, guided by a teacher or recording. Faithfully:

1. Preparation / internalisation. Lie in shavasana (on the back, supported, warm, still), eyes closed. Settle, announce the practice has begun, and resolve to stay still and awake.
2. Sankalpa (resolve) — first planting. Mentally repeat a short, positive, present-tense resolve of your own choosing (e.g. a single sentence of intention), three times, with full conviction. Satyananda taught keeping the same sankalpa over long periods until it bears fruit.
3. Rotation of consciousness (the core). The guide names body parts in a fixed, rapid sequence — typically right hand thumb, fingers one by one, palm, wrist, arm. then the left side, the back, front, head — and you move bare awareness (not movement, not tension) to each part as it’s named, mentally noting it. This systematic sweep is the heart of the practice.
4. Breath awareness. Watch the natural breath — often counting breaths backward (e.g. 27 to 1) or following it at the navel/throat — without changing it.
5. Manifestation of opposites (sensations & feelings). Deliberately evoke and then release pairs of opposites — heaviness/lightness, heat/cold, then opposite emotions (e.g. joy/sorrow) — feeling each fully, practicing equanimity and non-attachment.
6. Visualisation. Follow a stream of rapid images or a guided inner imagery (sometimes archetypal/symbolic), witnessing them pass — cultivating the witnessing awareness.
7. Sankalpa — second planting. In this deeply receptive near-sleep state, repeat the same resolve from stage 2, three times. This is considered the most fertile moment for the resolve to take root.
8. Externalisation / return. Gradually return awareness to the breath, the body, the room, external sounds; reorient slowly; only then open the eyes and move. Never get up abruptly. (Sourcing note: the eight-stage structure, the rotation of consciousness, shavasana, and the twice-planted sankalpa are Satyananda’s, from Yoga Nidra [1976]. “Sankalpa,” “rotation of consciousness,” and “manifestation of opposites” are his terms; the rotation sequence derives from tantric nyasa.)

Swami Satyananda Saraswati (1923–2009), founder of the Bihar School of Yoga, systematized Yoga Nidra in the 1950s–60s and published the definitive Yoga Nidra in 1976.

He drew explicitly on the tantric practice of nyasa (ritually placing mantra/awareness on body parts) and on the natural pratyahara of the sleep threshold. Modern offshoots include Richard Miller’s iRest (a clinical, trauma-informed adaptation used by the U.S. military and VA) and many secular “non-sleep deep rest” (NSDR) versions. → (create if absent).

Tantric nyasa — the direct ancestor: consecrating the body part by part with awareness/mantra.

• Vipassana body scan — also sweeps awareness through the body, but as insight practice (observing sensation’s arising/passing), not relaxation toward sleep with a resolve. → (distinct).
• Neville’s SATS / Coué’s pre-sleep suggestion — the sankalpa near sleep is the same insight: the drowsy threshold is maximally receptive to a planted intention.
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation (Jacobson) & autogenic training (Schultz) — Western clinical relaxation cousins.
• Tibetan sleep/dream yoga — deliberate practice at the sleep threshold.

Falling fully asleep. Pleasant, but it dilutes the practice — the aim is conscious sleep. If you keep dropping off, prop the head slightly or practice earlier in the day.

• Tensing or moving the body parts during rotation. It’s awareness moving, not muscles. Stay still; just shine attention.
• Changing the sankalpa every session. Satyananda was explicit: keep the same resolve, short and positive, over time.
• Rushing the return. Externalisation is part of the method; getting up abruptly from the near-sleep state is disorienting.
• Treating a recording as interchangeable. Pacing matters; a too-fast or too-busy script breaks the relaxation.