Be aware of the gap between wakefulness and sleep. Between dreams and reality What is the state between dreams and reality called?
During space flights, disturbances in perception occur. So, during the flight, V.V. Volkov wrote down: “There was a characteristic crackling of the ether in the headsets... The earthly night was flying below. And suddenly from this night, through the thickness of the air space... came the barking of a dog. An ordinary dog, maybe even a simple mongrel ... And then ... the child’s crying began to be clearly heard.” 204. On the 31st day of a transatlantic voyage on a small sailing boat, it began to seem to the doctor X. Lindeman that the protective blanket suddenly spoke in a human voice. Then he began to hear voices that were heard all around and came from invisible things. Perception disturbances appeared against the background of an irresistible desire to sleep. In the ninth week of swimming, also against the background of a sleepy state, he developed vivid visual illusions of perception. When he overcame the drowsy state, the visions disappeared. W. Willis, while sailing alone on a raft, describes similar deceptions of perception during periods when he wanted to sleep, and the current situation required vigorous activity205.
In our opinion, these disturbances in perception can be attributed to hypnagogic ideas that developed in an intermediate state between wakefulness and sleep. As noted, under conditions of long-term isolation in the isolation chamber, hypnotic phase states appear. Of interest are the hypnagogic performances that took place among doctor B. and journalist E. Tereshchenko under conditions of group isolation that lasted 70 days.
Here are the notes from subject B. “Today I would like to dwell on an interesting phenomenon that I have been feeling for a long time at night before going to bed, but somehow I didn’t immediately note everything in my diary, and in the morning, naturally, I forgot. A few days ago, before going to bed, I suddenly I began to feel some hallucinations. When I first heard it, I was scared, and schizophrenia, split personality, a symptom of auditory hallucinations with this disease, immediately came to mind. I remembered my first patient from a psychiatric clinic... He was the first violin in the opera and ballet theater. And so, along with the main symptom of the disease - a split personality - he had strong auditory hallucinations. But he was a musician, and a very educated one (he graduated from a conservatory and graduate school), and I didn’t feel very good in my soul.. .
I just started to fall into the abyss of sleep - this music again. Now I began to listen to her more carefully. It was some kind of mournful, rather pleasant melody (very similar to Japanese music), which either went to very high notes or descended to the lowest. Moreover, her character was somehow unearthly; it was similar to the music that is now perceived as cosmic, or to that which is represented in the form of colors and changes in the range of colors. But the melody was very pleasant for me. I don’t remember the further course of events because I fell asleep...
Another time, the voices of a boys’ choir joined my organ music - melodious, high-pitched, even turning to squeaky tones. To be honest, I don’t really like boys’ voices, and I always associate the performance of Sveshnikov’s choir with something inferior. And then the music evoked quite positive emotions in me, I wanted to listen to it all the time, listen and listen... But sleep, most likely, interrupted this pleasure. There were no dreams again. Such phenomena were repeated several more times.
What is this? The fruit of a sick fantasy or objective reality transformed into music? I can't answer. Only one thing I can say is that all these phenomena are possibly associated with a working fan. But it’s very interesting: why does all this happen before bed and at night, and not during the day? Second: why is the nature of the music heard different every time? Camera acoustics? But, in my opinion, it’s just funny to talk about it. What kind of acoustics can there be in a musical sense in this crypt?"
Approximately the same phenomena were noted by E. Tereshchenko. In his diary, he wrote: “For a whole month now, in our absolutely soundproof cell, at night, in complete silence, I heard voices, music, Kozlovsky’s singing, a choir, screeching, howling, the fussing of animals in the ventilation pipe. I didn’t tell anyone about this. I lay with my eyes open, trying to drive away the sound ghosts - nothing worked. Just before leaving, Stas admitted that he heard organ music and a boys’ choir. That’s why he sometimes looked so strange. He was silent for the same reasons. I" 206.
In our opinion, hypnagogic ideas in these cases appeared in connection with the development of the ultraparadoxical phase during the period of falling asleep. In contrast to the persistent, long-lasting ultraparadoxical phase in some mental illnesses, here it appeared as a relatively short-term phase (no more than 30-40 minutes) during the process of falling asleep.
If in the above examples hypnagogic ideas under conditions of sensory deprivation occurred only during the period of falling asleep, then during prolonged insomnia under the same conditions they appeared in the waking state. Here is what subject G. said: “Then, at the end of the continuous activity regime, I discovered such an ability. I sat down in a chair, a fan was making noise in the corner... And it seemed to me that I heard some kind of note. This note was immediately associated somehow with the song “Horizon, Horizon.” In fact, there was some noise there, and in this noise I began to listen to the song... It also seemed to me that through the fan I heard the receiver playing quietly. that the same tune cannot be continuously broadcast on the radio for a long time" 207.
In support of the fact that musical hypnagogic performances arise precisely against the background of the ultraparadoxical phase, the following arguments can be given. Under normal conditions, organ music and a boys' choir evoked only negative emotions in subject B. The appearance of this music and choir during the period of falling asleep can be considered as a revival of “undesirable” ideas, inhibited, but becoming “paradoxically” pleasant. Here is an entry from B.'s diary dated September 2: “Again, before going to bed, this is musical accompaniment. Now the pioneer bugle, the sounds of which turned into some kind of pleasant music, and sleep came.”
The reason for the sudden and one-time appearance of bugle sounds on the night of September 1-2 was subjectively incomprehensible to subject B. before joint analysis and discussion with us. When, to explain the appearance of musical ideas contrary to the taste of subject B., a hypothesis was put forward about the development of an ultra-paradoxical phase, the psychological causal connection of the inclusion of bugle sounds in musical hypnagogic ideas became subjectively obvious to him. September 1 is the day the school starts. On this day, daughter B. was unable to go to school due to a serious illness. All day long, thoughts about his daughter did not leave B. As he fell asleep, he tried to get rid of them. It is possible that during the period of falling asleep it was these thoughts that were figuratively reflected in the sounds of the pioneer bugle.
During the development of hypnagogic phases, the relatively stable nature of emotional relationships to objects and phenomena developed in the process of individual personality development can be significantly disrupted. This happens, firstly, because ideas can leave their usual associative connections and enter into bizarre new ones, and, secondly, because the dynamics of emotions, subject to the dynamics of phase states, can cause a change in the emotional background without a clear connection with a specific set of ideas.
The phase dynamics of the development of musical hypnagogic ideas in the case we were considering was that reflection and orienting activity later turned into a pleasantly vague form of pleasure with a bizarre combination of musical phenomena, which then imperceptibly passed into deep sleep. The following entry speaks about this: “But let me return to my dream. These strange phenomena with auditory hallucinations (I cannot call them otherwise) continue as before. Yesterday, while falling asleep, I again heard organ music on the theme of Russian folk songs in such fantastic variation, which is simply amazing how you can invent such musical images. Then all this turned into a funeral song... At the end, the voices of the boys joined the music, and your soul felt so blissful that you were simply amazed. What the hell attacked me!"
The features of musical hypnagogic performances observed in long-term isolation cannot be understood if we proceed only from the physiology of phase states. It is known that every person involved in music can find in his memory such melodies that he cannot imagine without “reliance on perception,” but which easily emerge in consciousness when their accompaniment is performed. In the cases we examined, musical performances developed against the background noise of a running fan. At first, this noise greatly disturbed the subjects and interfered with their ability to fall asleep, but in the process of adaptation it began, apparently, to be “neutralized” by layered musical performances. This method of “neutralization” was not unusual for the subjects, since something similar happened to them when traveling on a train, when rhythmic melodies also arose in their memory along with the sound of wheels at the joints of the rails. But if in these cases the melodies were experienced as an internal mental act, then in conditions of isolation musical representations were localized externally and were accompanied by the illusion of their involuntariness.
While the nature of consciousness in the waking state is known to everyone, the nature of sleep and dreaming still requires study. And yet, modern research sheds some light on the nature of the psychophysiological functions of sleep, which lays the foundation for further scientific research and analysis of Yoga Nidra. Sleep is a natural, regular process of our lives, and a person needs periodic rest and relaxation of the mind and body to turn off the conscious activity of thoughts, sensations and movements. In other words, sleep is pratyahara, that is, a natural distraction of the senses, in which our consciousness is spontaneously separated from the organs of perception and action and, therefore, does not accumulate experience. When consciousness is distracted from the organs of sensory perception ( Gyanendriy) and from the organs of action ( karmendriy), the contact between the external world, on the one hand, and internal excitation in the sensory-motor area in the cerebral cortex, on the other, automatically disappears. At this important moment, consciousness, abstracted from the external world, directs its activity to search for an internal source. Research has shown that during this distraction of consciousness, sensory capabilities are sharply reduced due to the fact that consciousness plunges into deeper levels of the mind. The mind becomes numb and enveloped in sleep... According to tantric philosophy, entering sleep is nothing more than a gradual movement of consciousness up the chakras up to its cosmic source of sahasrara. So, for example, the sensation of smell (olfaction) is the first separation of consciousness from muladhara, which personifies the earth among the tattvas. The smell excites the taste, which awakens the tattva of water, which is personified in svadhisthana. The process of satisfying the taste indicates the fire of digestion, which goes back to manipura. Touch is anahata, the air tattva, and finally hearing is the ether tattva or vishuddha chakra.
Thus, Yoga Nidra, devoid of all these senses except hearing, corresponds to that stage of sleep that lies on the border between wakefulness and sleep.
States of consciousness
Both yogis, psychologists, and physiologists recognize that there are 3 clearly distinguishable states of consciousness: waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep. It is also not denied that each of these three states (as well as the state in Yoga Nidra) is recorded in the cerebral cortex according to the degree of electrical activity, as shown in the table.
| Stage | State of consciousness | Levels of Consciousness | Wave frequency | State experience |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wakefulness | Consciousness | Beta (13-20 hertz) | Sensory perception, external experience |
| 2 | Yoga Nidra | Superconsciousness (turiya), hypnogogic or borderline stage between sleep and wakefulness | Alpha (8-12 hertz) | Deep relaxation, mystical insight, conscious sleep, identification of archetypes |
| 3 | Dream | Subconscious | Theta (4-7 hertz) | Liberation from emotions, suppressed fears, etc. |
| 4 | Deep sleep | Unconsciousness | Delta (0-4 hertz) | Awakening primal instincts |
In the waking state, consciousness interacts with the outside world and actively perceives it through the channels of the senses. This stage is recorded by researchers with a high frequency of beta rhythms (from 13 to 20 hertz). In a state of sleep, when the subconscious predominates, suppressed desires, fears, and deeply rooted impressions are activated ( samskaras). In accordance with this, the high frequency of beta waves is replaced by theta waves of lower frequency (from 4 to 7 hertz). In a state of deep sleep, the unconscious mind, the repository of instincts and all experiences of past evolutionary development, is activated. Unlike a dream, in deep dreamless sleep there is a complete absence of any elements of activity of the senses and mind, all past impressions (samskaras) and desires ( Vasanas) are paralyzed, consciousness and prana are abstracted from the individual factor and directed to the impersonal creative source. During this stage of consciousness, which is known in tantric and yogic scriptures as the "night of Brahma" or the "embryo of creation" ( Hiranyagarbha), the researchers recorded the rhythmic vibration of delta waves with a frequency of 0 to 4 hertz. Interestingly, this frequency also coincides with the vibration frequency of the material universe - a fact recorded by scientists’ instruments.
Hypnagogic state or Yoga Nidra
Between waking and dreaming is located the most important layer of consciousness and experience, defined by psychologists as the hypnagogic state. This transitional state lasts about 5 minutes and is characterized by alpha waves with a frequency of 8 to 12 hertz, accompanied by deep relaxation and positive release of physical tension throughout the body. Consciousness still continues to retain some residual signs of external influence. There comes a period when there is no longer wakefulness, but sleep has not yet come.
If Yoga Nidra intervenes in this process right now, it can stretch it out in time, pushing back the approaching unconscious sleep with the help of conscious sleep. Yoga Nidra, as it were, shields the outside world from the introverted mind, keeping only one channel awake - listening to the voice of the instructor and mentally implementing his advice. It is curious that during a Yoga Nidra session, researchers noticed how sometimes the flashes of alpha waves seemed to crumble, yielding to the onslaught of either beta waves or theta waves. This means that consciousness is trying to gain a foothold in the stage between wakefulness and sleep, that is, between extraversion and introversion. If extraversion prevailed, the person would return to wakefulness or sensory perception; however, introversion would lead to a gradual descent into sleep. But if a person's consciousness is fixed at the intermediate stage, in which there are constant pulsations of alpha waves, one can achieve a deep experience in a state of complete relaxation. This achievement is in all respects incomparable to either waking or sleeping, for it has all the advantages of both without their disadvantages. Not to mention the effective benefits for, such a state opens the gate to the realm of the superconscious.
Falling asleep
Normal falling into sleep means the following: due to the transition from wakefulness to sleep, the frequency of vibration waves moves from beta to theta and then to delta, bypassing alpha waves. Meanwhile, in Yoga Nidra, the process of falling into sleep is completely different: from beta to alpha (delay at this stage), and if you lose control of the alpha state, a subsequent slide to the theta and delta states occurs. You cannot achieve satisfactory relaxation by simply falling asleep without first consciously relaxing. This is why most people fall asleep with muscular, emotional and mental tension, plunging from the beta state directly into the delta state, without getting rid of all the tensions and complexes in the preliminary alpha state. That is why they get up in the morning tired and exhausted. Having not experienced true relaxation during the alpha state, they continued to perform psychophysical actions during sleep, accumulating tension potential. Yoga Nidra makes it possible to linger in the alpha state and completely free yourself from all tensions. After such rest comes true sleep, refreshing and strengthening a person... Yoga Nidra is considered as a state different from sleep, and yet it can be said that thanks to Yoga Nidra, truly constructive sleep occurs, as Nature created it.
Glimpses of Superconsciousness
Most people, when moving from wakefulness to sleep, lose awareness of the state they are experiencing and do not try to stretch out the transition phase between wakefulness and falling asleep. If they forced themselves to do this, they could experience, through regular experiments of this kind, a higher harmony and unity between all levels of consciousness. One who prefers Yoga Nidra to all three stages of consciousness, as the highest stage, merges with the universal nature of consciousness. Religious tradition defines this experience of superconsciousness as a divine state, but Yoga Nidra and Tantric tradition define it as a glimpse of superconsciousness. Ordinary people, as a rule, remember their dreams, or talk about their visions as something extraordinary and surprising. Meanwhile, all these experiences are deeply archetypal and symbolic and cannot be comprehended by the ordinary mind. As a result, they remain on the other side of consciousness and are not absorbed by it. A person continues to live inside his limited space, not realizing its limitlessness. He does not understand and is not aware of those hints and impulses that constantly vibrate within himself and cannot use them for his own benefit... So he lives with his fragmentary consciousness without a coherent picture of mental experience. He doesn't know who he really is or where he's going. This is the main reason for all his suffering. That is why he is not able to live in harmony either with himself or with the entire environment.
Yoga Nidra is a tool that helps a person discover the source of self-awareness and inexhaustible inspiration. Yoga Nidra is a “self-inducing sleep” technique through which we can discover within ourselves the treasure trove of our true consciousness, explore and use it to enrich our daily lives.
Sleep is controlled by the mind
Our dreams are unique energetic models of consciousness that depend on awakening, liberation or outbreaks in the psychic body. They arise spontaneously and Yoga Nidra allows you to take control of them. As you rise higher and higher on the spiritual scale, you learn to shape your dreams with the help of Yoga Nidra. However, in order to create your dreams and learn to understand them, it is necessary to maintain a dual state of half-sleep and half-awake. In other words, while you are sleeping, you must know that you are dreaming. The ability to witness one's sleep is a dynamic form of pratyahara.
Essentially, Yoga Nidra is the best form of increasing dream awareness. Almost all people dream, but their interpretation of dreams is very crude and ineffective. As a rule, most of them simply do not remember their dreams. Preserving the memory of dreams is possible with a clear visualization of the witnessing consciousness. This vigilant awareness of sleep can be developed through the Yoga Nidra technique.
Genuine Awakening
As modern research confirms, the presence of witnessing consciousness against the background of the ongoing sleep process leads to fundamental changes in the functioning of the central nervous system. A new stage of consciousness is beginning, known to yogis and tantrics as turiya, as a result of which the experience of direct perception is intertwined with the experience of psychic and astral perception. This is the fourth or highest form of consciousness, combining the experience of all possible forms of consciousness (waking, sleep and dreams). At the same time, the highest form is not absorbed by any of these three, but only tracks the triune experience of psychophysical experiences. It is known that this was already said thousands of years ago in yogic texts and only now the “secret” is becoming a reality in modern laboratories with the help of modern science. From the point of view of neurophysiology, increased excitability of consciousness, accompanied by motor activity of the limbs, indicates a new form of ongoing processes in the cerebral cortex, in which there is a combination of activation of areas responsible for external perception and internal awareness with a decrease in activity in areas responsible for the manifestation of emotions. Thus, Yoga Nidra opens a new page in further exploration of the capabilities of the brain, activation of self-awareness, control of the regulatory functions of consciousness, which ultimately shapes a conscious destiny.
The phenomenon of Indian yogi Swami Rama
Swami Rama, a high-level Indian yogi, experimentally proved the existence of a “mysterious” and “secret” fourth form of consciousness or turiyas.
In 1977, the Center for Brain Research (Kansas, USA) conducted scientific research and observations of the brain function of yogi Swami Rama while he was engaged in relaxation and gradually entered deeper states of consciousness. Scientific research was led by Dr. Elmer Green, and vibrations of brain biocurrents were recorded on an electroencephalograph. Subsequently, the world learned about the scientific discovery. Scientists recorded that the yogi, by force of will, alternately entered various states of consciousness: when he completely relaxed his body, he entered the state of Yoga Nidra and the device registered 70% of alpha waves during a 5-minute period of visualizing a blue sky with rare clouds floating on it. Then the yogi entered a dream state, which was accompanied for 5 minutes predominantly by 75% theta waves. Swami Rama later said that this condition was uncomfortable, he called it "noisy and unpleasant." He further added that he was able to eliminate it by “moving the consciousness into the subconscious.” Here he gained the experience of certain desires while contemplating archetypal images that were rapidly trying to take possession of his consciousness. Finally, Swami entered into a state of deep sleep (the realm of the unconscious) and this was confirmed by the slow vibration of delta waves. However, his consciousness remained alert throughout the scientific experiment. For example, he easily recalled various events that took place in a scientific laboratory and related to the experiment. For example, after the experiment, Swami Rama voiced the questions that one of the scientists asked the yogi during the period of activation of delta waves. The presence of delta waves indicates deep sleep and it would seem that the yogi could not perceive these issues...
Scientists have not yet had to conduct such studies, when deep sleep could be combined with awareness of the moment being experienced. This clearly indicated that scientists were faced with a great discovery - turiya, which the ancient texts of yogis so persistently repeat, really exists as a manifested fact, and not a phenomenon of faith. Scientists have seen with their own eyes that the nature of superconsciousness truly includes all possible states of consciousness: wakefulness, superficial sleep and dreams. In other words, the simultaneous interaction of consciousness, subconsciousness and unconsciousness is quite possible. Thus, maximum relaxation of all psychophysical processes in the body invariably leads to the integration of consciousness as such and to the enlightenment of the individual. Essentially, people who have reached this state do not sleep. They know only the state of being, which is unchanged, whether it is sleep or wakefulness. They are constantly in the state of turiyas, in Yoga Nidra.
It became clear that the “universal mind” or superconsciousness could be gradually developed and strengthened through effective technologies such as Yoga Nidra and meditation. So the previously mysterious and inaccessible world of the unconscious is losing its position, which is now defined as superconsciousness. This gradual process of enlightenment of the individual and liberation from the yoke of “mysterious” forces is called self-realization, kaivalya, moksha or samadhi.
Superconsciousness
So, if in the past superconsciousness was defined as something related to mysticism or religious experience, now the term “physiological reality” has been assigned to superconsciousness. Modern psychologist Carl Jung defined superconsciousness as “immersion in the collective unconscious.” The latest research in the field of parapsychology, psi phenomena and psychotronics has confirmed that the “universal mind” really exists.
55. Be aware of the gap between wakefulness and sleep
The third technique for remembering yourself: At that moment of sleep, when sleep has not yet come, and external wakefulness has already disappeared - at that very moment Existence is revealed
There are some turning points in your consciousness. At these moments you are closer to your center than at any other time. You change "gear" and the moment you change gear you go through neutral. This neutral position is closer to you. In the morning, when the sleep is fading, disappearing, and you feel awakened but not yet awakened, when you are just in the middle of awakening, you are in "neutral gear." This is the moment when you are no longer asleep, but have not yet awakened, right in the middle. You are in neutral gear. During the transition from sleep to wakefulness, your consciousness changes its entire mechanism. It jumps from one functioning mechanism to another. There is no other mechanism between these two mechanisms; there is a gap, an interval between them. Through this gap you can get some insight into your essence. The same thing happens in the evening when you jump back from the waking mechanism to the sleep mechanism, from the conscious to the unconscious. For one moment there is no mechanism, there is no pressure of the mechanism on you, because you have to take a leap from one mechanism to another. If you can be aware between these two moments, if you can become aware between these two moments, if you can remember yourself between these two moments, then you will get some idea of your real self.
How to perform this technique? When you are about to fall asleep, relax. Close your eyes, darken the room. Just close your eyes and wait. Sleep is coming, just wait, don't do anything, just wait! Your body is relaxed, your body becomes heavy, feel it. Feel it. Sleep has its own mechanism, it begins to work. Your waking consciousness disappears. Remember, because the moment will be very elusive, the moment will be atomic. If you miss, you miss. It is a very short period - one moment, a very small space, and there will be a change in you from being awake to being asleep. Just wait, remaining fully aware. Keep waiting. This will take some time. This will take at least three months. Only then can you get some hint of that moment which is right in the middle. So don't rush. You can't do it right now, you can't do it tonight. But you have to start and you may have to wait a few months.
This usually happens suddenly within three months. This happens every day, but your awareness and meeting this gap cannot be planned. It happens. You just keep waiting and one day it happens. One day, suddenly, you realize that you are neither awake nor asleep - a very mysterious phenomenon. You may even become afraid because until now you have only known two states: the waking state and the dream state. But you do not know the third state of your essence, when you are neither asleep nor awake. The first time you encounter this condition, you may be scared. Don't be alarmed. Anything that is new, that has not been previously known, must cause some fear, because this moment, if you experience it again and again, will also give you new sensations: you will be neither alive nor dead, neither this nor that. This is an abyss.
These two mechanisms are like two hills, you jump from one peak to another. If you stop in the middle, you will fall into an abyss, into an abyss without a bottom, you will go on falling and falling and falling. This technique is used by the Sufis, and before they give this technique to seekers, they also give another practice, just as a safety measure. Whenever this technique is offered in the system of Sufism, another technique is given before it, which is that you close your eyes and imagine that you are falling into a deep well - dark, deep, bottomless. Just imagine falling into a deep well - falling, falling and falling, falling endlessly. There is no bottom, you cannot reach the bottom. Now this fall cannot stop. You can stop it, you can open your eyes and say that there is nothing more, but this fall cannot stop by itself. If you continue, the well is bottomless and it becomes darker and darker.
In the Sufi system this exercise must first be practiced with a well - with this bottomless dark well. It's nice and useful. If you practice this exercise and realize its beauty, its silence, then the deeper you fall into the well, the more silent you will become. The world remains somewhere far away, you feel that you are flying far, far, far away. The silence grows along with the darkness, and there, in the depths, there is no bottom. Fear takes over your mind, but you know it's just your imagination, so you can continue.
Through this exercise you become more adapted to this technique, but then when you fall into the well between wakefulness and sleep, it is no longer imaginary, it is a real fact. And here too there is no bottom, this abyss is bottomless. That is why the Buddha called this unfilled emptiness shunya. There is no end to it. Once you have known it, then you also become infinite. This idea is difficult to have while awake. It is, of course, impossible to have it during sleep, because then the mechanism functions and it is difficult to disconnect oneself from this mechanism. But in the evening and in the morning there are other moments - only two such moments in twenty-four hours - when it is very easy, but for this you have to wait. At that moment of sleep, when sleep has not yet come and the outer wakefulness has already disappeared, that very moment Existence is revealed, then you know who you are, what your real being is, what is your real existence. While we are awake we are fake and we know it very well. During your waking hours you are insincere, unnatural. You smile when tears would be more natural. Your tears cannot be trusted either. They can only be a façade, a ceremony, a duty. Your smile is fake; physiognomists might say that your smile is just painted on. There are no roots in it, the smile is only on your face, only on your lips. It is nowhere else in your being. It has no roots, no other body parts. It is forced upon you. A smile does not come from within, it is imposed on you from the outside.
Whatever you say and whatever you do is false, and it is not necessary that you do all these false things in your life consciously - not at all necessary! You can be completely unaware - and you are! Otherwise it would be very difficult to carry on this false nonsense all the time. This happens automatically. This falsehood continues while you are awake, it continues even while you sleep - in a different way, of course. Your dreams are symbolic, not real. It is amazing that even in sleep you are not real, natural, even in sleep you are afraid and create symbols.
Nowadays psychoanalysts are all the time analyzing your dreams. They have a very good business because you cannot analyze your own dreams. They are symbolic, they are not real. They talk about things only through metaphors. If you want to kill your mother and get rid of her, you will not kill her even in your sleep. You will kill anyone else who is like your mother. You will kill your aunt or someone else, but not your mother. Even in your sleep you cannot be sincere. Then psychoanalysis is needed, a professional is needed for interpretation - but you can describe everything in such a way that even a psychoanalyst will be deceived.
Your dreams are also completely false. If you are real while you are awake, your dreams will also be real. They will not be symbolic. If you want to kill your mother, then you will see a dream in which you kill your mother, and then, in order to show what your dream means, no interpreters will be needed. But we're so fake. In the dream we are alone, but we are still afraid of the world and society.
Killing your mother is the greatest sin, and I don't think you have any idea why it is the greatest sin. This is the greatest sin because everyone feels deep enmity towards the mother. This is the greatest sin, and you are so trained, your mind is so conditioned, that even the thought of harming your mother is sinful. She gave you life. All over the world, in all societies, they teach the same thing. There is not a single society on earth that would not agree with this - that killing a mother is the greatest sin. She gave you life and you are killing her?
But where does this teaching come from? Somewhere deep down there is a possibility that everyone is against his mother out of necessity - because the mother not only gives you life, but she is also the instrument by which you become false, she is the instrument by which the unreal is forcibly imposed on you. She made you what you are. If you live in hell, then she took part in it, the biggest part. If you are suffering, then your mother is somewhere here, hidden in you, because the mother gave birth to you and raised you - or, in fact, threw you out of your reality. She faked you. The first lie happened between you and your mother, the first lie happened between you and your mother - the first lie!
Even when there is no language yet and the child cannot speak, he can lie. Sooner or later, the child begins to realize that many of his feelings are not approved by his mother. Her face, her eyes, her behavior, her mood - everything shows that something about him is unacceptable. Then he begins to suppress his feelings. Something's wrong. There is no language yet, his mind is not yet functioning. But his whole body begins to suppress. And then he begins to feel that sometimes something is approved by his mother. He depends on his mother, his life depends on his mother. If his mother leaves him, he will be gone. His whole existence is centered on his mother.
Everything the mother says, does, shows matters; all her behavior matters. If a child smiles and the mother loves him, gives him her warmth, feeds him milk, hugs him, then he learns to be a politician. He will smile when he is not smiling, because he knows that this way he can persuade his mother. He will smile a fake smile. Then a liar is born, a politician appears. Now he knows how to fake, and he learned this from his relationship with his mother. This is the very first relationship with the world. When he becomes aware of his misery, his hell, his confusion, he will discover that behind it all is his mother.
There is a good chance that you are feeling hostility towards your mother. This is why every culture insists that killing one's mother is the greatest sin. Even in your thoughts, even in your dreams, you cannot kill your mother. I'm not saying that you should kill her, I'm just saying that your dreams are also false - symbolic, insincere. You are so false that you cannot even have real dreams.
These are our two false faces, one appears when we are awake, the other when we sleep. Between these two false faces there is a very small door, an interval. Through this interval you can get some idea of your original face, the face you had when you had not yet communicated with your mother and, therefore, with society, when you were alone with yourself, when you were , - but not this and that when there was no separation. There was only the real, there was no unreal. You can glance at this face, this innocent face between these two mechanisms.
We usually don't think about our dreams, we think more about our waking hours. But psychoanalysis is more concerned with your dreams than with your waking hours, because it knows that in your waking hours you are a big liar. In dreams you can at least catch something. In sleep you are less aware, you are not forcing things, you are not manipulating them. Then you can catch something real in them. During your waking hours you may be a celibate monk, but you repress sexual desires. Then it will impose itself on your dreams, your dreams must be sexual. It is very difficult to find a monk without sexual dreams - perhaps even impossible. You can find a criminal without sexual dreams, but you cannot find a religious person without them. A libertine may not have sexual dreams, but not the so-called saints, because whatever you push inside while you are awake will come out during your dreams and color them.
Psychoanalysts do not deal with your waking state because they know that it is one hundred percent false. If you can get some idea of the real, it is only in dreams. But tantra says that even dreams are not so real. They are more real - and this seems paradoxical because we think that dreams are not real - they are more real than your waking hours because then you are less alert. The sense organs are asleep, something can come out, the repressed can manifest itself - symbolically, of course, but symbols can be analyzed.
All over the world, the symbols that man manipulates are the same. While you are awake, you can speak different languages, but while you are asleep, you speak the same language. Throughout the world, the language of dreams is the same. If sex is repressed, then the same symbols appear in dreams. If the passion for food, the passion for food, hunger are suppressed, then the same symbols appear - or similar symbols. The language of dreams is the same, but there are still problems with dreams because the language is symbolic. And Freud can interpret it in one way, Jung in another, and Adler in some third way. And if you are analyzed by a hundred psychoanalysts, there will be a hundred interpretations. You will be even more confused than you were before, more confused by a hundred interpretations of the same thing. Tantra says that neither in sleep nor in waking life are you real. You are only real between these two states. So don't get involved with waking life, sleep or dreams. Pay attention to the space, be aware of the space between. Catch a glimpse as you move from one state to another. And once you know when this gap comes, you become its master. You have the key; at any time you can open this gap and enter it. Another dimension of existence opens up, the dimension of the real.
The borderline state is a certain state that almost everyone who practices so-called “Lucid Dreaming” encounters. This state has quite stable characteristics, so I attribute it to one of the levels of the dreaming process.
We can say that this is a state in which a person is at the intersection of the “Lines” of wakefulness, normal sleep and dreaming. This can happen for two reasons: natural awakenings in a certain state of sleep and as a result of dreaming practice.
Distinctive features of this condition:
It is difficult to determine whether you are sleeping or awake;.
It’s hard to move your physical body;
The presence of various unusual phenomena.
How does this usually happen?
A person tries to enter the Dream from a waking state. After some time, his consciousness begins to “float” and fall into a state of drowsiness. Thanks to this floating state, the dreamer can wake up in one of the sleep states, i.e., for some time he seems to fall into sleep, and then wakes up again, but after a while, having fallen into sleep, he wakes up already in a dream (as if without fully surfacing into the waking world.
Usually, it happens like this: while performing the dream entry technique, the practitioner falls asleep and his consciousness falls asleep. But suddenly, at a certain point in time, he realizes that his eyes are open and he is observing the usual picture of his bedroom from a lying position. And here, the dreamer may feel that the body is numb and difficult to move, or, raising his hands to his face, he may notice that the hands of the sleeping body have remained in their place. It feels like I didn’t fall asleep, but I didn’t wake up completely either.
Often in this state various unusual phenomena begin to occur, for example:
Feeling of pressure on the body;
Someone unfamiliar just stands and watches (acts less often);
The presence of shadows in the room (from amorphous to quite clear in outline);
Various color spots on the interior of the room (as if colored lighting);
Incomprehensible noise or voices (as if someone is talking behind the wall);
Animals (may behave aggressively);
The presence of objects that do not correspond to the decor of the room (for example, there may be a small airplane standing in the middle of the room);
Someone enters the room or knocks on the door;.
Someone you know begins to help “Get Out of the Body,” or vice versa, to prevent you from doing it;
Other.
I have indicated only some phenomena, but there are many options. Much depends on the personal history of the dreamer - his ideas, expectations, fears, etc. The reasons for these phenomena can be different, I partially talked about this in my article “Frightening Images.”
A similar situation is often encountered by people who accidentally fall into this state due to sleep paralysis. At the moment, statistics are such that at least a third of the world's population has experienced this condition at least once in their lives. So far, this phenomenon has not been fully studied, but we can already confidently say that the state of sleep paralysis is a natural phenomenon and is not a physical or mental pathology.
At first, when you encounter this phenomenon, it seems that the borderline state is a state between sleep and wakefulness. Here, the characteristics of reality, sleep and the “Out-of-Body State” seem to converge and overlap each other. At the same time, there is a feeling that you are not sleeping and, at the same time, there are signs of the manifestation of the “Second Body” and the chaos of random images characteristic of ordinary sleep. The state is paradoxical; at first it is very difficult to really understand whether you were sleeping or not.
Later, with practice, a different feeling and understanding of this phenomenon comes. This can most simply be described as a partial “Exit from the Body” (partial separation of the dream body. For the main characteristic of this state is the incomplete exit of the dream body, its incomplete separation from the sleeping body. And what is interesting is that over time, many unwanted and frightening phenomena go away on their own , often complete separation from the body is enough for this (which leads to certain thoughts. Now this is perceived as one of the stages of the dreaming process.
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In that moment of sleep, when you are not yet asleep, but are no longer awake, at that very moment Being is revealed.
There are some vital moments in your consciousness. In these moments you are closer to your center than at any other time. You change “gear” and the moment you change gear you go through neutral. This neutral position is closer to you. In the morning, when sleep is fading, disappearing, and you feel awakened, but not yet awakened, when you are just in the middle of awakening, you are at “neutral speed.” That moment when you are no longer asleep, but not yet awakened, as times in the middle. You have switched on the neutral speed. In the transition from sleep to wakefulness, your consciousness changes its entire mechanism. It jumps from one mechanism to another. There is no gap between these two mechanisms; of your being. The same thing happens in the evening when you jump back from the waking mechanism to the sleep mechanism, from the conscious to the unconscious. For one moment there is no mechanism, there is no pressure of the mechanism on you, because you have to take the leap from one mechanism to the other. If you can be aware between these two moments, if you can remember yourself between these two moments, then you will get some idea of your real self.
How to perform this technique? When you are about to fall asleep, relax. Close your eyes, curtain the room. Just close your eyes and wait. Sleep is approaching; just wait, don't do anything, just wait! Your body relaxes, your body becomes heavy: feel it. Feel it. The dream carries its own mechanism, it begins to work. Your waking consciousness disappears. Remember, because the moment will be very elusive, the moment will be tiny. If you miss, you miss. It is a very short period - one moment, a very small interval, and there will be a transition in you from wakefulness to sleep. Just wait, remaining fully aware. Keep waiting. This will take some time. This will take at least three months. Only then can you get some hint of that moment which is right in the middle. So don't rush. You can't do this right now; you won't be able to do it tonight. But you have to start, and you may have to wait a few months.
This usually happens suddenly within three months. This happens every day, but your awareness and meeting this gap cannot be planned. It happens. You just keep waiting and one day it happens. One day, suddenly, you realize that you are neither awake nor asleep - a very mysterious phenomenon. You may even become afraid because until now you have only known two states: the waking state and the dream state. But you do not know the third state of your essence, when you are neither asleep nor awake. The first time you experience this condition, you may feel scared. Don't be alarmed. Everything new, something that was not previously known, should cause some fear, because this moment, if you experience it again and again, will also give you new sensations: you will feel neither alive nor dead, neither neither this. This is an abyss.
These two mechanisms are like two hills; you jump from one peak to another. If you stop in the middle, you will fall into an abyss, into an abyss without a bottom: you will go on falling and falling and falling. This technique is used by the Sufis, and before they give this technique to seekers, they also give another practice, just as a safety measure. Whenever this technique is offered in the system of Sufism, another technique is given before it, which is that you close your eyes and imagine that you are falling into a deep well - dark, deep, bottomless. Just imagine falling into a deep well - falling, falling and falling, falling endlessly. There is no bottom, you cannot reach the bottom. Now this fall cannot stop. You can stop it; you can open your eyes and say “enough,” but this fall cannot stop on its own. If you continue, you will find that the well is bottomless and it gets darker and darker.
In the Sufi system this well exercise must first be practiced.
- with this bottomless dark well. It's nice and useful. If you practice this exercise and realize its beauty, its silence, then the deeper you fall into the well, the more silent you will become. The world remains somewhere far away, you feel that you are flying far, far, far away. The silence grows along with the darkness, and there, in the depths, there is no bottom. Fear takes over your mind, but you know it's just your imagination, so you can continue.
Through this exercise you become more adapted to this technique, but then when you fall into the well between wakefulness and sleep, it is no longer imaginary; this is a true fact. And here too there is no bottom, this abyss is bottomless. That is why the Buddha called this unfilled emptiness shunya. There is no end to it. Once you have known it, you also become infinite. This vision is difficult to obtain while awake. It is, of course, impossible to obtain it during sleep, because then the mechanism operates and it is difficult to disidentify oneself from this mechanism. But in the evening and in the morning other states happen - only two such states in twenty-four hours - at such moments these states come very easily, but for this you need to wait.
While we are awake we are false and we know it very well. During your waking hours you are insincere, unnatural. You smile when tears would be more natural. This falsehood continues while you are awake, it continues even during your sleep - in a different form, naturally. Your dreams are far-fetched, they are not real. It is amazing that even in a dream you are not real, not natural, even in a dream you are afraid and create images. You are so fake that you cannot even have real dreams.
These are our two false faces: one appears when we are awake, the other when we sleep. Between these two false faces there is a very small door, a gap. You can get some idea of your original face in this interval. Get an idea of the face that you had when you had not yet communicated with your mother and, therefore, with society. When you were alone with yourself; when you were not this and that; when there was no division. There was only the real; there was nothing unreal. You can glance at this face, this innocent face between these two mechanisms.
Tantra says that neither in sleep nor in wakefulness are you real. You are real only between these two states. So don't get involved with waking life, sleep or dreams. Pay attention to the gap; become aware of the gap between them. Catch a glimpse as you move from one state to another. And once you know when this gap comes, you become its master. You have the key; at any time you can open this gap and enter it. Another dimension of existence opens up: the dimension of the real.
