The (biological) function/s of sleep

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Sleep does not have A function, rather its functions can be regarded from several perspectives: for example (not exclusively) there are biological, medical, psychological and spiritual functions.

And form each of these perspectives there is a positive and negative function: the positive function describes what sleep does, and the negative function what bad things happen when this function is not performed (which may not be obviously-related to the positive function).

And within these functions there will probably be different functions for Deep (Non-REM) and Dreaming (REM) types of Sleep.

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Biological function of Deep Sleep and Dreaming Sleep

The mind (which includes the Awake state, and the two types of Deep and Dreaming sleep) is a complex system, and can be analysed as such.

1. Deep Sleep (NREM)

Deep sleep is a cyclical process (as reflected in the regular slow wave patterns of EEG), and is restorative and reparative in its function.

(In waking life cyclical processes are typically associated with the development of habits and skills - with improvement in specific types of functionality : for example the repeating 'drills' used in learning a foreign language, and the repetitious 'practice' used in learning a musical instrument or sporting technique. It is noticable how new skills that are practiced using repetitious drills often become learned only after a sufficient period of restorative sleep.)

More exactly, the cycles of Deep sleep serve to associate and integrate the complex processes of sleeping and waking - because sleep and waking are both complex entities which include variations in the degree and coordination of processes such as awareness, muscle tone, will, memory. 
 
Inadequate Deep sleep therefore leads to the dissociation of sleep processes (and dis-integration of Waking phase life), which may be seen as symptoms of intrusive sleep into waking, with poor concentration, thought disorder - interrupted streams of thought for example with hallucinations - and to delirium (clouded consciousness, disorientation) and psychotic symptoms as well as changes in mood such as depression or elation (mania).

These problems are essentially problems of harmonization, coordination, synchronisation, integration and correct-association of dissociable mental processes: deep sleep activates, suppresses and links-between these processes appropriately; and lacking adequate Deep sleep, the proper associations break down.

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In a (restricted) computing analogy, the cyclical aspects of Deep sleep are somewhat like the multiple 'Restarts' necessary when patching and repairing the software problems of a dysfunctional computer.

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In one word, Deep sleep is about healing.

And this further implies that Waking life generates pathologies which require healing.

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2. Dreaming Sleep (REM)

To continue the computing analogy, Dreaming sleep is a way of testing the integrity of the complex system of the mind.

In a word - dreaming sleep is a simulation.

In Dreaming sleep, the various internal processes of the brain are allowed to run, freely and in an open-ended fashion, to simulate may situations and combinations of situations, to test the coherence and integration between the sub-systems.

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So if deep sleep is about healing and associating, then Dreaming sleep is about testing the effectiveness and integrity of this healing.

An analogy from computing might be that Dreaming sleep is similar to the period of testing following an attempted repair of a glitch or bug, or following a software patch or update.

In terms of medicine, if Deep sleep is about healing, perhaps an operation to repair a broken leg - then Dreaming sleep is somewhat like the period of physiotherapy and rehabilitation which tests the integrity of that repair and various stresses.

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If Dreaming sleep is about testing, then this may provide a hint of why dreams can be diagnostic - mostly dreams tell us, when dreams tell us anything, that something is wrong.

But it can be hard to understand exactly what is wrong, what that 'something' actually is, since dreams are in general forgotten, and the process of testing does not depend upon conscious awareness or memory of dream content).

Therefore, the problems detected during dreaming sleep are mostly subsequently dealt with during following periods of Deep sleep - either in a phase of deep sleep immediately following dreaming sleep, or else the next or following night of sleep.

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Lack of Dreaming sleep means lack of testing, poor quality control of mental repairs, and the consequences are not as devastating as lack of deep sleep.

Loss of Dreaming sleep (for example when REM sleep is suppressed by a drug) (and what follows is somewhat speculative...) seems to produce subtle symptoms are shallowness and hardening of personality and coarsening of character, desensitization or inappropriate responsivity to the environment, and a non-psychotic level of dis-integration with phenomena such as mood swings, anxiety, impaired concentration, impaired creativity.

After some days, Dreaming sleep (REM patterned EEGs) break through to 'interrupt' both Deep sleep and the awake state - as if the brain had moved form its daily cycle of long phases of compartmentalized phases of Awake, Deep and Dreaming sleep - or Damage/ Repair/ Testing functions - into short, less-compartmentalized micro-cycles which mix together these Awake, Deep and Dreaming phases and functions to produce a more-continuous and less-efficient mixed state of variable amplitude and balance between damage, repair and testing.

In other words, suppression of Dreaming (REM) sleep pushes towards shallow, unsatisfying, unrestorative sleep characterized by multiple awakening and continuous dreaming; and drowsy, inattentive wakefulness prone to narcoleptic phenomena (with sudden onsets of Dreaming sleep).

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Waking Life

So, what is the function of Waking life?

Well, at this level of analysis, the biological function of Waking life is proximately to interact with the environment - to perceive the salient features of the environment and behave appropriately; and at a distal level the purpose of this interaction is survival and reproduction.

However, this Waking life interaction is conceptualized (using the systems theory approach) as being disintegrative and disruptive. Thus interaction with the environment breaks up the harmonious interaction of mental processes, and creates bugs and glitches that accumulate and impair function unless or until these problems are repaired by Deep sleep.

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Deep Sleep dreams compared with Dreaming (REM) Sleep dreams: visions, meditations, inspiration and revelation

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Most, almost-all, the dreams that we remember are those which occur in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, such that this type of sleep is termed Dreaming Sleep. By contrast, Deep Sleep is usually recalled as dreamless, and when someone is woken from it (difficult) and does recall dream content, it is conceptually simple, slow, non-narrative.

Yet, I have come to believe that it is these slow, simple dreams of Deep Sleep which really matter, while the narrative dreams REM sleep are nearly always trivial.

I need a new name for the 'dreams' of Deep Sleep - because they are so different from REM dreams. I propose Slow Motion Segment - because although the Deep Sleep content is very simple and may be in words, emotions, or any other domain; when the 'dream' is visual it is not really static  - not like a picture - but more like a slow motion segment of video - like a second of waking time, stretched-out and its inner workings and evolution examined in incredible detail.

So, just as the release of the cricket ball from a bowler's fingers (or a baseball from the pitcher's fingers) can barely be seen in real time (taking only thousandths of a second), in 'super slo-mo', the extraordinary and evolving, interacting intricacies of finger, wrist and arm movement can easily be observed: that is a metaphor for what goes-on in the 'dreams' of Deep Sleep. 

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I have read many, many accounts of dreams - in all sorts of writings from the psychoanalytic, through the scientific, to the personal; and people have told me their dreams, and of course I have my own dreams... and the overwhelming impression is that dream content is nearly-always (but not always) trivial, emotionally-shallow, and lacking in serious significance.

REM dreams, by and large, are not a profound message awaiting decoding, they are at the level of a TV soap opera - sometimes emotionally sensational in a manipulative sort of way, but ultimately just froth: 'chewing gum for the mind".

But Deep Sleep is the most therapeutic, recreative and necessary form of sleep - despite that its mental contents are apparently not explicitly accessible. We are only indirectly aware of the consequences of Deep Sleep - seldom of the goings-son: we feel the difference that Deep Sleep makes, but are seldom aware of what made than difference.

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Meditation is, or should be, about linking-up the conscious mind with the slow, simple and significant world of Deep Sleep - and not with the flashy trivialities of REM sleep - which lead merely to hallucinations, delusions and other delirious phenomena.

The content of meditation is not supposed to be like a REM dream, but more like a Slow Motion Sequence - an examination and experience of something tiny and apparently-fragmentary that waking life would barely notice, it would flash-by in an instant; but which is revealed as rich and significant and enlightening.

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This means that when a mystic reports his visionary experience derived from this Deep Sleep type of meditation, he will be using the language of waking consciousness to describe what was perhaps a tiny and apparently insignificant moment of awake time, and will have to contextualise, elaborate and interpolate details in order to make sense of the Slow Motion Segment.

Indeed, this is, I think, why Deep Sleep and Visionary and Meditative and Inspirational and Revelatory experiences are seldom explicitly remembered (they are remembered by the effect, rather than by their content) - the awake time-scale is so extremely different from the experiential timescale of Deep Sleep.

I would say, many hundreds of times slower; so that Deep Sleep might spend an hour of awake time (as measured in the 'real world) examining the inward workings and implications of one experienced second of Deep Sleep dreaming...

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So to take a revelatory vision such as William Arkle's Hand of God

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-vision-of-william-arkle-question-of.html

My belief is that the actual vision which underlay the written account was probably of the nature of a slow motion segment - a short, visual and emotional experience, which was known in extraordinary detail - but which can only be recalled and described in narrative language of the type we associate with the awake state and REM sleep.

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I think this is also what happens in inspiration - for example in science. A very simple, short segment - known intuitively in rich inner detail - is what provides the insight, and not an extended explicit narrative: I am thinking of the simple visions of Kekule's Benzene Rings symbolised by ouroboros snakes with tail in mouth, or Szilard's Eureka moment about nuclear fission as a traffic light changed to green.

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What about those relatively rare examples of REM sleep dreams which are experienced as significant: Jung's Archetypal, Mythic or Great dreams. I suppose that these are a combination of normal narrative dreams of REM sleep, with an incursion of Deep Sleep and its Slow Motion Segments - so that, as it were, the trivial REM dream story suddenly slows down a hundredfold, and becomes extremely detailed, reveals great profundities: an epiphanic moment showing 'the world in a grain of sand'.

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These reflections came to me while pondering the prophecies of Isaiah from the Old Testament (and Book of Mormon); and how obscure yet significant they seem to the waking mind.

If we can suppose Isaiah having true revelations, yet needing to translate these into the shallow, trivial, fast moving world of everyday life - we can imagine that he hit upon a poetic method, in that lyrical poetry can condense vast meanings into few words.

(Perhaps this is, indeed, the primary 'function' of poetry in the human condition?)

There is the problem of translating poetry, and translating between an ancient society and a modern one is also difficult (some say impossible) - but in a divinely-inspired version such as the Authorised/ King James Bible, when being read in a proper spirit - the meanings will be there even for the modern and English speaking reader/ meditator; at least, to those able and willing to attune poetically, and not 'literally'- and thereby to intuit vast depth and detail from few words: words that can unpack hours from seconds.

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Dreaming and Deep Sleep as kinds of experience

There are three types of consciousness we experience: Deep Sleep, Waking and Dreaming.

The relative rate of Time runs differently in each state. While inside each state, time is experienced as if running at the same rate - because our thinking can only be at the speed of thinking. But a huge amount of subjective experience can be fitted into a dream of a few minutes; while hours of Deep Sleep may pass without any awareness of time having passed...

To use an audio analogy; from the perspective of our Waking consciousness, playing a vinyl LP recording at 33 revolutions per minute (rpm); Deep Sleep sounds something like it was recorded at 33 revs per second - so at 33 rpm everything is so slowed-down, that it sounds like almost nothing happening except low groaning noises... Whereas a Dream sounds as if it was recorded at 33 revs per day - so that when played at 33 rpm the audio is so fast as to be incomprehensible gabble.

Or, with a video metaphor - from the Awake state, Deep Sleep is so slow that it is like a still picture, a photograph; while Dreaming is on ultra-fast-forward.


A Being living in Deep Sleep would see our Waking life whizzing past in a blur. (This looks to be what is happening when a waking person tries to interact with a sleep walker - who is in Deep Sleep; the sleep walker stares uncomprehendingly in response to blurringly fast movements and sounds). Whereas a Being in Dreaming time would see our Waking lives in slow motion; every moment 'dissected' into a sequence of tiny sub-components; like the super-slo-mo action-replay, analysing the precise details of releasing a cricket ball from a spin-bowler's fingers...

It is this difference in the relative speed of experience in Deep Sleep, Waking and Dreaming; that probably explains why we cannot recall Dreams, and why nothing seems to happen in Deep Sleep.

If that observing Being was divine, and was intervening to affect our lives; a Deep Sleep Being could only affect the broad outlines and shapes of our lives, and after a delay; whereas a Being in Dreaming Sleep time would be able to affect many detailed things in Waking life, almost instantly.


If we then consider the purpose of our three states of consciousness, in terms of our mortal lives having the purpose of giving us experiences from which we may learn that which we (personally) most need to learn; it seems likely that Dreaming has a very important role in our lives - because in Dreaming we can experience a far greater range of experiences than in waking life.

Since dream experience feels pretty much the same as Waking experience, but we can fit (say) 100 times more into an hour of Dreaming than an hour of Waking; and since furthermore Dreaming is not constrained by material limitations, but can provide any experience that can be imagined; it may be that most of our experience of life is achieved in the Dreaming State.

Perhaps in Dreaming we get the greatest breadth and quality of experience; but the experience is not as powerful as Waking experience - which is narrower, deeper and simpler; and is dominated by external, sensory input.

And then Deep Sleep provides experiences that are extremely simple and relatively few; experienced derived via inner sources - but perhaps the most powerful experiences of all.

Perhaps - in other words - there is a trade-off between the speed of time, and the depth of experience; such that the three states of consciousness - between themselves, and overall - provide each person with what they need to experience, in ways suited to their capacity for learning.


Note: I think that Deep Sleep, Waking and Dreaming all continue all of the time; to varying degrees - and consciousness moves between them. So, as we are awake, as you read this; Dreaming is ongoing, and also the slow motion of Deep Sleep. For instance' when we 'nod-off' to sleep, our consciousness can suddenly 'drop-into' an already on-going Dream, or the on-going process of Deep Sleep.

The sources of experience, the source of 'content' of these states of consciousness, is likely to differ; although probably this is a difference in emphasis rather than absolute. For example it seems likely that Waking States are dominated by the senses, and perhaps especially vision. Dreams seem to be in the universal realm of consciousness - the underworld, the 'dwat' of the Ancient Egyptians, the realm of what Jung misnames the Collective Unconscious (because it is actually as Conscious as we ourselves are conscious in dreams). Deep Sleep probably derives its content from emotion; that is from our inner world of organs and vegetative functions.

So Dreaming, Waking Deep perhaps broadly correspond to our persepctive on universal reality, immediate external environment, internal environment. 

Deep Sleep, Waking and Dreaming - a range of cognitive capacities

In terms of our subjective experience of Time, there is a gradient between the three conscious states - Deep sleep, Waking and Dreaming, between-which we alternate through our lives. 

Deep sleep - when we are hardly aware of Time passing, and hardly anything seems to be experienced (in so far as we recall anything at all from Deep Sleep - I personally do not).

Waking - when Time passes in the way we know; not always at the same subjective speed, but within limits of a few-fold variation between time passing quickly and slowly. Experience likewise.

Dreaming sleep - in which time seems to pass at the same subjective speed as it does in waking life, but, relative to waking life Dreaming sleep moves much more rapidly; so that we can fit ?100 fold more events and emotions into a section of dreaming, than we could do in the equivalent time awake.

In other words, Dreaming is a very rapid and complex type of cognitive processing. However, Dreaming is poorly remembered; and notoriously unreliable - in terms of its content being incoherent within itself, and incoherent with subsequent and previous experience. 

This implies that the gain in rapidity and complexity of mental processing that we get in dreaming has a price to pay in terms of the validity of 'conclusions'.

We can think, and experience, many many more things in five waking-minutes of a dream than in five waking-minutes; but a great deal of the dream material is unreliable, and does not stand up to scrutiny: it is not confirmed by experience.

If we assume that these conscious states are on a continuum; then I can back-extrapolate to the situation of Deep sleep. I can then assume that:

1. Deep sleep is necessary - and has important functions; or else we wouldn't do it, and would not have to do it.

2. Deep sleep is only capable of very slow and simple cognitive processing.

3. The thinking of Deep sleep is of the greatest coherence, within itself and with Life; and the knowledge of Deep sleep has the highest validity.

In sum, Deep sleep seems to be a kind of Intuition. That is; a bottom-line form of thinking, a self-validating form of thinking. If we can Deep sleep a thing; then that thing is real: or, it is as subjectively-real as something can be, for us. 

My guess is that the things were are most sure about, or become surest about; are things that we have 'processed' in Deep sleep; and that the slowness, and simplicity of concepts, of Deep sleep is a constraint upon our capacity really to know things.


Note, aside: I've hidden the blog comments for a while, to take a break from dealing with them. I shall reveal them again soon, when I feel refreshed.

The structure of life: waking and (two types of) sleeping

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Life is a unity - it is not just waking life. And it is divided into three mains parts.

It is divided in order that basic functions may be performed more efficiently -  since specialization allows for increased efficiency; however, the parts are complex and subdivided, and there may be dissociations - the three parts may become mixed or partial.

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The three main functional parts of life are Awake, Deep Sleep and Dreaming Sleep.

(Deep Sleep is also called slow wave sleep and non-REM sleep; Dreaming Sleep is also called Rapid Eye Movement or REM sleep.)

Information processed by the brain is two main types: instinctual or 'built-in' and environmental or experiential - i.e. added during living consequent upon interaction between the organism and its environment.

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Awake

When awake, a person interacts with the environment - that is, they are in sensori-motor contact with the environment: getting information via the senses and acting via movement.

Brain activity is open-ended and linear - non-repeating, progressive. Brain waves show disorganized, unpatterned activation

There is awareness of time, and there is typically memory - a record of awake experience is available to introspection for some time afterwards.

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Deep Sleep

The person is mostly cut-off from the environment: information comes from within, there are no purposive actions.

Brain activity seems to be cyclical, recurrent patterns revealed as various types of slow waves on electroencephalogram.

There is no awareness of time (because processing is cyclical, not linear), and no explicit memory of what has happened in Deep Sleep.

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Dreaming Sleep.

The person is mostly cut-off from the environment: information comes from within, there are no purposive actions.

Brain activity is open-ended and linear - non-repeating, progressive. Brain waves show disorganized, unpatterned activation.

There is awareness of time (because processing is linear), and typically no explicit memory of what has happened in dreaming sleep (however, there may sometimes be a partial memory of some of what happens in Dreaming Sleep, and these are dreams).

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We know, introspectively, that Dreaming Sleep is different from Deep Sleep because in Dreaming Sleep we are aware of time, and we may remember a progressively unfolding and non-repeating narrative - i.e. a dream.

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In sum:

Waking is a linear interaction with the environment unfolding over time - this interaction is the focus of awareness, and there may be explicit memories of this acquired information;

Deep Sleep is a cyclical, and therefore timeless, non-linear state focused on recurrent processing of internally generated information (instinctual and from memories);

Dreaming Sleep is a linear state of interaction with internal information unfolding over time - explicit memory of this linear process is possible but not necessary, because internal information comes-from memory (and instinct) and has therefore already been memorized (or was built-in): therefore we do not need to remember dreams.

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So, leaving-out instinct, this simplifies to:

Waking = Linear interaction with environment = Experience being laid down in memory

Deep Sleep = Cyclical interaction with memory

Dreaming sleep = Linear interaction with memory

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Overcoming the division of sleep from consciousness (my speculation on ideas from Owen Barfield and Rudolf Steiner)

It is interesting to consider how the relationship between sleeping states - deep sleep and dreaming sleep - and the awake state may have changed through the evolutionary development of Men. 

If we start with the historical (and early childhood) conscious state termed Original Participation by Owen Barfield; then it was a striking idea of Rudolf Steiner that this is characterized by what we would consider a less complete difference between sleep and waking. The awake person was not so fully awake is the case now; and aspects of deep and dreaming sleep remained active throughout the daytime. 

This would be a more passive and unconscious form of waking; whereby we were involuntarily influenced by the sleeping states; immersed-in them. In Original Participation Man's consciousness was integrated, but dominated by sleep.  

A suggestion is that the sleep states are (in some fashion) in communication with the divine and spiritual world; and therefore in Original Participation awake Man has direct experiential knowledge of the gods and spiritual reality. This may be why all early Men and all young children assume the reality of gods and the spiritual realm - because the experience and know it; not just when asleep but all of the time.

The idea is that, as Man's consciousness evolved through history, the division between sleeping and waking states became more distinct; until with modern Man it was complete (the phase called the Consciousness Soul). We are not aware of our sleeping and dreaming consciousness while awake (although they continue); and indeed we almost never remember anything from deep sleep, and even dream memories tend to be absent, partial or uncertain.   

It struck me that presumably the same applies in the opposite direction: that waking consciousness has probably lost access to deep and dreaming sleep. Perhaps in earlier phases, waking consciousness could affect dreaming sleep, and even deep sleep; and therefore in original Participation these sleeping states were more conscious, more subject to waking motivations, and probably more memorable. 

Whereas nowadays (for many people) dreams are characterized by their own crazy illogic and irrelevance; perhaps for early Men they were coherent, useful, memorable - by the waking Man. And maybe something analogous applied even with the slower, simpler, 'tidal' consciousness-world of deep sleep. 

(Steiner suggests that in dreaming sleep, ancient Man - and children - are in communion with the lower angelic powers; and in deep sleep, the higher angels - or, I would guess, perhaps even the simple and basic aspects of the knowledge of God, Jesus Christ and/or the Holy Ghost.) 

So, modern Man's consciousness states are not integrated; but instead divided, alienated, encapsulated. 

And what of the goal of Final Participation? We might assume that the division between sleeping and waking would again become crossable, 'permeable' - but this time dominated by waking consciousness and by its capacity for free agency, for conscious choice. 

Thus we may be able to choose to bring our waking consciousness and cross into dreaming, and even deep sleep; there to both gain conscious control of these states, and to remember better what happens in them. 

So we may again become integrated in our consciousness; but this time with awakeness dominating. 

However, this state is voluntary - not automatic; conscious not unconscious; and is subject to the constraints of Final Participation - which is, after all, an attainment of divine consciousness (albeit usually partial and always temporary) even when we are mortal on earth. 

Therefore, we might be able to choose to bring awake consciousness into dreaming and deep sleep; but only insofar as we our-selves are aligned with God's purposes, meanings and mode of thinking. 

If a person has chosen the side of Satan against God, then Final Participation is not (at that time) possible. 

Furthermore sin interferes with Final Participation. Un-repented sin blocks FP in the long term (because we are not aligned with the divine); while currently-active sin in thinking will curtail FP for its duration; which is surely one reason, albeit not the only reason, why Final Participation is always temporary - indeed usually very brief.  

Nonetheless, even with all these provisos, this gives an idea of what to aim for in Final Participation how to go about it; and how to know when it has happened. That is, we can aim towards more frequent and fuller integration of the waking and sleep states; do so consciously; and within a Christian context.  

The importance of sleep in life

The importance of sleep (which occupies about 1/3 of life) can only be understood once it is established (at least in outline) what is the importance of life itself - I mean mortal life as-a-whole.

My understanding is that this life is sandwiched between a pre-mortal spirit life (which goes back to the beginning of everything), and a post-mortal incarnated life (which is eternal); among the purposes of this life are to be incarnated, to die - and be resurrected, and to have experiences from which we may learn towards our ultimate - and remote - destiny (if we choose it, and keep choosing it) of divinity as sons and daughters of God.

In this context, sleep is one of the experiences from-which we may learn and develop.

Therefore sleep should be considered an activity - indeed it is (at least) two kinds of activity: deep sleep and dreaming sleep.

If we take things at face value - we are absent from our living-bodies during sleep; the body is alive, but pretty much cut-off from its surroundings, neither perceiving nor capable of purposive activity. So our conscious-self is absent, elsewhere during sleep - and this is indeed our subjective experience (insofar as we remember it).

Deep and dreaming sleeps are, in many ways, opposite experiences.

In deep sleep we seem to experience very simple states in a slowed-up time; such that when we awaken from this slow time-bubble, more time has passed in the rest of the world.

In dreams we are in a sped-up time bubble - our subjective experience in dreams is 'compressed' into a much shorter period of awake time. In contrast to the strong, basic emotional states of deep sleep; dreams provide social and narrative-type experiences.

Where do we go when asleep? Well, when we sleep we return to the spirit state of our pre-mortal existence; so our conscious-self is no longer localised in a body. We go into the universal and universally-accessible spirit world - inner space (as it used to be conceptualised); an unbounded space within everyone; but not contained by them; so it is a single space into which each person is a 'portal'. (e.g. The ancient Egyptian dwat, Jung's collective unconscious - same thing.)

By these sleep experiences everyone has a rich and various life; and sleep life is both complementary to and deepening of awake life. In sleep we can access our own experience, and universal experiences - this mortal life and the Heavenly world of pre-mortal life - also the persons of God, angels, the dead... (Some of whom are misguided and some of whom are evil.)

Thus sleep enables deepening and contextualising of our experiences: sleep makes us wiser persons (if we allow it).

Yet sleep itself is not profound, or not always - and thus we reach a point when the work is done, the sleep experience sufficient; and we awaken (or should awaken) to engage with the different experiences of awake life.

We typically remember little of dreaming sleep, and even less of deep sleep (where there is not much to remember) - we do not remember but we do learn (if we allow ourselves). Sleep affects our behaviour, and it affects us as persons - whether we can recall anything or not.

But the direction of human destiny is towards greater consciousness, so we should expect to become more aware of sleep and have more memories of it; as we progress spiritually through our mortal, and post-mortal, lives...

Two kinds of nodding-off: absence or micro-dream - head erect, head hanging or resting

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From personal experience, backed-up by a bit of scientific theory, I think there are two ways in which a person might 'nod-off' and take a very short nap:

1. A momentary absence of awareness, as the mind briefly dips-into the shallower type of Deep sleep.

2. A fragmentary micro-dream, as the mind briefly dips into Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep.

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The 'absence' is what happens when somebody goes to sleep with their head held erect so that the neck muscles are tensed.

Probably, if the person was wired-up to an electroencephalogram, there would be some kind of regular slow wave activity such as occurs in the non-REM or Deep sleep and in petit mal epilepsy (also called absences).

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In Deep sleep the voluntary muscles (such as those holding up the head) become relaxed but not completely floppy - they retain muscle tone. So, when somebody who is sitting upright nods-off, their head slowly begins to slump until the person is roused from sleep when the head jerks upright again: giving the notorious 'nodding dog' appearance.

Therefore, unless someone is suffering from narcolepsy, neck muscle tension seems to block a descent from a state of being Awake directly into Dreaming sleep.

(The same applies to other bodily muscles of posture - their tension blocks descent into REM sleep; but it is rare for someone who is standing to nod-off.)

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However, if the neck muscles are relaxed, perhaps because the head is hanging forward, or if the head is resting on the hand, or a headrest - then a person can descend from being Awake and directly into Dreaming sleep.

This is possible because Dreaming (or REM) sleep is characterized by flaccid muscle paralysis - a near complete loss of muscle tone; and apparently a posture which maintains muscle tone makes is less likely to move directly into REM sleep, while a position which allows postural muscles to relax enables the mind to dream, instantly. 

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Subjectively, a brief Deep sleep nap is experienced as an absence - a cessation of awareness and memory; which may mean that sleep is not experienced at all (at least not consciously) - so, with the upright head/ nodding dog type of drowsiness, the person may not know that they have been asleep.

While by contrast a Dreaming sleep nap is experienced as Awareness being interrupted by snatches of dream. The person usually knows they have been asleep, because they recall (albeit perhaps only for a few seconds) the alien, bizarre, non-sequential quality of a dream.

But this is just a fraction of a second, because unless the body is supported, then the onset of flaccid paralysis will rapidly wake the sleeper as his head, body or limbs begin to slump, unresisting.

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Death before and after Jesus (and the possibility of resurrection)

The coming of Jesus Christ changed the nature of death.

More exactly, I believe that this happened at the point of his baptism by John; the time when Jesus became divine; when the divine spirit rested upon him and stayed with him.

From then; those who loved, trusted, had-faith-in, 'followed' Jesus (those who wanted to be resurrected and dwell in Heaven for eternity) would be resurrected.

So time is real, history is real; the nature of death is divided into before and after that moment. That moment introduced the new possibility after biological death; which was resurrection to eternal life.


Before Jesus, there was no resurrection. When Men died, the spirit was separated from the body. What then?

My understanding is that the body is what enables greater agency, greater freedom; our capacity to be an actor rather than acted-upon. A spirit without a body has a much lesser degree of agency; so when the body dies there is a loss of The Self.

We experience an analogous situation each time we sleep. Sleep itself represents two of the possibilities after death - when we live in the spirit.


Deep sleep is the loss of consciousness. We are alive but don't know it (or barely so); alive but unaware of anything. This is the nearest reality to the subjective perception of death as annihilation.

Genuine annihilation of an individual spirit is impossible since our primordial spirit had no beginning, is eternal, has no end - but self-awareness can be annihilated (which represents a return to our primordial state, before we became Children of God) - alive but unaware.

When this state of alive-but-unaware is pleasurable, blissful - then it is Nirvana; the state of being sought by Hindus and Buddhists. So I am suggesting that deep sleep is a temporary Nirvana.


Dreaming sleep is equivalent to Hades or Sheol; which are seen as conditions of 'delirious', or demented half-being; when men become witless ghosts or similar.

This is seen in the state of dreaming sleep insofar as we are in a passive state of being. Memory constantly slips away, our capacity for agency is feeble so that we 'go along with' whatever is happening.

Dreaming sleep is an experience of passivity, loss of reason and purpose. It is a vision of spirit life without incarnation.


I suggest that these states - Nirvana and Hades, corresponding to deep and dreaming sleep - were the possibilities of spirit life before Jesus.

A further possibility was reincarnation. The spirit could be re-housed in a new body.

Since the body, and its specific nature, affects the spirit - this meant the reincarnated spirit, reborn and leading another life, was 'a different person' - not the same person repeated.

An analogy would be a relative who shares a certain fundamental similarity, the same flavour, deep character - "He's Just Like his uncle John...".


After Jesus a further possibility was introduced, in addition to 'Christian resurrection' - and this was Paradise.

Paradise takes various forms - Valhalla, or the Muslim Paradise. Implicitly, Paradise is a state in which our-selves are retained and our agency; so paradise is a kind of resurrection.

But Paradise is not a resurrection to the presence of God and the participation in the work of creation that is Heaven. It is a place where one's favourite activities become possible, in principle eternally (and subject to the limits of that aspiration, and the constraints of mutual existence).

Paradise (in its variants) is, indeed, pretty much the lower or 'Telestial' Heaven as described in Mormon theology. It is pleasurable and enjoyable, but in Paradise men are not qualitatively different from how they are in this mortal life - there is no ascent to a higher, more conscious and creative and loving, form of life.

In sum; Paradise is essentially uncreative, passive ('contemplative', appreciating, consuming) a reversion to childhood or adolescence; to Original Participation. And I believe it is possible that some people in Heaven are actually experiencing Paradise - e.g. those who are resurrected as (in their essence) children, but who live (as children) with their families who include those who are participating with God in the work of creation.  


What about Hell? Well some will choose that, on the basis of how they choose in mortal life - maybe even a large majority of people in the modern West.

These are self-excluded from heaven, and self-excluded from resurrection; Hell is the exclusion of Love.

Such remain spirits in the condition of Sheol, but isolated by the perspective and priorities of those who choose Hell.

Their state seems terrible to me; and is based upon a primary (pride-full) dishonesty of denying that they are God's children living in God's creation... but Hell is what they get, having rejected all the above.

So, Jesus brought Hell, as well as resurrection in Heaven - because it is deliberate, conscious rejection of the world of God, Good, Creation and Love that makes Hell hellish.

Note added: Resurrection is the single most astonishing, incredible, mysterious thing about Christianity. That is my point. What that means is that resurrection is Not something that can be 'explained' in common-sensical, ordinary, easily intelligible, procedural terms as if it was a chemical manufacturing process. It is incredible. I am not At All surprised if people don't believe it. Nonetheless, resurrection is something near the core of what Jesus taught (and did). I think resurrection is probably a much more important fact of Christianity than commonly regarded. We should work from that, rather than try to make the incredibility go away.
 

A micro-nap (brief deep sleep) may instantly lead-to presentness and self-remembering (i.e. something of what meditation also tries to do)

Some days I can't seem to get my head clear; thoughts whirl in a rather futile manner; and in particular I cannot 'wake-up' properly; in the sense that I cannot 'self-remember': cannot get that recognition of Me. Here. Now.

In other words I am not really 'present' in my situation, my life. I am on autopilot, disengaged.

This is one condition that formal meditation training (in various schools) attempts to remedy; by learning either control of thoughts, or Not thinking, or letting thoughts fly through the mind without holding onto any. This is quite difficult, but can work; and then I can bring myself to presentness.

(Some people find that this presentness state is the experience of one-ness; but I tend to regard it psychologically rather than spiritually.) 

I don't regard presentness as an especially deep or significant state - nor is is a goal in itself; it is more like a basic pre-requisite for the 'state' of intuition: which I do regard as deep and significant. Intuition is that primary thinking or Final Participation which is the mode of Romantic Christianity. That is what I personally regard as my major life goal.

Nonetheless, presentness is, as I said, a valuable or sometimes essential pre-requisite to higher states; and I have found that it is best attained by a very short sleep - specifically when I experience the momentary absence of deep, dream-less sleep.

This works as a very effective re-boot; both clearing and opening-out my thinking; awakening me, and producing an instantaneous sense of presence: Me! Here! Now!

Of course, not everybody can take a micro-nap at will - nor can we control whether such a period of sleep will drop us into deep sleep rather than into 'REM' dreaming sleep. But I present it as a repeated observation that when it does happen that I have a micro-sleep; it can achieve in an instant what struggling to meditate has failed to do over a period of hours.

Sleep satiety - when you have had *enough* sleep

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It seems that we need so much sleep - until we are satiated - and then no more (and perhaps that more than enough may be somewhat worse than enough: sleep obesity in effect!).

So in the early part of the night we have cycles of deep sleep, then - presumably - when they have done their work we move onto cycles of dreaming sleep; until, when that has done its work, we awake spontaneously.

The general function of deep sleep is probably strengthening of specific memories, the function of dreaming sleep editing (testing for coherence) narratives of memories.

Presumably, our brains know when these functions have been achieved to a sufficient degree: then we wake-up!

We are satiated with sleep: 'full-up' with sleep.

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Death as dreaming sleep (and the coming of Hell)

What is it like to be dead?

Modern materialist Man seems to have decided that to be dead is like being permanently in deep sleep, unaware of the self, unaware of anything.

The ancient world also seems to have regarded death as like being asleep; but like dreaming sleep. The Hades of the Greeks and Sheol of the Jews were states of being much like the world of dreams - the self was feeble, agency was feeble, the individual had little control and was merely swept-along by events.

In the ancient underworlds, as in dreams; memories slipped away almost as soon as formed, motivations likewise; understanding likewise. To be dead was thus to be delirious, or demented - to become a ghost - living in a perpetual present mostly dominated (like dreams) by perplexed incomprehension, confusion, angst - but presumably with interludes of pleasure and satisfaction. 

We should note, therefore, that the ancient understanding of death as underworld, Hades, Sheol was Not that all men 'went to Hell'. The state of dead souls was one to be dreaded, as a modern Man would dread delirium or dementia - but it was Not a state of perpetual misery or torment.

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Among Rudolf Steiner's ideas is that our self is spiritual and not located, and our body is like a mirror for the external self; the self sees-itself in the body. A similar idea from Rupert Sheldrake is that memory is like an electromagnetic field - a radio signal - and the brain is like a receiver - a radio - which intercepts this field, interprets and broadcasts it.

Common to such ideas is the notion that the human brain, the body, are not the origin of our-selves; but these solid things are necessary for our immaterial/ extensive selves to become centred, focused, autonomous, agent...

Back to Steiner... he suggested that during sleep the consciousness and the self left-behind the living body - so deep sleep without dreams is our experience of merely being alive in the body, rather like a plant; whereas dreaming sleep was when we became 'located' with the consciousness outside the body, in the spirit.

By such an account, sleep is closely analogous to death; because with death the physical body dies - but not human consciousness. The body dies, but the soul continues. If our awareness becomes cut-off from our bodies; we might expect that the remaining consciousness would be incomplete, and we would experience its life much as does the dreamer.

An immortal soul detached from its living body is in much the same situation as the dreaming consciousness. 

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So - until the work of Jesus Christ - Man's death was universally like sleep, but like dreaming sleep; and this state seemed to be the permanent fate of the dead.

But since Jesus; the universal fate of Men has been resurrection; and resurrection reunites consciousness with the body; but with a permanent immortal body.

This suggests that resurrection would be analogous to awakening from dreaming sleep; and with a similar sense of renewed agency, freedom, self-awareness, control. The consciousness returns to its living body - but not to the mortal body left-behind a few hours ago; but instead to to a new living body, the resurrected eternal body.

The choice of Heaven of Hell is a choice of where this resurrected Man will dwell. Indeed, Hell was not possible until resurrection had been instituted.

In sum; BC there was universal Sheol but no Hell; after Christ Sheol was abolished, there was universal resurrection and the possibility of Heaven - but the coming of Christ was also the coming of Hell.

With Sheol there was no possibility of Men choosing Hell, because the dead lacked free will, so the dead could not choose. But Christ's gift of life everlasting brought the post-mortal capacity to choose - to choose evil, as well as to choose Good.

Coping with this world's suffering - The Platonic Perspective

This latest video by John Butler is a clear phenomenological description of what could be termed the Platonic Perspective as it occurs in the Western spiritual traditions - including having a strong influence on the mystical types of Christianity; and perhaps especially Eastern Orthodoxy (which was once dominant in my part of The West - in the form of Celtic Christianity).

JB draws a contrast between, on the one hand: the deep peace attainable during meditation; when he inhabits what feels-like a timeless, spaceless and unchanging world - understood as the world of the divine. And which I also recognise as Plato's 'world of forms'.

And on the other hand: the noise and bustle; fear, decline and degradation; and the physical restrictions of this mortal earthly life: a life of always-temporary and -partial joys; but also of inevitable loss, decay and death.


Regarded from the abstractly-divine, infinite and static world of Platonic 'reality' - this mortal world and earthly life appear (as JB says here) like a tiny theatre; infinitestimal in the immeasurable vastness of space and time - a playhouse putting on bitter-sweet dramas with flesh-and-blood actors, that seem serious while they are being enacted; but from-which we shall awaken as bodiless spirits into the changeless bliss of Nirvana.

It seems to me that this Nirvana is very close to the idea of Heaven as it has been (and is) imagined or anticipated by many Christians - albeit that Christians must acknowledge that (eventually) they will (like Jesus) be resurrected with solid and human-shaped bodies...

However, the physicality of the resurrection body has often been defined and (I would say) dissipated into something more spiritual than material: something superficially looking like a mortal body but actually functionally pretty-much identical with spirit... 


Anyway; I can certainly appreciate the appeal of this Platonic (or Hindu, or Buddhist) Perspective - and indeed held some such view myself not so long ago (as can be seen in several blog entries dating up to about 2012).

But now I have rejected it in favour of an understanding of Christianity that is, I think, much more in-line with the actuality and neccessity of Jesus Christ; and in which Time is a universal reality - I mean linear, sequential and irreversible Time - albeit a Time which we know runs at very different speeds in different places...

Time is perspectival: analogous to the descriptions of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. We experience the relativity differences in Deep Sleep - in which we are hardly aware, and from where time runs so slowly compared to awakeness that no time seems to pass despite hours having passed 'by the clock'. Or in Dreaming Sleep in which we are aware, and where we can cram the events of many hours into a single minute (as measured in awake 'clock time').


Using this as a model; I can quite simply explain-away the experiences of John Butler's meditation; in that the apparent absence of time and space is an illusion produced by the cessation of awareness - much as happens in Deep Sleep. And, exactly like our experience of deep and dream-less sleep - JB's type of meditation creates a state of mind in which there is no suffering and no worries.

But that is not because unawareness is more-real than awareness: Deep Sleep (and its analogues) is necessary and valuable - but it is not realer-than being awake. Unawareness is simply a different state of consciousness.

And I infer that God wants us to spend most of our life in a state of awareness since that is how all men naturally spend most of their lives: i.e. awake.

Going further; I see in the development of each Man from child to adult, and the development of Mankind from animist, through religious, to romantic; our divine destiny is to become more aware - because awareness is more free, more creative; and capable of chosen love.

God is self-aware: increased awareness is part-of an increase in divinity.

Being awake, dreaming and deeply asleep by analogy with General Relativity - Christian speculations

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For the 'scientific' explanation, first read:

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/understanding-dreaming-sleep-awake.html

This strange-seeming way of thinking about dreaming, the awake state and deep sleep comes from combining the Mormon understanding that we had a pre-mortal existence with an insight of William Arkle that our mortal, earthly incarnated life is characterized by being a slowly-moving, close-up and detailed form of consciousness as perceived from a 'Heavenly' perspective.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/is-mortal-life-behind-veil-of.html

This is related to trying to understand the reason for earthly incarnated mortal life - what is it that we can do in this form of existence that could not be accomplished in Heaven/ an immortal and spiritual world (or, at least, would be more difficult, slower, less probable than in Heaven).

I am also trying to understand how - say - angels can operate between Heaven (or some other spiritual realm) and Earth - how they can sometimes apparently get so much done in such a short period of time; yet at other times are described as taking-on bodies and operating on a human timescale, but somewhat like 'superhuman' Men.

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Anyway, I came-up with the idea that from the awake perspective we have an understanding of Heavenly operations in dreaming sleep - when there is so much done in a very short time.

So Heavenly time and action can be understood as a more extreme version of the dreaming mind as it is perceived by our awake mind; in the sense that we can experience (say) a thousand hours of dreaming experience in just one hour of awake time - or can accomplish things a thousand times faster while dreaming than while awake.

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And, alternatively from the perspective of our awake state, we could view deep sleep as analogous to how earthly, mortal incarnate life might seem to a Heavenly being such as an angel. Our earthly mortal incarnate life might seem incredible slowed-up and uneventful.

When we awaken from deep sleep, it seems as if little or nothing has been going on - perhaps just a certain mood, or theme remains... Likewise, an angel might have time to think and do a thousand things while we were only able to think a sentence, lift a hand or experience a mood.

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And, perhaps, to angelic consciousness a whole human lifespan seems like the life of a mayfly...

This would mean that human consciousness perceives vastly more detail, drama, dilemmas per unit time than do angels - all the great issues of which we are aware in mortal life may just whiz past an angelic consciousness.

So mortal incarnate life on Earth might be much better that the Heavenly realm as an arena for the exercise of human agency, free will, as a place when the choices arrive slowly, singly, linearly - where the whizzing pace of spiritual existence gets slowed-down, dissected into its components, put under a microscope...

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I find this helpful in understanding why it was necessary (or most-beneficial) to create an earth for men to be born into as mortals - why this situation is better than Heaven for doing what we are here to do.

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The five rhythmic-phases of my typical Daily Life (circadian consciousness)

Note: I'm afraid I can't be bothered to provide full links today - if any of the terms are unfamiliar, and you are interested in finding out more, just use the Blogger word search facility in the top left corner of this page. Just to note this post is an extension of the idea of undulation.

1. The morning is the time for Primary Thinking - Final Participation. I rise at 5.30 typically; and if any time is going to be possible on a given day to attain this highest (and most divine) of consciousness states, then it is mornings: up until about 10.00 or so. That's when I do my best thinking, by far (assisted by note-taking, the notes generally being discarded soon after) - and when I sometimes feel consciously that I am thinking from my Real Self. This is the time for Intuition (coming from within).

2. From around noon to the evening I am in the mainstream, modern Consciousness Soul state - that is, I am conscious mainly of my-self and more-or-less feel cut off from the world, from other people. And the self I am conscious of is not the real-self but one or another of the superficial and functional selves, learned by interaction with experience, inculcated by The World.

3. In the evenings I tend to sink into the Original Participation - that is an un-conscious, passive state of immersion in The World. I may respond strongly to external situations, arts and people, but in a kind of trancelike and only semi-conscious sort of way. A somewhat 'shamanic' and imaginative state of affairs - and perhaps a time for Inspiration (coming from without).

4. Deep sleep is, of course, wholly passive and completely cut-off. There is no consciousness at all - it is a kind of vegetable life. This is absolutely necessary; but what really is going on, I don't know. To come-out from deep sleep is to feel its importance - clarified, refreshed, re-booted!

5. Dreaming sleep is conscious, but in another place altogether, and another time - a time in which vast amounts of experience may be compressed into very little time-as-measured-during-awakeness. This is a mostly passive consciousness, but in the 'underworld' (something like Jung's collective conscious, or the Ancient Egyptian 'dwat') - and it seems to provide necessary experiences that otherwise I would not have.

As dreaming sleep comes to an end, presumably having done its work, the dreams become repetitive and I then awaken; and it is best if I immediately get up and awaken fully. Dozing on beyond this point is boring, pointless; and sometimes leaves me too dulled ever to properly awaken the next day.


I seem to be stuck with this cycle of activity, purposive consciousness declining through the day, then the two types of sleep; and it is futile and indeed counter-productive to try and fight against it.

Best just to make the most of it...

Dreaming Sleep and Death/ Hades/ Sheol

It strikes me that dreaming sleep (of the usual, broadly nightmarish or bewildering kind) is often like the 'underworld' death as envisaged by the Ancient Greeks (Hades) and Ancient Hebrews (Sheol) - that is a 'demented', passive state of very partial awareness - with perplexity as the dominant emotion.

In sleep; life happens-to-us and we strive, and fail, to make sense of it, and to cope with it. Our minds are porous and connected with the dream environment - we are like the 'gibbering ghosts' of the underworld.

In dreams the environment affects our mind - and our mind affects the environment in a reciprocal causality. We are acted-upon rather than acting: there is no freedom in a dream...

The gift of Jesus is to be born-again, to waken from this unending nightmare - awaken to resurrected eternal life - that is by incarnation to be separate from the environment and act to act in free agency from it; to be alert and conscious and creative in relation to the environment rather than swept-along passively, uncomprehendingly, in perpetual bewilderment.

Dreaming sleep is a temporary death - although modern Man assumes that death is a non-being much like deep sleep: unconsciousness and oblivion, rather than the underworld, nightmare state of dreaming sleep. But by dreaming sleep, of the nightmarish/ bizarre/ confusing/ helpless kind... we can know what it is we are being rescued-from.

Jesus came to rescue Man from the inevitability of the underworld nightmare of death - by resurrection; and with the offer of a gift of life eternal, which is a creative state of divine being.

(But death is necessary: to be reborn we must die; and death is bitter vinegar, as well as purifying hyssop.)
 

We are never (naturally) completely asleep

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There is never a time during sleep when all of the brain is sleeping - and the sleep cycle is a rotation between one part of the brain sleeping and another.

Dissociated means that some parts of the brain (and some functions) are asleep while others are awake.

In Deep Sleep the conscious mind is asleep, and we are not aware of time passing - but the muscles remain tonic, and it is possible to respond 'automatically' to the environment, tossing and turning in be, and even sleep talking and sleep walking.

In REM/ Dreaming Sleep, the muscles are by contrast paralysed, and there is no physical interaction with the sleeper's environment - but we are conscious and aware of time passing, and dreaming; and can hear and feel the environment (sometimes this gets incorporated into dreams).

Why cannot all the brain be asleep at once? Probably because we must remain in contact with the environment to some extent, and because the awake parts of the brain are needed to re-awaken those parts that are asleep.

Presumably if the whole brain is asleep and 'switched off' and out of contact with the environment; then this is a coma. And it is hard to awaken from a coma precisely because the whole brain is asleep and also cut-off from the environment so the sleeper is both paralysed and unaware - cannot hear or feel or move.

So, naturally, we are never wholly asleep.

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I am, apparently, always dreaming - unconsciously; a parallel dream self and world

Last night I was trying to write in my notebook; but couldn't stop myself from falling asleep for multiple brief micro-sleeps - with a longer period embedded. Meanwhile, I was writing notes! 

The record of the experience is nearly illegible; but it seems that I had a chunk of dream about my having-written a novel and submitted it to a publisher - to an editor who was some kind of friend. I did not remember having written the novel or why (when I know for sure, even in the dream, that I am incapable of doing so...). 

I got the novel typescript back in a large envelope which I opened, and I saw there were some detailed handwritten comments from the editor on the top-sheet. However, I was embarrassed about the whole thing, and unwilling to read exactly why this story (which I couldn't even remember having written or sent) had been rejected - so I put the thing onto my bedside table. 

At that point I woke; and decided to take a look at the comments after all, and rolled-over to find a notebook on my knees, and nothing on my bedside table - and after a second or so, I realised it had been a dream. 

So I started to write this into the notebook - but periodically kept on 'dropping' back into the same dream... rejoining it at various further points; having - in the dream world - forgotten how matters had reached this point, but recalling enough when I awoke to recognise some link. 

Periodically; I would wake, for a few tens of seconds, start writing (scrawling, rather) as the memories ebbed-away - and then drop off to sleep again. 

The dream was not really going anywhere specifically, but was meandering-along by some kind of free-associative process; all the while my memory was fading 'behind-me' so that I was continually puzzled and struggling about how I had gotten-into the current situation, although I knew that I used-to know. 

(This mood is what the old time psychiatrists called 'perplexity' and is characteristic of many pychoses.)

 

Anyway, not to labour the point; this is another of many confirmations I have had over the years that I seem to be dreaming all of the time; and by falling asleep I am able to 'sample' the ongoing dream. It is like dipping-into a fast running stream-of-consciousness that runs below my wake state. 

The ongoing dream crams a great deal more into clock time than does the awake state - something like a hundred times more stuff happens in a minute of sleep, than a minute of being awake. 

The dreaming mind has a very poor memory - it apparently has a working memory of some tens of seconds, but after that period, everything rapidly fades-away (like walking along a road that is always crumbling-away a couple of hundred yards behind, so that I cannot look-back any further than that) - in much the fashion seen with people suffering dementia or in a delirium. 

And the awake and dreaming states are kept apart by some kind of 'software incompatibility'; such that a dream may seem clear and comprehensible immediately upon awakening; but cannot be recalled, transcribed or 'translated'... There are exceptions, when I do remember chunks of a dream well, but these exceptions are exceptional - and may happen when my sleep is shallowest - as when I am at the end of the night's sleep and ready to wake fully. 

 

It is interesting to me that there is an unconscious dream life running through all of my waking life (and maybe also in deep sleep?); and further that this dream narrative crams in far more detail, emotion, and incident than does the waking state. 

In this sense; I have much more dream-experience in my life than I do waking experience - but this experience is not available to the waking mind. 

However, I think that it is available to the dreaming mind. In other words, while in a dream I seem to remember my other dreams - there seems to be a separate 'dream memory' store, inaccessible to my wakening mind. 

For instance, there are dream places that I inhabit, and recall, only in dreams; dream incidents; indeed I probably have a 'parallel but distinct' dream nature or personality, who has different aptitudes and has led (is leading) a different life. 

And - presumably, since it happens; this stuff is significant and important - in some unknown way.

Stamp on the fire...

Excerpt from The Silver Chair (from the Chronicles of Narnia), by C.S. Lewis, 1953:


The Witch shook her head.

"I see," she said, (...) "You have seen lamps, and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You've seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it's to be called a lion.

"Well, 'tis a pretty makebelieve, though, to say truth, it would suit you all better if you were younger. And look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world, this world of mine, which is the only world.(...)"

Come, all of you. Put away these childish tricks. I have work for you all in the real world. There is no Narnia, no Overworld, no sky, no sun, no Aslan.

"And now, to bed all. And let us begin a wiser life tomorrow. But, first, to bed; to sleep; deep sleep, soft pillows, sleep without foolish dreams."

The Prince and the two children were standing with their heads hung down, their cheeks flushed, their eyes half closed; the strength all gone from them; the enchantment almost complete.

But Puddleglum, desperately gathering all his strength, walked over to the fire. Then he did a very brave thing.(...) With his bare foot he stamped on the fire, grinding a large part of it into ashes on the flat hearth.

And three things happened at once.

First, the sweet heavy smell grew very much less.(...) This instantly made everyone's brain far clearer. The Prince and the children held up their heads again and opened their eyes.

Secondly, the Witch, in a loud, terrible voice, utterly different from all the sweet tones she had been using up till now, called out, "What are you doing? Dare to touch my fire again, mud-filth, and I'll turn the blood to fire inside your veins."

Thirdly, the pain itself made Puddleglum's head for a moment perfectly clear and he knew exactly what he really thought. There is nothing like a good shock of pain for dissolving certain kinds of magic.

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so.

"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.

"Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one.

"And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow.

"That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.

"So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland.

"Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

http://www.mylibrarybook.com/books/677/C.S-Lewis/The-Silver-Chair-9.html

Comment:

Just to clarify: this wonderful passage is (also) an allegory of the human condition and the choice confronting modern Man: viz. the choice between the nihilism of secular materialism and Christianity.

To break the spell of the witch (the intoxicating distractions of the modern world) requires not a great intellectual nor a warrior but a simple and stubborn character like Puddleglum.

Acting on gut-instinct; by stamping on the fire (despite the short term pain) Puddleglum weakens the glamour, clears his head of induced delusions, and saves the world of Narnia (for a while).


Argument has no effect, the Narnians cannot escape the webs of illusion, until after the fire has been quenched.


But what is the fire?

Roughly speaking: the mass media.

So long as we are engaged with the mass media, so long will the delusion continue.


We hopelessly-entranced intellectuals must hope and pray for a Puddleglum!

Undulation, consciousness and Life

Life is undulation: life is meant to be undulation: consciousness is undulating.

The main undulation is between waking and sleeping - during sleep there is undulation between deep sleep and dreaming.

While awake there is also undulation in consciousness - between the three major types of Original Participation, the Consciousness Soul and Final Participation - that is; between childlike, adolescent-like and grown-up-divine consciousness - that is; between immersive-in-life un-consicousness -- alienated/ cut-off-from-life self-consciousness -- and conscious participation with reality...

Much of this blog has recently been concerned with the attainment of Final Participation - by means of Primary Thinking; but I have neglected to emphasise that we cannot do Primary Thinking all-the-time, and more than we could stay awake all-the-time. And, more importantly, it would not be desirable for us to live in Final Participation all-the-time - any more than to be awake/ asleep all the time.

Undulation is part of the essence of life; because life is dynamic, polar; life is about love - love is something that entails movement - movement requires undulation...

It isn't just that we cannot be in any fixed and permanent state, but that this would be a denial of the very nature of reality. I am talking, here, about the metaphysical nature of things...

If it is accepted that ultimate reality is a thing that is dynamic/ polar/ moving - then this just is how things are. It is not a matter of what is expedient, or pleasurable, or good-for-us - but that things always are going to be undulating.

Our remote tribal ancestors seemed to understand this, in one way - in that they regarded life as transformation, a cycling of states - an endless mixing and recombining of the same fixed ultimate material...

Our own metaphysics is, by contrast, open-ended, and genuinely creative; yet it returns to that old idea of transformation of state, of life as undulating - but we see this as the means by which there is creation.

But love gives the clearest example. In Love (and I do not mean in-and-out-of love - but staying In love) there is undulation - Love is NOT (think about it, contra what some have said) a steady solid unchanging state of being; love is intrinsically undulating: that is its life and livingess.

We stay-in love, but undulating. Same for life, same for our own specific life.

Do not grasp and hold onto one state, not even the best and most divine state - but undulate; as is right and necessary.


Note: This idea comes, today, from what Rudolf Steiner termed 'oscillation' (in translation), and from what William Arkle describes in A Geography of Consciousness, in the chapter 'Astrology' - it is also memorably discussed in CS Lewis's Screwtape Letters (although I feel that the point is undercut by Lewis's neo-Platonic metaphysics; which philosophy suggests to me that undulation is 'merely' an expedient of mortal life - to be dispensed-with in Heaven...).