Yoga Nidra and iRest

Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep) deliberately induces and maintains a hypnagogic state of consciousness, at the boundary between wakefulness and sleep, in which the practitioner retains a residual alertness (the fourth state, Turiya). Carried out lying down in Shavasana, the session combines a Sankalpa (resolving intention), a systematic body scan, work on pairs of opposite sensations and the cultivation of a witnessing awareness. Richard Miller's iRest is its secular ten-stage version, stripped of Sanskrit vocabulary for medical and military settings. Main indications: post-traumatic stress, sleep disorders, anxiety disorders and chronic stress, chronic pain.

This therapy is covered in detail (principles, indications, protocol, level of evidence) in Volume 6 of the Mémento des Psychothérapies. See the volume.