OK, but if the cause of your exhaustion is physical I would guess you’d still tend to feel exhausted
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That is very interesting. It fits very well with what I have repeatedly read in the texts on vase breathing techniques, that is, to always avoid breathing with your mouth.
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I have literally felt I’ve found the holy grail of maintaining health of the body and mind. If you read James Nestor’s book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, you’ll see the full negative impact of what mouth breathing has done to humanity in a short period of time.
I believe the way back to sanity and our ability to be stable in mediation is ensuring breathing is happening through the nose other than intensive exercise.
I literally couldn’t walk and talk without getting breathless (and high anxiety) last summer (due to complications from my heart condition) to being able to do those things and almost reclaim my health to what it was before.
In my humble opinion, when our respiration isn’t stabilized, neither will our meditation…and lucidity…
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Well…you can breathe out the feeling of the exhaustion. Identify the physical sensation, attach yourself to it…and breathe out that attachment. Kind of a Vipashyana kind of thing.
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Over the years I have worked with other disciplines where the breath was absolutely key to success. In T’ai Chi we learn to fill our body with our breath and our very movement becomes one with the “respiration” of the universe.
In Aikido we learn to marshal our breath energy to blend with that of an assailant in order to neutralize that attack harmoniously.
And now with basic vase breathing I am learning even more about the dynamic importance of specific breath awareness.
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Whatever it is, attention to one’s breath can help with awareness as well.
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When I went for a degree in Waldorf Education (Rudolf Steiner) one of the first things we learned was that (paraphrase) One purpose of life is to learn how to breathe.
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Absolutely, this is also called settling the body (of the body, energy, mind continuum) to „its natural state“.
I never thought that the „Theravada“ practice of Anapanasati would be so healthy. I dedicate more and more prime time to it, since it trains the ability to let go and stay lucid.
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The first 41/2 days of a Vipassana retreat (Goeinka-ji) is spent practicing Anapanasati. At the time I believe it was under valued by participants.
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How was that retreat for you, Barry?
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Would you be able to summarize the practice?
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First time was in 1981 in Kathmandu with Goeinka-ji. They roped off Swyambuth, a big Buddhist temple in the hills above the city, so there were about 200 meditators on the grounds. We shared the site with monkeys who were very territorial (and hungry). It was remarkable. It was quite a chore learning Anapanasati (concentrating on breath to develop a clearlike focus) before Vipassana because his reputation was quite excellent and everyone was hyped to learn the magical meditation method. Many people had walked up from India to partake (“The Vibrations,” one told me) and the logistics were a daily adventure. It worked out very well and I’ve taken other courses since, both in Nepal and the USA.
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Thanks for introducing breath-centric meditation into this dialog @c_scerri . This topic is, for me, an integral part of a discussion on the differences that I see between classic lucid dreaming techniques, such as those I see weekly in my inbox, and the seemingly more passive Dream Yoga techniques as put forth by Tenzin Wangyal along with the foundational protocols as laid out in the Six Yogas,
My practice began to shift away from things like WILD and SSILD when I began to work with Tenzin’s specific Dream Yoga protocols. I still practice them nightly. But when I committed to the breath-centric techniques of Tummo, which led naturally to Illusory Body and Clear light yogas…there was no going back.
My dreams have taken on a completely different character.
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You are so welcome Steve. Honestly I enjoy your thread posts so much. Everyone adding a thing or two ends up being an excellent education for me. I am new to the Buddhist teachings and practices (my Hatha yoga teacher training led to a superficial understanding only) so I’m finding you all as teachers on my path. I’m truly grateful and hope people seriously look into mouth taping at night because the transformation one goes through is like nothing else. Most people think they don’t mouth breathe at night but it’s not the case. If one chokes alot in the beginning as I did as I started the practice, it’s proof we’re used to using our mouth to breathe. But eventually the choking stops and we move to a deep nasal rythmm and one feels so refreshed in the morning!
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Accompanying music as well?
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“Broken down mystery man . . . .” 
Been using the tracks as “background music.”
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That got me smiling, Barry. 
@c_scerri I am following Alan Wallace‘s teachings as described in The Attention Revolution and elsewhere, so he teaches a mix:
Shamata on the movement of the lower belly when breathing. The so called „burmese method“. I practice this mainly to stabilize attention.
Then there is the practice to notice any sensation in the entire body, which may arise when breathing. I use this sometimes when I want to hone my attention of the energetic situation in my field.
In order to hone vividness of attention, I practice focusing on the sensation at the nostrils while breathing.
When stability, relaxation and vividness are there, I switch focus to the mind space in order to view any hypnogogic-like imagery or whatever comes up.
The hardest part though is in the relaxation phase of training not to control the breath or prefer it to be either long, short, soft, heavy etc. That seems a very important skill to practice for LD.
Perhaps @_Barry can give details on similarities or differences to traditional Anapanasati practice.
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Interesting.
In support of that, I have found of late that I am achieving very strong conscious awareness in the dream after a WBTB where I practice pretty extreme and specific Tummo-esque breath control followed by Tenzin’s third stage Dream Yoga protocol where I lay on my back in bed and take 21 breaths that are completely relaxed with zero control while focusing on my heart chakra.
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