Where Do We Go When We Sleep?

[NoOne]

Can't sleep tonight.  This feeling of restlessness, it's all monkey mind, but I'm okay because instead of being grumpy about my restlessness I can experience it for what it is and be objective.  Tired makes it hard for monkey mind to work. Sleep is unavoidable like breathing.  what does it mean? What is sleep?

[Neo]

The brain has to make sense of it's sensory input. It's actually quite a jumble of stuff and lots of white noise coming in through the senses, trust me, I suffer from both visual snow and tinnitus. And it puts these inputs into a clear "experience" that you see as the outside world and you understand what you see, and you also put it into some personal context. Well, the brain can do this too in certain stages of sleep, for the reason that this electrical activity from the senses carries on, and of course the results are dreams. One day I witnessed myself wake up from a dream much more slowly than usual and actually saw the visual field of the dream break up into random static.

[Philip]

18 hours ago, NoOne said:

Where Do We Go When We Sleep?

@NoOne The question makes no sense. From a spiritual point of view, sleep does not exist because it is not experienced. Except when you dream, sleep is nothing to you. It never happens.

But what I just gave was not a helpful answer at all, so I'll take another route...

Sleep is just another proof of the illusion of the self, when you think about it. During a normal night of sleep, your brain goes through a lot of micro-structural changes that literally transform the person you are. The person you were before going to sleep is killed and it leaves space for a new person in the morning. You always only have an illusory identification with the story of your life. Because you weren't there to experience it. Someone else was inhabiting your body at that moment.

It's like if killed you, shuffled all your atoms around, and then replaced your atoms in a way that you become alive again. Would that be death ? Yeah... Could that happen one night without you noticing it at all ? I don't know... Would that be so different from what sleep already is ? No, actually...

So to me, sleep is death. And if you're afraid of dying, you should also be afraid of going to bed tonight.

P.S : Good night, sleep tight ! ;D

[ZenMonkey]

@NoOne There are three states: waking state, dream state and deep sleep.

Waking state and dreaming state are quite similiar, the differrence lies in the continuity of the surroundings and in deep sleep you are not a self-conscious person, yet 'I am' remains.

On 27.3.2016 at 10:06 AM, Philip said:

The question makes no sense. From a spiritual point of view, sleep does not exist because it is not experienced. Except when you dream, sleep is nothing to you. It never happens.

I think it's not that it doesn't exist, you just don't have any specific memories of it. What do you think?

 

"All the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping are subjective, personal, intimate. They all happen to and are contained within the little bubble in consciousness, called 'I'. The real world lies beyond the self." -- Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Galyna]

@Philip Hey Phillip, love your answer, but I feel like we still talking in the frame of time: past/present/future. how is it possible to be reborn in the morning, if time does not really exist? 

[Galyna]

@Philip and also one more question, since there is no observer while you sleep, are all those process happening for real? 

in last video Leo emphasized again, that is no External Reality?  If we go by your theory, we would imply that it is. 

I am not arguing with you, I am just try to understand to have more insights  

Thank you.

[Waveenergy]

In our waking life, certain chemicals in the brain (seratonin) inhibit the vividness of memories. This is an evolutionary advantage because if we conjured up a vivid memory of a predator (for example) when there wasn't one there, it would result in confusion in a woken state. Although, when we sleep those chemicals in the brain are not inhibited, allowing us to have vivid dreams. 

You should look into lucid dreaming. It is achieved when you realize that you are dreaming within a dream, resulting in control over your dream world. 

There are some TED talks available on the subject if interested. 

[30secs]

I remember the Zhuangzi's Buttergly Dream

You can read on this site: http://taoism.about.com/od/chuangtzu/a/Butterfly_Dream.htm

[Leo Gura]

Sleep is you returning to You (or Source).

With lots of enlightenment work, one can become aware even in deep sleep. Awareness is always present. The only thing that changes is that stuff within awareness fluctuates. And what you call "the real world" is just a semi-persistent dream.

This is such a radical paradigm shift most people can't fathom it.

[Psychonaut]

@Leo Gura You ccan become aware even in deep sleep? OMG! Tell me more about it.

[Leo Gura]

@Psychonaut What good would enlightenment be if it wasn't eternal? It works even when "you" are dead. The only question is, can you sculpt the mind enough to see it.

[Toby]

@Chives99 Dreams ARE thinking. So there is often deep self-interference in dreams. Or do you experience dreams without a central character? There is often deep emotional entanglement within the dreams.

Becoming aware in waking/dreaming/dreamless sleep is classically called "turiya" (the "4th state") which not the same as enlightenment even if it is pretty cool and even if a lot of so called teachers sell their "experience" of it as enlightenment.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Toby

[Progress]

@Psychonaut I had conscious sleep before. it was pretty cool. You just function like sleeping but you know everything that happens. You don't really think more or anything, its just you being awake but still.

[Philip]

@Galyna

On 3/30/2016 at 2:10 PM, Galyna said:

how is it possible to be reborn in the morning, if time does not really exist? 

Haha mind blown. Ok let's get out of the frame of time... Let's see...

I see two possibilities for how time could be non-existent:

• Your past and future don't exist. There is only the present moment and all the rest is just a figment of your imagination. You might be familiar with this one because @Leo Gura talks about it a lot.
• Every moment in the timeline of the universe is always happening. Every event happens at once. The universe is still. It seems to us that it's moving. It seems to us that we experience only one moment at time, and that those moment are ordered in a coherent way without any kind of skipping or rewinding. But that is all part of a persistent illusion created by the very structure of human memory. What we perceive is a three dimensional world (up-down, right-left, forward-backward) which evolves and progress along a timeline (before-after). But maybe the universe is not progressing at all. Maybe this timeline is nothing else than another pair of directions that our universe allows. Maybe it is the same kind of still and imperturbable dimension than the three spatial ones.

On 3/30/2016 at 2:16 PM, Galyna said:

in last video Leo emphasized again, that is no External Reality?  If we go by your theory, we would imply that it is.

Yeah, the theory I presented there is in contradiction with Leo's enlightenment theories. That's because I can only ever speak at one level of consciousness at a time. And for that particular comment, I adopted a level of consciousness that is lower than enlightenment, which created the contradiction. If I go to the highest level of consciousness I can, my most advanced and profound answer would probably look like :

"External reality both exists and doesn't. It neither exists nor doesn't. Words make no sense. I'll go meditate now. See ya!"

But it would seem out of context and unnecessary, and honestly it pisses me off every time people talk like this on the forum  They probably don't help anyone with those comments. I can't believe they get reputation for that useless misplaced enlightenment jibber jabber

[Joyboy]

Haha true, when you ask the great master/teacher they often answer by act or tell a story, rarely answer directly to your question. It pokes your current level of consciousness. The more you raise your consciousness the more you understand and get the answer by yourself.

But there are also many false master try so hard to answer like that and it makes no sense, so be pissed and beware

[Henri]

When you sleep the consciousness withdraws in the Anandamaya Kosha, which is the causal body, which is the same body one is experiencing samadhi.

[abrakamowse]

I had when I was getting awake experiences of nothingness (I didn't have any identity, I didn't know who I was) and oneness, very short. But it got me thinking about what @Leo Gura said about going back to the source. I also heard Eckhart Tolle saying the same thing.

[abrakamowse]

4 hours ago, Philip said:

"External reality both exists and doesn't. It neither exists nor doesn't. Words make no sense. I'll go meditate now. See ya!"

But it would seem out of context and unnecessary, and honestly it pisses me off every time people talk like this on the forum  They probably don't help anyone with those comments. I can't believe they get reputation for that useless misplaced enlightenment jibber jabber

Don't get pissed off and enlighten us with some jibber jabber. I honestly think it would be good. There's not really a right place to comment, just do it. I was reading a Jed Mc Kenna post this weekend, and I agree with him. We should be having fun from life, it's all good!!!

I really liked what you said about reality, it's so true.

[Philip]

@abrakamowseFuck you man !

I want to be pissed off at you but you're too nice hehe. I'll start a topic and we can discuss this. I'm really intrigued by your views. Maybe you just operate at exactly the level I need in order to grow myself. We'll see !

[abrakamowse]

9 minutes ago, Philip said:

@abrakamowseFuck you man !

I want to be pissed off at you but you're too nice hehe. I'll start a topic and we can discuss this. I'm really intrigued by your views. Maybe you just operate at exactly the level I need in order to grow myself. We'll see !

hahaha... no problem, I was thinking too in posting something about it. Interesting, we both had the same idea. We are one hahaha...

Later!