viv,
I checked also your posting on opening the chakras which made me smile
Your chakras are open in different degrees, most open in the throat.
This shows your own feeling and question if the chakras are on the spine but you have the impression that they are before the body.
That is true when they are open and active having left their inactivity in the outside blooming to the outside.
So I snuffed them to the spine by breath and thinking them back not liking also that left turning means that your energy got suck outwards or rightturning inwards.
The advantage is that you are not so sleepy and more awake.
your open chakras stem presumably from your religious practice and mantrarezitation if not an initiation or diksha.
Now to your posting on to short meditation time. There you should alert, conscious and not dreaming. Dull mind the tibetan masters an animal state. If this is the case I don't know.
Do you use a mantra like in AYP'? The length of meditation is of no importance in the beginning but doing it daily building up the power and concentration for longer times which are not recommended by AYP if you are doing their practice.
You understood tat AYP does not working the chakras in the beginning needing a deeper knowledge.
In the beginning it is typical that you have no feel for the length of the meditation thinking it was more but think it was long and enough. If you feel joyful and good with this length it is enough. Tibetan masters say shorter and repeated meditations like the two in the day of AYP are better than long ones for building up a practice of meditation.
Axel