Charlie Morley

*Note: This auto-transcript is only lightly edited. You might find some typos! 

Jeff
Hello, everybody, welcome back to the Consciousness Explorers Podcast, the podcast that’s all about exploring the mind the body consciousness, whatever you want to call it, this human existence thing using different practices.

Tasha
Would you call it the mind bod adventure pod?

Jeff

Tasha, my co hosts nailed it. Thank you says it more efficiently than I ever could welcome to the mind body adventure pod. Now with me is my friend Tasha Schumann. Least cured you out by one. All right, we’re gonna work with it with these my friend, Tasha Schumann. Hey, I’m Jeff Warren. And who do we have on today, Tasha,

Tasha
Today we had on Charlie Morley who’s really dynamic teacher and speaker of lucid dreaming. He’s been around for a while he’s been doing this for you know, I think over a decade, maybe even two, but I connected with him just kind of, you know, in the Instagram DMs, because we’re both dream nerds. And you know, hip hop nerds and nerds in general, Buddhist nerds. Um, yeah, we asked him to come on and talk a little bit about his new book ‘Wake up to Sleep’, guide us on some practices specifically about trauma as related to sleep and how we can use you know, dream, relaxation, all that stuff to to get over PTSD, traumas, CPTSD, all those all those kind of juicy things. So it was a great talk.

Jeff
And also just general stressed out living in the 21st century how to how to improve our sleep, your sleep is so nutritious, there’s so many benefits. And that’s what I thought was really cool that we kind of offered a holistic overview of that. And then he kind of identifies a few different baskets of practices that can be helpful. And He guides us actually through to through a really interesting protector practice, which has music, it’s a little different than what we normally do, so he actually wanted to record it separately. So you’ll see his voice sounds a little different. There’s music underneath it. And it’s this practice about protecting us of where we go to sleep, which was really interesting. And then another little mini relaxation practice.

Tasha
Yeah, it was awesome. So hope you guys enjoy. Get comfy do it in a bed if you want.

Jeff
Charlie Morley, welcome to the Consciousness Explorers Podcast. It’s good to have you here.

Charlie Morley
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Jeff
Today, yeah, so this is gonna be interesting. I think most people can relate to having disturbed sleep, stress affecting their sleep, maybe even nightmares in their sleep, whatever it is, PTSD is you talk about. So you’re kind of someone who’s done some interesting work around this. So I want to maybe the beginning just to introduce how you got into teaching this basket of strategies and who you targeted and how it’s kind of expanded and then maybe we’ll talk a little bit about what it is you want to guide us.

Charlie Morley
Sure. So I was teaching lucid dreaming since 2008. At the kind of requests that my Buddhist teacher, so I didn’t I didn’t kind of set out to teach this stuff. I was always really into it been like obsessed with lucid dreaming since I was kind of late teens like 1617 discovered lucid dreaming got really good at it was like oh shit, there’s this like virtual reality simulation side your mind and have loads of sets get really good at skateboarding.

Jeff
Somehow somebody doesn’t know what lucid dreaming is. And we’re gonna talk about that at the end to lucid dreaming. So,

Charlie Morley
Of course, so a lucid dream is a dream or you’re actively aware of the fact you’re dreaming as the dream is happening. So anyone who’s had a dream or you’re in the dream, like, oh, wow, this is a dream right now. Oh, my God. So I’m like inside my mind right now, this is all a dream that was lucid. So whether it’s a fun dream or a scary gene, whatever the moment you have that kind of aha moment. That’s lucidity. And actually that aha moment is there are neural correlates for that’s the activation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. So we know this is real. And one of the cool things actually, since we mentioned the neurology so early on, is once that part of the brain is activated. So is neuroplasticity so in non lucid dreams, neuroplasticity isn’t engaged because the prefrontal cortex isn’t engaged. But once you get lucid, as far as the brain is concerned, you are awake. So this is an interesting philosophical point, right? For the brain wakefulness is not predicated on having your eyes open wakefulness is predicated on the activation of certain brain regions. So once you activate the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s I’m awake right now. And I’ll start laying down neural pathways in exactly the same way as I would if I if I were really awake eyes open awake right? Now, this is where all the benefits of lucid dreaming lie because it means what you do in a lucid dream isn’t like imagining it. It’s like doing it.

Jeff
Yeah, totally.

Charlie Morley
As far as the brain is concerned you did it? So if you practice your martial arts and lucid dream, no wonder scientific studies have shown you get better in the waking state, because the brain thought you’re actually practising. And if you look at trauma and the kind of stuff I’ve been doing with nightmares, and military veterans, if they can become lucid in that dream, and now I’m not really back in Iraq, I’m dreaming. I’m back in Iraq. As far as the brain is concerned, they just didn’t. It wasn’t that they had a healing dream, or they had a healing hypnosis session, or they had a healing imagination or shamanic journey, as far as the brain concerned, they were back in Iraq last night, but this time, it was a very different story. And it wasn’t fear and it wasn’t terror. They were okay with it. It’s like a powerful deconditioning effect on the brain. So it works at a really deep level.

Jeff
So let’s um, so we’ll get to that. We’ll actually you’re going to talk a little bit about some lucid dreaming induction techniques and how that can help with this kind of nightmare stuff. But let’s back up and get to the story how you got into this story because you’re after a bigger fish than just lucid dreaming piece. That’s like one tool in your handbasket there.

Charlie Morley
Yeah. So I’m like, 16, 17 years old, I don’t know any of this. I did notice I got really good at skateboarding, though. By practising my dream, the sex thing not so much. But the Skateboarding I was really nailing that.

Jeff
[Laughs]

Tasha
[Laughs]

Jeff
When I try to have sex in my dream somebody just goes terribly wrong.

Tasha
Oh, me too. Somebody comes out of my dream. They’re like, Stop doing that. I’m like, okay I’m so sorry.

Jeff
The only time I ever managed to get it on was with like an umbrella or like a table? I’m like come on…!

Tasha
[Big laughs]

Charlie Morley
Okay, we can work on that after the podcast.

Jeff
That’ll be our next practice.

Charlie Morley
So I get really into lucid dreaming. In my 20s, get into Buddhism when I’m 19 and take refuge and living in a Buddhist Centre, all this kind of stuff. But my day job, I was in like a moderately successful Hip Hop crew, called ‘Throwdown’. And we were like a group of like B-boys, graffiti artists, DJs beatboxers, and myself. I was like, the kind of lead guy and the rapper and I wrote the when we did the hip hop theatre stuff, I wrote the scripts and stuff like that. This is why we get along, so I didn’t Yeah, exactly. When I saw your Instagram. Wow, she looks super cool. So that’s what I was doing. That was my job.

And then when I was 25, Lama Yeshe asked me to start giving talks. And of course, I didn’t turn him down. But I was like, What the fuck? Are you serious? This is insane. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing. This is ridiculous. And I kind of didn’t, but I think he probably saw, you know, these these marks that they see with more than their eyes. I think he saw a potential that you know, 10, 15 years later did did become something beneficial. Now, I can honestly say that, but back in the you know, the early days, I was kind of trying my best, you know. So adjusting the lucid dreaming stuff. A few years after that a Army veteran essays selection, parachute regiment, army veteran, called, Keith Mackenzie, came on one of my lucid dreaming retreats that I was running at this Buddhist retreat centre. He has this big breakthrough experience, he has really bad PTSD nightmares, and in his words, I caused more of my PTSD in that four day retreat than in four years of therapy. And I was like, Whoa, dude, like, that’s amazing. Can I go? Can I quote you on that and said, Yes. and interestingly that guy, Keith McKenzie is who the new book is dedicated to. And even more interestingly, but with great sadness in my heart. Keith is actually currently in a coma. And he went into a coma that day, the book was released like two days ago, with COVID related stuff and some illnesses that he had. So I’m really trying to find some meaning in this. But if you’re listening this, please know and send love to that man and that name. Because again, yeah, Keith McKenzie, may he be happy and well.

So Keith came to a workshop had this big breakthrough experience. A few years later, he rings me up and goes, “Oh, I’m like a qualified mindfulness teacher now. And I’m a Buddhist chaplain in the army. So like, I’m the like, Buddhist, vicar dude in the army. And I’m running these retreats for veterans who want to come and do the lucid dreaming stuff”. Again, I didn’t know if it worked. But I was like, sounds super cool. Let’s do it. We went there. And it did work for some of them, not for all the veterans, but in a group of 20. Maybe five of them learn to lucid dream works really well. So I thought that there’s some potential here. But what I saw in that first retreat, and all the retreats we did subsequently was the other stuff that he was offering with other teachers working really well, too. They had a Qigong teacher, they had a breathwork teacher, they had a yoga teacher, and they had a yoga nidra teacher.

And just the seeds were planted in my head and that first retreat you know seven years ago, like the lucid dreaming things great, but for highly traumatised populations, of which, you know, ex military have a lot of them. In fact, I think 80% on our first retreat were clinical PTSD. The Lucid dreaming is great, but it requires sleep. So actually, you need to rewind a little bit and work on practices that help people sleep, and then move into lucid dreaming. So for the next five years, I started learning that I did teacher training in yoga nidra I did teacher training and breath work teacher training and breath body mind which is like a Qigong based form of breath work, and then created what now became “the mindfulness of dream and sleep protocol”. So there is lucid dreaming. And that’s what the new book is about there is there are a couple of chapters on lucid dreaming at the end the last few chapters, but before that the like other 17 chapters are on sleep awareness, deep relaxation, yoga nidra, breath work, working with nightmares, transformation of trauma, and then eventually the lucid dreaming.

Jeff
Because this isn’t just about it. This isn’t just for people who suffering PTSD. There’s also a kind of ubiquity of stress out there. I mean, people just having crap sleep who could benefit from this book? So what is this kind of scale of the issue around sleep challenges in the first place?

Charlie Morley
Yeah. So dude, when I first started writing the book, quite naively, I was thinking, Well, if this stuff works for veterans who’ve got like really serious trauma, it’s definitely gonna work for everyday people, right? Because everyday people don’t have as much trauma as veterans complete, naive thing to say and completely incorrect. trauma is trauma, whether it’s from a military warzone, or familial Warzone trauma is trauma. And actually, C PTSD, complex PTSD, made up of multiple traumas over long periods of time, is way harder to treat than single event trauma, PTSD, which a lot of a lot more military veterans might have. So what I realise is, it wasn’t so much about dumbing down the practices that work for veterans, and making them available to everyday people, whatever that means, but actually expanding them. And seeing the veterans were kind of the tip of the iceberg in in a way because we started getting veterans, family members turning up on retreats, and then people who’d been in car crashes going, can I come to I’m not a veteran, but I’ve heard this works for trauma. And now it’s just you know, there are still the veterans treats, but now there are treats reopened to everybody. And then you start looking at just levels of stress. People who may not say they’ve had a traumatic experience, but I mean, levels of stress, especially in the last 18 months were like a global pandemic, your stress levels are normalised. Now most people are in a much higher level of stress than they were before.

Tasha
And even though people were like at home, sleep just plummeted. People weren’t sleeping properly at all.

Charlie Morley
Yeah. And if they weren’t sleeping, they were having crazy nightmares. Yeah. And the nightmare things really interesting. Actually, I did a few videos on this, people were reporting, increase of nightmares, but also increase in dreams of stuff from their childhood. And I was getting about once a month or getting a journalist asked me can I explain this, I started to speak some sleep scientists, friends, and we were kind of chewing the fat on this, and what we believe is happening. And now they’ve done a study to confirm this is there something called de residue, which is essentially dreaming about stuff that happens in the day, let’s say like you live in Central London as I do, and maybe people who commute to work, they might see like 1000 people a day, there’s a lot of day residue that needs to be processed, right? Because dreaming is essentially about trauma integration and memory reconsolidation. So you’re seeing a lot of new stuff, you need to dream a lot about that, right? Yeah, one of the factors of dreaming anyway. So because suddenly, people are going from seeing like 1000 people a day to seeing two people in their dog and not leaving the house. There wasn’t so much stuff to dream about, right? So it wasn’t like the brain is going to go I’ll reduce the REM period, because REM is so important to the brains health. But the brain goes a bit like, you know, I cleaned my flat like most people do, they clean their appartment during lockdown right. And then once you clean it, you’re like, oh, maybe I’ll start painting it. Or maybe I’ll start just putting up my books, the brains doing the same. So it starts digging back into memory and a lot of people start having childhood dreams, then a lot of people started having nightmares.

And the main thing though, is nightmares and not a bad sign. A nightmare is like an immune response from our internal psychology. If you have a stressful traumatic experience, you are supposed to dream about it. You know, it’s like a nightmares like a scab, you know, scabs, they might be itchy, they might be unsightly, might be kind of a shame to show your scab to others. But a scab what a scab doing. It’s creating a protective barrier to allow healing to occur beneath the surface. That is like I definition that’s like what a nightmare is. So a lot of people are finding they were having these dreams of childhood little bit kind of scary dreams. Nightmares, actually was a very good sign. It was a sign that in many cases, the brain had space now to go back into the archives and do a bit of spring cleaning, and ah were a bit wounded there. So we need to dream about why because the dream is like a therapy session.

And this is why nightmares recur too. And people say why does my nightmare recur? You know and often veterans say, like I’ve heard them say really you know stuff that really opens your heart like “Because I didn’t save them I’m having these nightmares”. Like no, dude, that is not what’s happening. Your brain is not punishing you. Like I know that’s how it feels but this, this new view is saying and actually the reason nightmares recur is it’s like a therapy session cut short if you wake up from a nightmare. So let’s say like me and Tasha having a one on one Lucid Dream Therapy Session, right? And then the little dog start whose name I won’t say in case she wakes up. She starts barking so I’ll do we got to stop the session. I will be very quickly emailing you say oh, when can we rebook the session when we rebook the session? Cuz I can’t let you go in half a session right? The Dreaming mind is doing the same. So if you get woken up from a nightmare, either because you get lucid, I want to wake up, I want to wake up or because the shock wakes you up, you have to have the nightmare, again, not as punishment, as unfinished business.

Jeff
So you’re saying that if a nightmare, if we find if we actually get to experience a nightmare through to its fruition or its conclusion, then it won’t reoccur. It’s like it’s done its work see ya later.

Charlie Morley
And that’s why lucid dreaming works so powerfully, because if you can finally get lucid in that dream of being back in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or whatever the Veterans might be dreaming of, and you can witness it, the nightmare ever needs to replay again, because you finally witness the therapy session.

Jeff
I always thought you had the power of being lucid around nightmares is that you can change the ending. But you’re saying something very different you can which is actually makes complete sense. If you think about it from a mindfulness perspective, you’re saying just let it play out?

Charlie Morley
Well, just the act of witnessing the nightmare leads to a great reduction in nightmare frequency. If you can be lucid in the nightmare, then actively engage with acceptance. Either, you know, moving towards a source of fear or hugging, or saying I set you free some of that, then the nightmare seemed to stop. So you can have a great reduction from just becoming lucid. And you can have complete cessation from kind of actively engaging in a kind of a state beyond fear. But yeah, for many people just getting lucid is enough. Yeah.

Jeff
Wow very cool. Well, so tell us about the practice that you want to guide right now. And then we’ll keep this going. Because it sounds like there’s so much to talk about.

Charlie Morley
Yeah, so I there’s a lot of kind of, well, everything in in that I teach in the mindful dream asleep stuff. And in “Wake up to Sleep”, it’s all like scientifically verified, there is one practice in there. That is not scientifically verified. And yet it is pretty much always the favourite practice on retreats, especially with veterans, and especially often with women with post traumatic stress disorder, because also in the military, and I really want to mention this, because it’s an unspoken thing. There are really high levels of military sexual trauma, you know, in the British Army. And that’s the only thing I’ve got the stats on what it’s like in America, but over 50% of female veterans report, either sexual assault or full blown rape. And that’s 50% reported. So, you know, we could say that might be up to 60, 70%, actually, that’s going going unreported. So incredibly high levels of this, and the cause of either the assault happening in bed, or the connection between bed and kind of between sexuality and bed, often the bed seems like an unsafe place.

So this practice I’m going to offer is called circular protectors. And essentially, you fall asleep in the hypnagogic state, imagining a circle of protection around the bed or the sleeping area, and you try and fall asleep and have that last thought you drop off that visualisation of protection. And it works very, very well. But it’s actually not scientifically verified. It’s from the Bön tradition, which is I’m sure you know, as the indigenous tradition of Tibet before Buddhism arrives. So we’re talking like 2000, 3000 years old. And I found a version of this in Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche his book, “Tibetan Yogas of dream and sleep” and his instructions very short. He says, imagine that you are falling asleep like a king or queen. Surrounded by protection as dakinis stand guard over you while you enter the sleep Bardo. So that’s the instruction. So I kind of developed a wider thing like that, where I asked people to imagine the four cardinal directions north, south, east and west, your primary protectors.

Now what is a protector? I say, could be alive or dead, known or unknown, real or unreal, anything person being or symbolic representation that brings you a sense of safety. So you imagine them and you kind of visualise them, and then ask you to fill in the gaps. And you can fill in the gaps with fire, with weapons with Gods with mountains with crystals, I get really creative with power animals, whatever you like, but you fall asleep, imagine that you’re surrounded by this protective energy. And it has really profound effects on people. And it’s amazing to see what comes up because you’re like Oh yeah, I’m definitely gonna have like Jesus and Buddha at my feet. And then you know, my mom here and stuff. And suddenly a power animal appears and you’re like, wow, I so did not expect a Garuda to be there or, or a jaguar or something. So it’s also interesting to see what comes up for people is an interesting psychological exploration. But it’s a great practice. It takes seven minutes, I’d love to offer it to you and to just see what kind of comes up for you.

Jeff
Well, let’s do it. Just before we do though, what’s it protecting against?

Charlie Morley
Ah, this is really interesting. So I have a little footnote on this. And ultimate level, the practice itself is superfluous, because there’s nothing to protect against and because your protectors are always with you, but I guess what it’s protecting against is the ego fueled fear of sleep is a scary place and the darkness is a scary place. A lot of people when they enter the hypnogogic anything they’ve been trying to suppress during the day kind of pops up. And it is true that often kind of trauma flashbacks if they’re going to appear anywhere. Sometimes they do appear in the hypnogogic so it helps calm the mind as well reduce the possibility of trauma flashbacks, but great question.

Jeff
So it’s protecting basically stress and nightmares and trauma, flashbacks.

Tasha
It’s like a self soothing almost.

Charlie Morley
Yeah it’s protecting against our own fear but really there’s nothing to be protected against right because this is compassionate universe and you are infinite beings with Buddha nature but sometimes we forget it.

Tasha
Yeah. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is one of my main teachers and I’vedone this ino retreat with him many times. And I love it because his direction is like, you know, dakinis are sitting at your windows are there at the foot of your bed, they’re on the rooftop, they’re guarding your garage, they’re, you know, just sprinkle them everywhere. They’re kind of so I always imagined these like green, lovely beings just sitting place just kind of sitting there filing their nails or something.

Charlie Morley
Oh, Tasha. If you’ve if you’ve done this with the master, please like forgive my kindergarten version of this, like…

Tasha
I love I love I love your take on it. The you know, doing it in the four directions. You know, sometimes when I’m guiding people in this one, especially if people are experiencing trauma, they’re like, We want me to put them where tell them exactly where they should go. So you’re kind of helping people being like north, south, east west, and then fill in the gaps. And I love that you said that, you know, there’s no scientific evidence yet that this works. But every time I run this meditation with people, it’s their favourite absolutely hands down it’s their favourite.

Charlie Morley
Oh, wow. Yes.

Tasha
Yeah. And it’s like I the way I always describe it is it’s kind of like when we don’t have that sense of protection. We’re like those fish that just kind of sleep with half of the brain on and half the brain off all night. You know, your likes with one eye open? Yeah. And it just gives you the sense of permission to like, really just let go. Yeah, exactly. I’m excited to hear you was party lead bought it.

Charlie Morley
[Meditation begins]

This is a visualisation practice, in which we imagine a gathering of protectors around us fearlessly standing guard over us and protecting us as we sleep. This practice is inspired by the ancient Tibetan Dream Yoga teachings, in which it is said that if you’re feeling scared or anxious before you sleep, you should turn your sleeping area into a sacred protected space by imagining that you’re surrounded by powerful protectors, enlightened beings, and dakinis female embodiments of awakening, who remain like mothers watching over a child or guardian surrounding a king or queen.

Lying in bed before sleep. Decide which protectors you’re going to invoke. There are no rules to this. You can imagine whoever you like

alive or dead real or unreal. known or unknown. Imagine anyone or anything who offers you a feeling of love.

Safety, allegiance and protection allowing yourself to relax into the shallows of the hypnogogic

I want you to imagine your first protector standing or sitting near your head

you don’t have to see them clearly. Just know that they’re they’re watching over you. Protecting you holding you in there love your first protector is by your head and now imagine your second protector sitting or standing by your feet your second protector is watching over you with love feel the power of their safety and protection you now have a protector by your head and a protector by your feet.

them on your left hand side. Imagine your third protector

feel their energy, feel their love their safety beaming down to you

You now have protectors by your head, by your feet, and by your left hand side. And now imagine your fourth protector sitting or standing by your right hand side, watching over you and exuding a feeling of safety, of love, feel that they are there take a moment to feel the love the safety and the power that your protectors offer you. You’re surrounded by protection, you’re surrounded by love and finally, you begin to fill in the gaps between the protectors keeping your primary protectors in place, fill in the gaps between them to complete the circle

use whatever you like people, or animals or balls of light or crystals, fire weapons, stars, galaxies, fairy lights, whatever you choose, fill in the gaps to complete your circle of protection

your circle of safety take a moment to feel the increase in power as you add these additional protectors to your circle

feel their energy of protection as you drift off to sleep. Hold the visualisation for as long as you like. And then let it fade let it slip from your mind’s eye as you drift through the hypnagogic state and into sleep. Knowing that you are protected knowing that you are safe dream peacefully sleep well.

[Meditation ends]

Jeff
Oh my god, I’m so doing that tonight. I feel so cared for. That’s a really powerful practice.

Charlie Morley
I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Tasha
I usually really don’t like music with meditation, because it usually doesn’t go with it. It’s just kind of like an afterthought. But this one really enhanced like it has this way of enhancing the feeling of you know, you said like lay there like royalty, and also has this emotive quality that brings people in like brings your protectors into your circle. And so I actually really loved the music with that one.

Jeff
Yeah, you know, I was sleep a bit sleepy, so I had no trouble getting into that kind of drifty spot. And I have to say I was really surprised by the charge of a new kind of cueing to as you add another protector notice the increase of a sense of protection or strength and that was very palpable for me each time I put a new one in there it was like I felt more safe or secure. And I mean, really interesting. And then of course the randomness of the shit that comes up my protectors like I had the Hulk by my head holding my head like he was doing a Reiki session like like that green hawk. And then I had Buddha at my feet then I had like a cedar tree on my lap and then 1/3 lassoo just given me some good momma vibes so yeah I was I tell all my all my like protectors from being a little kid just like showed up.

Tasha
Yeah, this was really cool for me. Like I said, I’ve done this before, but never in the circle like the north south east west. And also usually when I’m doing it, like, I don’t know, probably from my Tibetan Buddhist background, it’s like, I always think of my teachers, you know, they’re like, sources of safety, especially when I’m doing like Dream Yoga, because they’re kind of the custodians of this practice. And so I usually imagine them all around this time. So my, you know, my main teacher shows up in my head, and my second main teacher shows up on my feet, and then on left and right, they were actually family members, who, at times, I find I have a really difficult relationship with in waking life. But there was something about the like, quiet invitation to just be here with me supportively that that stuff didn’t matter. It was kind of like you just sent their love outside of all the junk of what makes the relationship difficult. So it actually had a beautiful kind of like, healing vibe. Like it felt really a healing that relationship. And then I had this vision, kind of, like, you know what this is like, it’s like, almost having a memory from when you’re a baby, and laying in the crib. And everyone’s kind of like, looking over the side of the crib, you know, all the four sides being like, ooh, ga goo ga goo goo. And I was like, it’s exactly that. Like, that’s, that’s what we love about it is this. I’m just, you know, being doted on or protected from all sides and just relinquishing of needing to protect yourself for something that’s very primal kind of.

Charlie Morley
That’s so cool to hear. You know, I don’t know if you know that Dream Yoga instruction, but it’s to fall asleep as if your pillow is the lap of the guru and they’re like stroking your head and stuff. And it’s like, it’s that vibe. It’s like, We’re surrounded by protection.

Tasha
I do that all the time, like, shitara. It’s like green tara and my head is just in her lap. And she’s like, yes, “go to sleep”.

Jeff
So what do people find when they do this? Do people report that they sleep better? I mean, I’m just, you know, it seems like a no brainer to try to do something like this.

Charlie Morley
Yeah, I mean, the kind of feedback I’ve had is a lot of people actually don’t finish it, they find they’re asleep before they get to the end, which is like proof of product. I’m like, brilliant. That’s so cool.

I’ve found non scientific research, but just some people who’ve done that workshops. A lot of people this is like their favourite practice. And you’ve done all this kind of breathwork stuff and getting all the science and then everyone’s like, actually, this one, which is often the one that I’m because all the workshops are presented in, in kind of a secular way. This is the one I’m often worried about. Because it’s like this, like, you know, indigenous shamanic practice in Tibet and all these links to spirituality and stuff. But I think because it’s been practised for so long, I think when you do a practice that’s been practised, like millions of times by millions of other people, it’s like you’re tuning into that you’re tapping into that, and it doesn’t really matter what you believe. It’s something happens within you. But yeah, a lot of people’s favourite practice and is really good with helping fall asleep, especially when we did the workshops with the female veterans, a lot of whom were working with military sexual trauma. For them this made the better safe space again.

Tasha
I’m wondering, have you seen any kind of like, Are there recurring themes of, of who people choose, as their protectors are any like surprising, you know, Jeff had the Hulk and Wonder Woman in a tree [laughs]. So I feel like and for me, you know, they, they kind of pop up at random. But I’m wondering if there’s kind of archetypal things that show up for people.

Charlie Morley
It’s always different. A lot of animals come up for people and a lot of family members. I mean, that’s a recurring theme, or at least like every other time I do it, someone say on this family member appeared, who I never thought would be there. And it’s like a grandparent or someone, and they trace it back. And those are the, that’s the first time I really felt safe actually, was when that grandparent picked me up in their arms, or whatever it is, it’s often bad to kind of, you know, first experiences, but it changed them. And you can do that practice every night if you wanted, or every week. And the protectors are always different. But it’s like they might appear differently. But the energy is, is I think it’s the fundamental energy of protection of like, this is a compassionate universe, and it’s manifesting in this form.

Jeff
So why don’t can let let’s link this to the larger programme, then, let’s say you’re somebody who I don’t know. I mean, I my sleep is terrible. It’s ever since I’ve had a little kid. It’s just because I’m interrupt him. He’s up in the night and I’m waking up early, wondering where things are. Okay. And there’s lots of us who have these disturbed sleeps, and sometimes I have nightmares are there too. And so if I want a more holistic strategy for trying to improve my sleep, I can really see how this protector practice would help. But you have some other practices that you suggest as well. You want to take us through some or offer a framework for thinking about it.

Charlie Morley
Yes, so exactly that the framework is based on these like five foundations: the five foundations of mindfulness a dream and sleep. So just to hit them off first, then we’ll go into them. First one is sleep awareness. The second one is deep rest and relaxation. The third one is breath work. The fourth one is transformation of nightmares. And the fifth one is lucid dreaming. So it starts with sleep awareness, which is essentially working with this premise that knowledge is power. So how can we even think about Making changes to the third of our life that we spend asleep. We know nothing about it. So first of all, it’s about learning not just how people sleep, but how we sleep. So becoming your own sleep tracker, you know, like working out, like, how do you sleep? How do you need to sleep? How do you benefit from sleep. And we look at not only at the workshops, like how sleep works, but how stress and trauma affect each specific stage of sleep. Like once you tell people that flashbacks and the hypnogogic are normal, and okay, if you’ve had a traumatic event, and this is why it’s to do with the brain moving the left brain dominance, the waking state to the right brain dominance, a dream state. And in that transition, there’s a period where the egocentric preference system, which is the part of the mind that kind of kind of bats away any thoughts that we don’t want to have, that kind of goes to sleep it blacks out, yeah, so boom, all these things can pop up.

And that that’s very different from hypnopompic state where actually you can get this thing called the 4am Demons where the hypnopompic state that stays of waking up can give great clarity, you can get the mind that the mind is like perfectly spring cleaned after a cycle of sleep. So the mind it’s like bright headlights. So for some people that leads to amazing insight in the hypnopompic state when they wake up and they remember that line of poetry or whatever. But if you’re working with trauma, it can mean that you’ve highlighted this this traumatic thing we try not to look at and you share that and you see people just going, Oh, I see you know, it’s about normalisation.

So it’s about empowering with knowledge. normalising however you sleep is okay. And if you’ve been through something highly stressful, yeah, that’s definitely gonna affect your sleep like No wonder. Because most people in this country anyway, when something’s up with their sleep, they go to their doctor, they’re like GP, their general practitioner. Now my stepsister just became a doctor. And she confirmed in six out of six years of medical training, she had two hours on sleep. Now she sent me that two hour presentation, it was actually really good, but it was two hours do and we know that one in 10 of the reasons people go and see their general practitioner doctor is sleep related. And most people didn’t do their training. Just last became a doctor three months ago, like my sister, maybe it was 10 or 20 years ago, when sleep science was in its infancy. So people go to their doctors and say, This is how I’m sleeping, or these the nightmares I’m happening, or this is the phenomena that’s occurring to me and the doctors out of no fault of their own. But just because they don’t know so wow, that’s something really bad, you know, we need to medicate you. Or, you know, we need to pathologize it creates a problem out of it. And actually, that’s not true.

So the first thing is kind of sleep awareness and normalisation and the main practice there is keeping a nocturnal journal. So what I ask people to do is when they wake up in the morning, just like a daytime journal, just note down your night. So yes, that would include any dreams you can remember, but also just taken no, like, when did I get asleep? I woke up a couple of times to pee. I just couldn’t get to sleep. I kept thinking about that thing. Jot that down, when I woke up in the morning, and then crucially, how do I feel upon awakening? How do I feel because even if you can’t remember the dreams, and this is really interesting, actually, even if you can’t remember a dream, the emotional resonance of the dream will be felt in the body. So there’s some interesting research showing that simply the act of writing down your dreams increases psychological wellbeing because there could be millions of people every day who are waking up after an unremembered anxiety dream on unremembered nightmare, and they wake up in the anxiety of the nightmare is still felt in the body

Tasha
Yeah, and we carry it through the day.

Charlie Morley
Yeah, we carry it. And they’ve shown that the act of writing it down or speaking it out loud, both work well helps you discharge the emotional energy of that dream. So actually, keeping a dream diary is good for you and see, you know, people are so boring, but it’s really good for you.

And also another study from Swansea University, where I’ve done some some of the studies there, has shown that listening to somebody’s dreams, which I know is frickin boring for most people, but listening switches on your mirror neurons and increases levels of empathy over a long period with like long term long term effects. So yeah, if you can sit through listening to your partner’s boring dreams, it’s actually increasing your levels of empathy.

Tasha
I love when people tell me their dreams, but I’m also a dream nerd. So I’m also like.

Charlie Morley
Me too! Exactly but most people find a bit boring, right? So yeah, so that’s the first foundation, the sleep awareness stuff.

The second one is deep rest and relaxation. So like learning how to switch on the parasympathetic nervous system. Because most of us are, in this like constant state of fight or flight, so the easiest way to do that is what Professor Huberman from Stanford calls non sleep deep rest, NSDR, non sleep deep rest, which is basically his kind of scientific term for yoga nidra, it’s basically yoga nidra and once you start talking about it, you’re like, oh, it’s mainly yoga nidra, okay, you gave it a cool moniker.

So it’s anything below sleep, so you’re not fully asleep, you’re not blacked out, but you’re also not awake. So you’re probably lying down, at least in a deep state of relaxation, and most in that kind of awareness of the hypnagogic state, which a lot of yoga nidra depends on. So it’s training people to learn how to relax deeply. And the way this works so well for sleep is because it charges something called parasympathetic drive, cuz I was like, why does it help for sleep?

Jeff
Because it’s counterintuitive, he wouldn’t he would think that laying down to rest during the day would actually make it harder to fall asleep at night because you’re get second up some of that sleep during the day.

Charlie Morley
Okay, so if you were napping, and by the way, napping, actually, as long as your nap is under 90 minutes, and as long as your nap finishes six hours before your intended bedtime, it will not have a negative impact upon your sleep. But but so let’s put that myth to bed. The kind of sleep pressure only takes five to six hours to build up. So as long as you’ve got give us a five or six hours, you’ll be okay. But yeah, let’s say like on a yoga nidra retreat, right, where you’re doing 5, 6, 7 sessions of this lying down meditation a day each one half an hour. And then at night, you’re like, there’s no way I’m going to sleep. I just be laying down all day, all of us up on my sleep credits, like just as you said, Actually, you sleep like a baby. Because if you were to have five or six naps during the day, yeah, you’d mess with the circadian rhythms. But yoga nidra crucially you’re not asleep, you might fall asleep. You know, often I do fall asleep. Because if you can, you’re staying just before sleep. And what that does is a single parasympathetic drive, which is I think of it like a car battery, imagine like electric car battery. And every time you do something relaxing during the day, you charge up that battery. This is why people tend to sleep better on vacation, because during the day, they tend to be doing less, you’re on vacation with kids, you tend to be doing slightly more relaxing things than you would do in your everyday life. So if you can spend like 30 minutes a day, and it can be in the middle of the day or just before bed, it doesn’t matter when you practice the non sleep deep rest practices. That’s like a 30 minute charge of your parasympathetic drive. So when you go to sleep at night, the more charge in that parasympathetic drive there is the easier it is to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Tasha
It’s kind of like you’re just lowering like the the baseline your like your energetic baseline throughout the day. You’re just kind of Yeah, you know, exactly getting close to a norm of relaxation.

Jeff
Exactly. You’re you’re taking some noise of the system, and you’re priming things for that kind of rest and relaxation. So just so for people, in case people you can find yoga nidra guided meditations online, presumably you have some, if they don’t want to do a guided practice, what would that look like for someone just closing their eyes and kind of staying away but just sort of gentle contemplation? drifty? I mean, what do you recommend? What would that look like?

Charlie Morley
Yeah, so it’s usually yoga nidra is actually guided by an by a track either somebody or an audio track. And I’ve selected the best one, if you go to my website, www.charliemorley.com/wakeuptosleep. There’s a resources section under that page and I put all the coolest yoga nidra because some of them are really annoying, but can it be done without the track? Absolutely. What would it look like?

So first of all, eyes closed for this. So a lot of the meditations would not be either in fact, you know, we can we could drop in now and just have a look some someone was following along, I’d ask you to close your eyes.

Jeff
Let’s do it in a little mini one.

Charlie Morley
[Meditation begins]

Okay, and I’ll ask you actually not to have a perfect meditation posture. Like you guys can’t lay down because your mics but like proper slump, like let yourself like not have good posture goes like deeply relaxed with pillows here. Yeah, exactly. And anyone who’s listening now you could be lying down. Just the act of moving to a lying down position activates parasympathetic response, you can literally see this right. So lying down, it’d be great having the eyes closed, and just noticing the support of the ground beneath you. Noticing the support. So whatever in life is not supporting us. People we may not be able to rely on circumstances but the ground is always there. It is always supporting us unconditionally. Just noticing that unconditional support of the ground with the eyes closed allowing the eyelids to become heavy, and as the eyelids become heavy to see if you can tune into the outbreath specifically, and with each out breath allow yourself to move deeper and deeper into that support of the ground. So allow all of your bodyweight to be released into the support of the ground with the outbreath.

Allowing the heaviness of the eyelids become the heaviness of the body fully relaxed, completely safe. Allowing yourself to release any clinging or grasping onto the waking state. Knowing that we fall asleep that’s totally fine. sound of my voice will bring you back for an hour really release deeply.

Feeling the body getting heavy your breath becoming longer. deeper, more relaxed. Just allow yourself to rest in this space nowhere to go, nothing to do just resting this relaxing deeply and then if we had time, I’d be encouraging you to do a body scan through your body, starting at your feet, bringing your attention into your feet, seeing if you can place your mind into your feet.

And with awareness comes relaxation fully relaxed feet and then we move our awareness up through the body through the limbs, into the core all the way to the top of the head. We do this slowly, it would take 10 or 15 minutes. And once we got to the head, we might bring our awareness into a certain part of the head, maybe the space between our eyebrows, we might bring our awareness there and see if we can hold it there. And whenever we felt ourselves slipping off into sleep would bring our awareness back to that point at the centre of the eyebrows. Maybe even imagining a ball of white light there if you like. And that body scan from the feet to the top of the head might take 5, 10, 15 minutes. Your awareness of the ball of white light between the plays between your eyebrows, might take another 5 or 10 minutes. Then whenever you feel that visualisation has served you you can drop the ball of white light and just rest. And you could rest in that state with awareness for however long you likes. Another 10, 15 minutes, another half an hour.

But I’m aware that we don’t have that time for you right now. So with no sense of rush, just bring yourself back to an awareness of your body, opening your eyes stretching your body if it feels good to do so.

[Meditation ends]

So there’s just a little taster there of how you might guide your own yoga. Nidra is basically moving into deep relaxation working with the eyelids and the body working together. It’s an old hypnosis technique. I did some hypnosis hypnotherapy stuff when I was in my 20s. And I remember my hypnotherapy teacher, he always used to say, the hypnogogic state is a free hypnosis session. And later, I found out the brainwaves of the hypnogogic state and those of Hypnosis are identical. They’re not just similar. They’re identical. So he was right, you’re literally getting a free session of hypnosis. So there can also be a really a place to insert affirmations and to work with any kind of hypnotic suggestions you want to use. And it’s a very similar thing when you work with lucid dreaming would move in that state, then the end of the body scan, you then move into reciting a certain affirmation to have a lucid dream. So yeah, you can absolutely guide yourself.

Tasha
It feels like a just like hitting the reset button for the nervous system.

Charlie Morley
Really? Yes, exactly.

Jeff
I imagine you could do it in a bath or lying in a park or just what matters is just to come out of the rumination and get your your mind and your body and really let yourself feel like ground and heaviness. And…

Charlie Morley
Yeah, and it seems decadent. Because we’re so programmed to like, “no, we should be in this state of clarity eyes, open, mindful awareness or into kind of the Buddhist the mindfulness scene”, right? This is saying the opposite, it’s like really, literally take the weight off your feet, allow yourself to enter the hypnogogic, you should be close to sleep approaching asleep. And that, as you said Tasha that’s what really resets the nervous system. You know, mindfulness is brilliant for resetting, our kind of consciousness, our sense of awareness, but to reset the actual parasympathetic, and to log into that parasympathetic drive, it requires that space just before sleep.

Tasha
Yeah.

Charlie Morley
And the great thing about yoga nidra it works even when it doesn’t, if you’re too wired to get into the hypnogogic. Okay, it’s like a lying down mindfulness session. If you can enter the hypnogogic you got all those great benefits of yoga nidra. And if you go too far, and you fall asleep, we get all the benefits of a nap. So it kind of even works when it doesn’t.

Jeff
So I know you got to jump dude to do your Swedish thing. Do we have a few minutes just to say just to comment on how the lucid dreaming thing has been helpful? I mean, we don’t time for practice or anything.

Charlie Morley
Yeah, let’s talk lucid dreaming. What do you want to discuss? Well,

Jeff
I mean, as pertains to this particular issue of people who have you know, are stressed out, they’re not getting good sleeps or they’re dealing with nightmares. How does the practice of lucid dreaming. How can that help with that?

Charlie Morley
Okay, so lucid dreaming, I would teach once somebody has stabilised their sleep. So have you noticed that comes at the end of The Five Foundations. So with working population with high levels of stress or trauma, jumping straight into lucid dreaming isn’t always the best thing. It requires some prep work for people with kind of normalised levels of stress, whatever the hell that means absolutely jump straight into lucid dream. If you’re working with trauma, then those first foundations are pretty good way to begin. But once you get to the lucid dreaming, it is one of the most powerful ways to integrate trauma. I mean, lucid dreaming as far as like nightmare integration goes study after study.

In fact, after that Swedish thing, I’ve got another thing tonight where I’m presenting with ions Institute of Noetic Sciences on a study that we did in July, and we just got the results back. We had 55 people all of which had to have high levels of PTSD to get into the study. So I’ve never had that before where everyone in the room has has high levels of PTSD. What we found is a one week study. I was worried that we wouldn’t have any not worried but I told the funnel, we may not have any lucid dreams, you know, this is a populace. Sorry, this is a traumatised population group. Who knows but we’ll try our best we had 73% of them had a lucid dream in the one week study that, yeah, one week and of that 73% a high percentage, I can’t actually remember what it is had what we refer to as a healing lucid dream, which is they got lucid in a recurring nightmare became lucid and either the act of lucidity had a healing effect than reduction, the nightmares or they literally became lucid in turn to kind of face their fear. And in some cases, embrace the demon or a scent love to the attacker or whatever it was, you know, full on kind of feeling lucid dreams. And obviously, they had a big reduction in PTSD, as you would expect. But what was the most interesting thing, after that study, all of the group, after the study had a reduction in PTSD scores, and three weeks later, all of the groups still had a reduction in PTSD. Which brings us to this crazy conclusion that actually just learning about lucid dreaming and giving it a shot, regardless of if you’re one of those 25%, who didn’t have a lucid dream, still has a reduction in PTSD, which is huge, but there’s one the big thing that’s stopping lucid dreaming being adopted by mainstream medicine is all it takes a lot of effort. Not everyone can get lucid. Most people it takes two or three weeks right of reading the books and doing the courses and stuff.

What we found is not only it can be taught quickly, in a in a intense, you know, period, but also even if you don’t get lucid just learning, it’s a possibility. And the scientists believe that it’s learning that lucid dreaming is a thing offers such hope and empowerment to the disempowered population who have PTSD that that in itself reduces PTSD scores. And I was like, fuck, that’s so cool!

Jeff
But it’s also related to the finding. They find in all of these studies around meditation, mindfulness, any kind of, of these interventions, just the act of thinking you’re doing something that’s helping you.

Charlie Morley
Yes, yeah.

Jeff
Even in the placebo group is itself hugely helpful.

Charlie Morley
Totally, yeah.

Tasha
Yeah, empowering is really the right word there.

Charlie Morley
So lucid dreaming is really, really powerful working with with stress and trauma. But also, you mentioned that Swedish thing and to give it context, I’m about to give a webinar to like a Swedish conservatoire of like musicians on lucid dreaming creativity, because it’s not just trauma, I mean, lucid dreaming your basic conscious and the unconscious mind. So anything you can work with through hypnotherapy can work with through lucid dreaming, and one of those is like access to the unconscious. So we know that the unconscious is this vast storehouse of like every every movie you’ve ever watched every spiritual teacher you ever see. And every good piece of advice you ever had all of that stored in the unconscious, if only we could access and the lucid dream is that you get the keys to the unconscious.

So if you get lucid and you call out something like show me something important, or how can I be of most benefit? It’s like you’re asking the infinite you the you that’s not limited by the confines of the egoic mind. You’re having access to all of that. So the answers you get, I mean, I say they’re from you. Some say they’re from God and stuff. I’m like, Dude, I think they’re from you. But I think if you were to meet the you beyond the limits of the ego, you would call it God. So no wonder you think you met God on a lucid dream. It’s like you’re meeting the infinite you? Yeah. So it’s amazing work on creativity. And like the martial arts study. I mean, I was part of that. 81.3% of the martial artists, we had to basically train martial arts in a lucid dream and then the waking state they tested to see if we got any better at 81.3% of the 25 martial artists got better at martial arts and the lucid dream I embarrassingly was one of the 19% that didn’t do any better.

Tasha
You didn’t become a ninja in your dreams.

Jeff
It’s because you kept racing around trying to have sex with random strangers and they kept beating the shit out of you.

Tasha
Trying to have sex with an umbrella like…

Jeff
I was like, hey you know my umbrella get away from my umbrella!

Tasha
Oh shit, I’m supposed to be a martial artist.

Charlie Morley
I totally did it I got lucid, I did the kick sequence I was like ah I’m nailing this scientific study but yeah, I got no better on the follow up so whatever but 81.3% did so you can use it for loads of cool stuff. nd of course it’s a spiritual practice. As you both know in Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism goes back At least 1000 years been tradition 1000 years before that. So it’s that profound spiritual benefits to.

Jeff
So Charlie, clearly, we’re just scratching the surface here of what we have to explore. So we’re gonna have to get you back on.

Charlie Morley
Oh, I’d love to thank you so much. It’s been an absolute pleasure and an honour.

Tasha
Thank you so much. Awesome.

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