This nocturnal method comes from the luminous stream of Tantra, echoing the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra as unfolded by Osho. Its heart is simple and radical: feel the intangible breath, the invisible prana, at the third eye and follow its shower to the heart precisely as sleep is taking you. In that soft threshold between waking and dreaming, a subtle thread of awareness is carried inward. By riding this subtle current, you remain conscious as dreams arise, gain direction over them, and gradually enter a dreamless depth identical in flavor to death—yet known from within, without fear.
The practice requires no posture and no display—only privacy, a bed, and a tender attentiveness. Centered at the brow, sensing the pranic shower, you let it reach the heart as sleep overtakes you. From this simple gesture unfold rare capacities: lucid dreaming, the ability to invite or refuse particular dreams, and—at maturity—a serene intimacy with dreamless sleep and with the great transition we call death. The language is poetic, but the guidance is exacting: feel the subtle; let awareness be carried to the heart; fall asleep without losing that thread.
Phase Instructions
Preparation: Privacy and Bedtime Setting
Practice alone, in bed, with lights dim or off. Lie in your usual sleeping position. Let the breath be natural and quiet. There is no outer ritual; nothing should reveal that you are meditating. Resolve to remain gently aware as you fall asleep—no efforting, only a continuous, delicate noticing.
Attuning to the Intangible Breath (Prana)
Soften attention toward the subtle content of the breath—the invisible, immaterial prana carried by the air. You are not watching air volume or movement; you are feeling the living essence within it. The easiest entry is through the third eye; alternatives (less easy) are the gap between breaths or the navel center. If helpful during the day, briefly taste this subtle pranic feel so you recognize it at night—but reserve the full technique for the moment of falling asleep.
Third Eye Centering
With eyes closed, let your inner gaze rest in the center of the forehead between the eyebrows. Feel a fine, luminous shower at this point—energy, light, a silken inflow. Do not strain or visualize strongly; simply receive the intangible breath arriving at the brow center. Allow the outward breath to release without concern; your interest is the pranic content of the incoming breath.
Follow the Prana to the Heart as Sleep Arrives
As you remain centered at the third eye, sense the subtle shower descending and touching the heart. With each incoming breath, feel: “prana touches and fills the heart.” Keep only this one thread—third eye receiving, heart being touched. Let sleep come and drown you while this feeling continues. Do not resist sleep and do not tighten the attention; it is a feather-light continuity that accompanies you across the threshold.
Awareness in Dreams
If the thread is unbroken, you will know when a dream begins: “This is a dream.” Stay relaxed and simply recognize it. Do not chase scenes. Let the fact of dreaming be bright and effortless. If you wish, give a clear, simple direction just before sleep: “Tonight I will dream of X,” or “Tonight that disturbing dream will not enter.” Set the direction once, softly, then return to feeling the prana touch the heart as you drift off.
Directing or Releasing Dreams
In a lucid dream, you may allow, shape, or dissolve the scene. To invite: silently intend a specific image or situation and let it arise without strain. To refuse: say inwardly, “Not this,” and withdraw attention; the scene fades. As mastery grows, you will find there is no need to dream; dreaming naturally declines, and sleep drops into depth.
Beyond Dreams: Deep Sleep and the Taste of Death
When dreaming subsides, let awareness rest in the silent depth of dreamless sleep. Do not search for objects; simply abide as the quiet. Over time you may sense a profound kinship between deep, dreamless sleep and death—both are depth without images. Continue the practice nightly until this depth becomes familiar and fearless.
Advanced Sensitivity to Pranic Flow
As your sensing of the intangible breath refines, notice its directionality. Ordinarily, incoming breath carries prana in and outgoing breath returns empty. Near death, the process reverses: incoming breath feels empty of prana; outgoing breath carries prana out. Do not theorize; simply remain available to this subtle fact of flow. This sensitivity ripens naturally from the core practice and removes fear of endings.
Core Benefits
- Lucid dreaming
- Ability to invite or refuse particular dreams
- Consciously entering dreamless sleep
- Gaining direction over dreams
- Serene intimacy with the transition called death
What Osho Said About This Technique
5. Attention between eyebrows, let mind be before thought. Let form fill with breath essence to the top of the head and there shower as light.
6. WHEN IN WORLDLY ACTIVITY, KEEP ATTENTION BETWEEN TWO BREATHS, AND SO PRACTICING, IN A FEW DAYS BE BORN ANEW. 7. WITH INTANGIBLE BREATH IN CENTER OF FOREHEAD, AS THIS REACHES HEART AT THE MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. 8. WITH UTMOST DEVOTION, CENTER ON THE TWO JUNCTIONS OF BREATH AND KNOW THE KNOWER. 9. LIE DOWN AS DEAD. ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING. The eighth technique: WITH UTMOST DEVOTION, CENTER ON THE TWO JUNCTIONS OF BREATH AND KNOW THE KNOWER. There is a slight difference in the techniques -- slight modifications. But though the differences are slight in the techniques, for you they may be great. A single word makes a great difference. WITH UTMOST DEVOTION, CENTER ON THE TWO JUNCTIONS OF BREATH. The incoming breath has one junction where…Read the full discourse →
In summer when you see the entire sky endlessly clear enter such clarity. Shakti,
SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD IN THE BRILLIANCE. WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT. First try your imagination with small things: just that the body has become bigger or has become smaller. You can go both the ways. You are five feet six: feel you have become four feet, three feet, two feet, one foot; you have become just a seed. This is just a training; just a training so that you can feel whatsoever you want to feel. Your inner mind is absolutely free to feel; nothing can hinder it from feeling anything. It is your feeling. You can grow and you can be small. Suddenly you become aware that it is you. And if you can work well through this, you can come out of your body very easily. If you can grow and become small through imagination, you are capable…Read the full discourse →
Oh lotus-eyed one, sweet of touch, when singing, seeing, tasting, be aware you are and discover the ever-living.
WHEREVER SATISFACTION IS FOUND, IN WHATEVER ACT, ACTUALIZE THIS. AT THE POINT OF SLEEP, WHEN THE SLEEP HAS NOT YET COME AND THE EXTERNAL WAKEFULNESS VANISHES, AT THIS POINT BEING IS REVEALED. ILLUSIONS DECEIVE, COLORS CIRCUMSCRIBE, EVEN DIVISIBLES ARE INDIVISIBLE. That is why we are so much afraid of death: because the unreal is going to die. The unreal cannot be forever, and we are attached to the unreal, identified with the unreal. You as a Hindu will have to die; you as Ram or Krishna will have to die; you as a communist, as an atheist, as a theist, will have to die; you as a name and form will have to die. And if you are attached to name and form, obviously the fear of death will come to you, but the real, the existential, the basic in you, is deathless. Once the forms and names are forgotten,…Read the full discourse →
Feel your substance, bones, flesh, blood, saturated with the cosmic essence.
FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS' AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS. Whenever you start thinking in terms of sadness, you become sad, and you become receptive to all the sadness around you. Then everybody helps you to be sad. Everybody helps, the whole world is always ready to help you, whatsoever you do. When you want to be sad, the whole world is helpful, cooperative. You have become receptive. Really, you fall to a certain wave-length where only sadness can be received. So even if someone comes to cheer you up, he will make you more sad. He will not look friendly, he will not look understanding; you will feel that he is insulting you because you are so sad and he is trying to cheer you up. He thinks your sadness is superficial. He is not taking you seriously. And when you are ready to be happy,…Read the full discourse →
The state in which the soul, with the help of the energies of the sun and other gods, and through the instrumentality of these fourteen: mind, intellect, mind stuff, ego, and the ten sense organs -- becomes sensitive to sound, touch and such other gross objects, is called the waking state. When the living being, on account of the unfulfilled desires of the waking state, becomes sensitive to sound, touch and such other gross objects -- even in the absence of the latter -- it is called the dreaming state of the self or soul.
This state of dreaming, the rishi says, means without the instrumentality of your senses. The senses are closed -- they are not aware of the world beyond you; now you are within your cells, within your body, but still you can create you own worlds. This creation of your own worlds in dreams becomes possible because your mind is a conditioning of everything you have known, you have felt; everything has been accumulated in it. It is an accumulation, not only of this life, but of all the lives one has lived; and not only of human lives, of animal lives also; and not only of animal lives, but of vegetable lives also. So in a dream you can become a tree; in a dream you can become a lion. Sometime you have been a tree: that memory is still there -- it can unfold. This unfolding of past memories,…Read the full discourse →
Common Questions
No, the practice requires no particular posture—just privacy, a bed, and attentive presence.
The focus is on the third eye, sensing the pranic shower reaching the heart as you fall asleep.
No, it is about maintaining awareness at the threshold as sleep overtakes you.
Yes, it can cultivate a serene intimacy with the transition we call death.
The intention is to gradually cultivate maintaining awareness, so it's a skill that develops over time.