The path and your relationship with sleep

[Shmurda]

When you become more conscious, you are able to witness the activity of the self with more clarity. This also extends into the sleep process.

When we are going to sleep, at some point our attention dissolves, removing the feeling of the subjective perspective. This is the point at which we are no longer going to sleep and we cease to identify as a body, mind or ego.

But as we become more effective meditators, we become more acutely aware of this shift from being the one going to sleep to ceasing to be aware of anything. This means at some point we must stop being consciousness that is aware of going to sleep and simply become consciousness itself.

Recently I have realised that, for my whole life, I have relied on lying down and becoming distracted by the contents of the mind and simply drifting into sleep. However, recently my mind has become so sharp that I am constantly aware of my conscious experience. Thus I can no longer get to sleep by relying on distraction.

So my question is, if you are constantly aware that you are conscious, how do you consciously enter the sleep state? Or, another way of phrasing it, how do you meditate to sleep? 

 

[tsuki]

Sleep as an activity is still something within the domain of the self, which in my opinion is the opposite of meditation.
Therefore, there is no "meditating to sleep".

[Shmurda]

@tsuki Interesting. So you're saying you think meditation is the inactivity of the self. So if one is comfortable and in a deep state of meditation, this the same as being asleep? I thought that meditation also included a self-aware witness of experience. For example, I can bring myself out of meditation whenever I want, by virtue of knowing I am meditating. I don't know when I'm in deep sleep. 

Perhaps you could answer the first iteration of the question, in your experience? 

[tsuki]

18 minutes ago, Shmurda said:

So if one is comfortable and in a deep state of meditation, this the same as being asleep?

I'd say: no, not in terms of consciousness. In terms of the operation of the body, maybe - perhaps you would need less sleep if you were in permanent samadhi? Who knows?

I think that the difference is that in deep sleep, everything is gone: thoughts, feelings, perceptions and identification and all that's left is ignorance (but ignorance is not a thing, it's lack of awareness). In meditation, the lights are still on, so to speak - you are not ignorant.
I think this is why Ramana Maharshi used to say that in deep sleep you are closer to the Self* than you are in wakefulness.  You just have to remove ignorance. I don't think, however, that he meant that you should be aware in your sleep. I think he meant that you should go "the other way round", through deep meditation into pure awareness:

pure awareness                       | (deep meditation)
Stuff + awareness                    | (meditation)
Stuff + conditional identification   | (wakefulness)
Stuff + unconditional identification | (sleep)
lack of awareness                    | (deep sleep)

* - bear in mind that Maharshi's Self has the opposite meaning from Ralston's self. Ralston speaks of Maharshi's Self as Being.

18 minutes ago, Shmurda said:

Perhaps you could answer the first iteration of the question, in your experience? 

 Could you clarify by re-stating the question? I'm not a strong meditator so my experience is limited.

Edited May 6, 2020 by tsuki

[Shmurda]

1 hour ago, Meta-Man said:

You are Consciousness.

Consciousness never sleeps.

 

Some more of the typical reductionist statements that never allow philosophical and practical discussion on this forum to get off the ground. 

Yes, I know this, that's why I'm here but I'm also not presently aware that I'm pure consciousness, hence why there is anything to discuss at all.

 

[Shmurda]

@tsuki thanks for the response. I guess what I'm asking is, how do we get from 

Stuff + conditional identification (waking) 

To

Stuff + unconditional identification (dream) 

If meditation is the inactivity of the self, then by my understanding, the way to trigger a dream state would be to disidentify from self in waking life and to become self as imagination. 

So I guess my question is, how can you do this when you are aware that you are in the waking state? 

Is there a way to focus your attention to enter dream state or must you always rely on eventually getting distracted from waking reality and falling into dream state?

Edited May 6, 2020 by Shmurda
Mispell

[tsuki]

@Shmurda I don't know, unfortunately. Have you tried exploring lucid dreaming? It seems like what you're looking for, but it does not capture the moment of transition between waking and sleep state. Instead, while you're sleeping, you wake up to the fact that you're dreaming without actually waking up.

[Forestluv]

@Shmurda I’ve found it helpful to explore quasi dream/wake mixed states. For me, having two distinct states of either dream or wake was a restriction.

[Nahm]

8 hours ago, Shmurda said:

When you become more conscious, you are able to witness the activity of the self with more clarity. This also extends into the sleep process.

When we are going to sleep, at some point our attention dissolves, removing the feeling of the subjective perspective. This is the point at which we are no longer going to sleep and we cease to identify as a body, mind or ego.

But as we become more effective meditators, we become more acutely aware of this shift from being the one going to sleep to ceasing to be aware of anything. This means at some point we must stop being consciousness that is aware of going to sleep and simply become consciousness itself.

Recently I have realised that, for my whole life, I have relied on lying down and becoming distracted by the contents of the mind and simply drifting into sleep. However, recently my mind has become so sharp that I am constantly aware of my conscious experience. Thus I can no longer get to sleep by relying on distraction.

So my question is, if you are constantly aware that you are conscious, how do you consciously enter the sleep state? Or, another way of phrasing it, how do you meditate to sleep? 

 

What is that like...the experience of your attention dissolving...the removing of the subjective perspective?  What’s that like? 

What is it like to become a more efficient meditator? 

Likewise, what’s it like to become consciousness itself?

Can you describe the sleep state which you entered? 

What is this ‘sleep’ which one meditates to? 

What’s...meditation?