Awareness during dreamless sleep

[Snt_lk]

What happens during dreamless sleep? Where does our awareness go? If I check with my direct experience, I only know that there is a gap in my consciousness for I don't recall or feel, or experience what happens during dreamless sleep, so how can I know that something is happening at all. 

I can understand the viewpoint of the Observer during wakefulness and during dreams while asleep, yes the observer is there. But what about experience/awareness/consciousness during dreamless sleep? what if anything is there?

[Snt_lk]

Does God sleep?

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Snt_lk said:

I only know that there is a gap in my consciousness for I don't recall or feel, or experience what happens during dreamless sleep, so how can I know that something is happening at all. 

When you enter nirvikalpa samadhi, there is a timeless nature to it that is identical to dreamless sleep; something which cannot be experienced through time, because it exists outside time, but it's nevertheless experienced. In samadhi and dreamless sleep, there is no form, and time is experienced through the change of form. Experience/consciousness/awareness always is, regardless of form, and you are it. You are not just the limited human form. You are the unchanging, formless and timeless awareness.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Snt_lk]

@Carl-Richard

Is that a transition into what I will call "No experience"? Similar to that of Dreamless sleep. 

[Carl-Richard]

12 minutes ago, Snt_lk said:

@Carl-Richard

Is that a transition into what I will call "No experience"? Similar to that of Dreamless sleep. 

People confuse the experience of form with the experience of consciousness. When they experience something without form, they call it "no experience". That is actually consciousness. The word "experience" is inherentely confusing, because it smuggles the idea of comparing one form to another, of contrasts and distinctions, of experiencing "something" as opposed to something else. Consciousness is what you are. You are yourself, always, and there is no "other", just you.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Snt_lk]

@Carl-Richard

Hmm.. very interesting?

I think I get what you're saying but just to make sure can you clarify what you mean by form and no form? An example perhaps?

[Carl-Richard]

33 minutes ago, Snt_lk said:

@Carl-Richard

Hmm.. very interesting?

I think I get what you're saying but just to make sure can you clarify what you mean by form and no form? An example perhaps?

The basis of form is duality. Duality is based on opposites. For example, warm vs. cold, big vs. small, sharp vs. blunt etc. When you experience the world of form, even if you're in a non-dual state and recognize the unity of all things, this world is still experienced through differences, opposites, duality, form.

Form is essentially any gross (non-subtle) "thing" that you can point out and distinguish from something else. The keyboard you're typing on is form. The screen you're looking at is form. The glass on your desk is form. The water in the glass is form. The taste of the water is form. These things are different experiences, and the experience of them are constantly changing, and this is the basis of time (the general feeling or concrete measurement of change).

All form is happening within the most subtle aspect of consciousness (the unchanging, formless, timeless, empty "void"). If you remove all things, all form, you're still left with "something", and this is formlessness. 

The next step is to realize that the duality between form and formlessness is also one (it's a subtle distinction, but a distinction nonetheless). Consciousness is therefore both form AND formlessness. In other words, consciousness is literally everything that exists; subtle and gross, formless and formed. This is because consciousness has no opposite. Consciousness is absolutely non-dual; one.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[erik8lrl]

You become non-existent/God. If you are more conscious you will become aware of this directly as you sleep.

[Snt_lk]

@Carl-Richard

I see.

my confusion rest in linking consciousness with experience (form) when in actuality, it can be form or formlessness and furthermore both. Surely my consciousness does not cease to exit when I enter dreamless sleep , because when I wake, there I am. Therefor consciousness has only changed form, or more accurately, changed into formlessness. 

 

[Carl-Richard]

3 minutes ago, Snt_lk said:

@Carl-Richard

I see.

my confusion rest in linking consciousness with experience (form) when in actuality, it can be form or formlessness and furthermore both. Surely my consciousness does not cease to exit when I enter dreamless sleep , because when I wake, there I am. Therefor consciousness has only changed form, or more accurately, changed into formlessness. 

If you remove all things, all form, you're still left with "something", and this is formlessness. You go from a more gross experience to a more subtle experience, so subtle in fact that most people don't even notice it or think it's even a thing. Even so, all of it, both subtle and gross, is consciousness.