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tadeas
Czech Republic
314 Posts |
 Posted - Nov 17 2009 : 2:16:03 PM
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The process of understanding identification and identified perception progresses and affects deeper and deeper layers of the bodymind. The witness quality emerges, then it starts to penetrate all the states of consiousness. Then this further progresses to dispassion and to the bodymind becoming increasingly active in and as the natural flow of life in unity.
My question here is about your experiences of the dreaming and deep sleep states and their development and functioning.
It happened on a few ocassions that somewhere in deep sleep or dreaming, there came a state of total merging with light. All the dreaming stopped. It was total bliss and peace and unity - "the seer abiding in itself". So one instinctively abides, as Itself. Everytime this happened, I woke up (the waking state resumed) after less hours of sleep than normally and I felt extra refreshed. It can be desribed as a deep samadhi in sleep, where there is nothing particular, just light that one is. I described it in one of my posts earlier this year:
Sometimes I'm asleep and then in the middle of the night a luminosity appears. And then there comes absolute, total bliss. It's great! :) And it's really the same as profound peace and stillness. A self-sufficient joy and completeness.
When the bodymind sleeps, there are dreams and they are of different types.
1/ There can be dreams based on identification - basically the mind going in various circles and releasing material that was put aside into the personal unconscious part of the mind. When I'm exploring states that are on the verge between dreaming and waking, I can see a "membrane", from behind which the dream material emerges and behind which the personal unconscious is hidden (to the waking mind). This also leads me to an idea why lucid dreams may not be beneficial for a good sleep. In lucid dreaming, the waking mind with it's waking filtering mechanisms is sort of intruding into the dreaming state. Why are there dreams? I think it's a mechanism that serves to release and integrate that which is put away (repressed) during the day, and to store new memories by going over them again. Lucid dreaming partly interrupts this process, I think.
2/ Then, in periods of greater purity, in periods when identification is less and there is not much to be resolved in the personal unconscious, some other stuff starts coming through. In my experience, the "membrane" is again penetrated as one goes to sleep, but what comes into the field of experience is more abstract. There is more stuff concerning the deepest programming of the bodymind. One can be with beings and in environments that are not human or that are somehow connected with deeper evolutionary currents. When there comes a (creative) idea for anything, a drawing, a text, a vision of things happening, possible scenarios, it also comes from behind this "membrane".
3/ Then sometimes, as I described earlier, there comes a state which is not exactly deep sleep or dreaming. Tibetian buddhists say there is this type of sleep called "clear light sleep". Tenzin Wangyal writes: "when the practitioner integrates with the clear light, dreaming stops". This is also my experience.
This has been of interest for quite some time here. I feel that on some advanced levels of purification of the bodymind, the mechanisms/programs that are born of and built on the identification process recede almost completely. This then probably leads to a state that is more like an integration of dreaming and waking state. That means there is less need for dreaming and one gets to the leves where the bodymind can just rest for a few hours in deep sleep (or "clear light"?) and no more rest is needed. There are individuals who can and do go into deep sleep for about three hours every night and need no more rest. I've also talked with a guy who was not doing meditation or such practices, but for about a year, he'd been doing a kind of yoga nidra, which allowed him to rest deeply for a few hours and then wake up and be active normally. However, I don't know whether this could be stable even more long-term. My intuition would say it's not healthy not to have dreams (release unconscious, unintegrated material) unless this comes naturally from a high level of purification.
I don't think this is particularly important for realization, just that it's a by-product of certain purification processes coming to fruition.
I have never met in person anyone on this level of functioning. Do you think that this is a likely outcome of the evolution towards unity manifesting in the bodymind? Or is this like an open option, a possible way open to those who are purified enough?
Have you had some experiences with the clear light sleep?
And if you have more to say on this topic, do so!
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Nov 18 2009 : 12:04:15 AM
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Hi Tadeas,
quote:
Originally posted by tadeas
1/ There can be dreams based on identification - basically the mind going in various circles and releasing material that was put aside into the personal unconscious part of the mind. When I'm exploring states that are on the verge between dreaming and waking, I can see a "membrane", from behind which the dream material emerges and behind which the personal unconscious is hidden (to the waking mind).
I'm glad there is someone else who finds this topic interesting.
This is my observation as well. Dreams appear to be releasing material (emotional energy created from resistance to various situations) that was not dealt with in its entirety in previous non-dreaming life situations. I have observed two wisps of energy, one from each side of the mind emerge and then come together to form the dream material.
quote:
This also leads me to an idea why lucid dreams may not be beneficial for a good sleep. In lucid dreaming, the waking mind with it's waking filtering mechanisms is sort of intruding into the dreaming state. Why are there dreams? I think it's a mechanism that serves to release and integrate that which is put away (repressed) during the day, and to store new memories by going over them again. Lucid dreaming partly interrupts this process, I think.
I have observed this too, lack of good quality sleep during periods of lucid dreaming, more sleep required to feel rested. I agree with your reason for dreams.
quote:
2/ Then, in periods of greater purity, in periods when identification is less and there is not much to be resolved in the personal unconscious, some other stuff starts coming through. In my experience, the "membrane" is again penetrated as one goes to sleep, but what comes into the field of experience is more abstract. There is more stuff concerning the deepest programming of the bodymind. One can be with beings and in environments that are not human or that are somehow connected with deeper evolutionary currents. When there comes a (creative) idea for anything, a drawing, a text, a vision of things happening, possible scenarios, it also comes from behind this "membrane".
I have observed this as well, very abstract, the material is hard to hold onto upon waking.
quote:
3/ Then sometimes, as I described earlier, there comes a state which is not exactly deep sleep or dreaming. Tibetian buddhists say there is this type of sleep called "clear light sleep". Tenzin Wangyal writes: "when the practitioner integrates with the clear light, dreaming stops". This is also my experience.
Haven't had a lot of this, but have been emerged in light during sleep but there was imagery though very abstract and difficult to articulate.
quote:
Do you think that this is a likely outcome of the evolution towards unity manifesting in the bodymind? Or is this like an open option, a possible way open to those who are purified enough?
Hard to speculate other than to note an increasing amount of experiences during sleep over the years of AYP practice so a trend towards more experiences of this nature can be noted.
In my experience I have had a lot of very deep purification take place during sleep and upon waking during sleep. Most of it very difficult to articulate though it gives a lot of insight into the true nature of reality our energy bodies and the nature of existence.
My sense of it is that only a very unified mind will have deeper realities of existence revealed and slowly enough not to completely unbalance the perspective required to exist in the here and now and function normally.
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gumpi
United Kingdom
546 Posts |
Posted - Nov 18 2009 : 10:51:52 AM
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I watched a video on REM sleep earlier and it sounds to me like if you meditate when the brain should be in REM sleep you don't get good quality sleep. However, REM tries to catch up for lost time later. So perhaps naps are a good idea. On the flip side, if you do meditate instead of dreamin REM normally, you get more lucid dream experiences, OBE experiences, what have you.
So how sleep and dreams and meditation mix is very interesting.
It also seems to be the case that regular practice of meditation conditions you to become more accoustomed to sleep paralysis or the body becoming numb. I would equate this state with pratyahara and loss of body consciousness. Of course i don't mean sleep paralysis as a scary experience but one to be expected with practice and in a relaxed manner.
It's also intertesting to me how intentions can contribute to subsequent experiences. Of this i would say it is important not to have hypnotic hallucinatory experiences in the place of real spiritual experiences. |
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Sleep, dreams, clear light sleep & their evolution
