The Nature of Sleep

I would like to know about sleep and consciousness, the only philosopher who springs to mind on the subject is Freud, whom I haven't read for ages. I do not know Heraclitus, in which work does he talk of sleep?

Hi Hermes,

Very litte of Heraclitus's work has survived. You can Google "heraclitus fragments" to look over what he has to say. It is very limited.

The best of contemporary sources for dreams is probably Jung.

Hope this helps.

Rich

Hi Rich
Are we not just sleeping monads to entities more highly evolved than us, thus our awake state equates to their sleeping state?. Or do other entities from some lower awake dimension leak into our awareness. Upward infinitely, and downwards infinitely.

There is no end to division, a quark can be split into a half quark, just like our universe might be only a single quark in another universe of unimaginable,unspeakable enormity

Hi Alan,

From which fundamental concept to you arrive at this idea? It might help me better understand your train of thought.

Sleep is perplexing no matter which way I cut it. Just the idea that the mind can switch from one to the other state of sleep and awake.

Rich

It is not fundamentalism just my me speculating,Monads is a term for sentient life I picked up somewhere, I will look it up and report back

Here it is as promised

Monadology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(III)fractals"Monads, Centers of Consciousness" by G. de Purucker

However deeply the mind plunges into the abysses of thought, it will never reach anything more than an ever-expanding consciousness of itself: the ultimate Self, the god within, the atman. This is the monad.



This is the perpetual individual, the spiritual individuality, the indivisible part of us. The heart of the monad, its superior fountain of life and intelligence, is a divine monad, the inner god. But the word monad is used in a general way for a variety of consciousness centers in man.



There is the spiritual monad, offspring of the divine monad; there is the human monad, offspring of the spiritual monad; there is the vital-astral monad, offspring of the human monad. All these together form the human constitution.

Each such monad, no matter what its grade, is an evolving entity. All that we are as human beings we derive ultimately from the monadic essence which is surrounding the inmost. Our spiritual intelligence, our instincts for noble thinking, for kindly and brotherly action, the impulses to compassion which fill our hearts, the love which so dignifies us, the loftiest intuitions which our nature is capable of -- all these are derivative from and rooted in the monad.



The spiritual monad, which is the 'heart' of the reincarnating ego, is itself rooted in the divine monad or inner god, the deathless part of us. Without the influence or rays from the monad streaming into our human consciousness, we should be merely human beasts. The monad would be there, though inactive, and we should indeed be humans, but spiritually darkened and unawakened.



Just information I don't subscribe to it










Monadology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(III)fractals"Monads, Centers of Consciousness" by G. de Purucker

However deeply the mind plunges into the abysses of thought, it will never reach anything more than an ever-expanding consciousness of itself: the ultimate Self, the god within, the atman. This is the monad. This is the perpetual individual, the spiritual individuality, the indivisible part of us. The heart of the monad, its superior fountain of life and intelligence, is a divine monad, the inner god. But the word monad is used in a general way for a variety of consciousness centers in man. There is the spiritual monad, offspring of the divine monad; there is the human monad, offspring of the spiritual monad; there is the vital-astral monad, offspring of the human monad. All these together form the human constitution.

Each such monad, no matter what its grade, is an evolving entity. All that we are as human beings we derive ultimately from the monadic essence which is surrounding the inmost. Our spiritual intelligence, our instincts for noble thinking, for kindly and brotherly action, the impulses to compassion which fill our hearts, the love which so dignifies us, the loftiest intuitions which our nature is capable of -- all these are derivative from and rooted in the monad. The spiritual monad, which is the 'heart' of the reincarnating ego, is itself rooted in the divine monad or inner god, the deathless part of us. Without the influence or rays from the monad streaming into our human consciousness, we should be merely human beasts. The monad would be there, though inactive, and we should indeed be humans, but spiritually darkened and unawakened.





Monadology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(III)fractals"Monads, Centers of Consciousness" by G. de Purucker

However deeply the mind plunges into the abysses of thought, it will never reach anything more than an ever-expanding consciousness of itself: the ultimate Self, the god within, the atman. This is the monad. This is the perpetual individual, the spiritual individuality, the indivisible part of us. The heart of the monad, its superior fountain of life and intelligence, is a divine monad, the inner god. But the word monad is used in a general way for a variety of consciousness centers in man. There is the spiritual monad, offspring of the divine monad; there is the human monad, offspring of the spiritual monad; there is the vital-astral monad, offspring of the human monad. All these together form the human constitution.

Each such monad, no matter what its grade, is an evolving entity. All that we are as human beings we derive ultimately from the monadic essence which is surrounding the inmost. Our spiritual intelligence, our instincts for noble thinking, for kindly and brotherly action, the impulses to compassion which fill our hearts, the love which so dignifies us, the loftiest intuitions which our nature is capable of -- all these are derivative from and rooted in the monad. The spiritual monad, which is the 'heart' of the reincarnating ego, is itself rooted in the divine monad or inner god, the deathless part of us. Without the influence or rays from the monad streaming into our human consciousness, we should be merely human beasts. The monad would be there, though inactive, and we should indeed be humans, but spiritually darkened and unawakened.






Peace

Aren't dreams a form of consciousness?

Hi Alan,

It is an interesting idea that we are individual, sleepy monads of more evolved awake entities. The idea that we are disconnected from everything but somehow acting in a harmonious manner seems to me to be unnecessary but it is an attempt to describe individuality and attributes. I believe a ocean with waves accomplishes the same purpose without having to resort to figuring out how harmony comes to disconnected monads.

But the overall thought of being part of more evolved entities is nonetheless interesting and may be a path toward better understanding how consciousness switches between states of sleep and awake. Thanks.

Bentov actually builds a similar model of evolved entities. His book may be worth a re-visit for me.

Rich

---------- Post added 07-04-2009 at 08:30 AM ----------



Hi Parker,

For me, it would be. For others, maybe not. It depends upon your own metaphysical view.

The question that I am considering is how does consciousness switch itself between the different states. Pop! Sleep. Pop! Awake. And why are the states of consciousness so different?

Rich

They appear to explore all eventualities our waking mind refuses to entertain.

I am not very familiar with the Holographic Principle of the Universe, but it had a very interesting notion of sleep:
Dreams (especially lucid dreams) are actually occuring in a different plane of existence.
The backing was that the Universe is truly only a hologram, and thus it literally changes on the way you look at it, like walking around a light hologram.
So you are simply looking at the back of the image whenever you fall asleep.

Hi there,

This is a very interesting way of looking at the universe. I remember reading Talbot's Holographic Universe. Maybe it is time to revisit? Thanks.

Rich

But it happens to be true that most dreams follow the rules of physics. Do you think this is simply because the mind is so used to following these rules?
I've never managed to remember to try to fly in the few lucid dreams I've had. Does your mind force you to sprout wings, or is gliding superman-style completely feasible?

Hi YumCLock,

It seems like everyone dreams in a different manner. I have certainly had dreams that would defy physics in terms of the images that were projected. But beyond that, my dreams tend to defy the notions of space and time - none being present, as we might know it in awake state. Everyone seems to experience dreams differently which in itself is something to ponder.

Thanks for your comments.

Rich

This is a sense of de ja vu. Mind you it is the second time I will write this analogy.

Let me see, I went to sleep around the two o'clock mark this morning, nothing unusual even on a work day. What I recall is a sense of bliss, snuggled, darkened senses, it is only seven go back to sleep, sun is shining it is 9:10. Seven hours of completely nothing. That was a good sleep. The nature of sleep is to assist you in reshaping your vitalitism into a refreshing mode.

I am not alltogether a complete dimwit. I have heard that we dream in our sleep, most uncommon for me to recall any, I may remember about two within a year, still I notice about one a week in the twinkle of waking, which I think is odd considering we dream the whole night, apparently. If not or if so, what am I up too.

Yes, it would be nice to know what we are all up to when we are asleep. :detective:

Rich

That's easy. You're lying down on a bed, paralyzed so you don't hurt anyone (unless you sleepwalk).
I was unaware that you could defy the laws of physics; I do remember dreams that had nonsensical things occur (Gravity suddenly shifted directions), but then had corresponding things occur to explain them (there was a new downwards).

I do believe that there are such phenomenon as sleep walking and people do toss and turn while sleeping. But it is interesting, nonetheless, that this paralysis does occur. How does the mind know to do it, since it is a complete switch from the awake state?

Here is an example web sight were people discuss their dreams, e.g. flying.

Dreamcrowd - Search Result of flying

Flying is a fairly common dream and can be interpreted in various ways..

Rich

Interesting website.
I don't think the body's paralysis is anything special; it's merely an old biological response. I figure it's some sort of blocking chemical, to stop messages from reaching limbs (this is pure speculation, coming from waking aches).

Yes, we can all speculate there is some physical process that initiates the paralysis. The question I ponder is what initiates this process. Where does the initial impetus come from? Why the switch?

In the thread that I started Implications of the Holographic Universe, the impetus comes from the mind. Everything is about the mind obtaining, storing, and transmitting information.

Rich

When you suffer half-awake paralysis, its because your dream body, after dreaming, re-entered your physical body the wrong way around,

you need to go back into the dream state, turn yourself around, and then re-enter the body the correct way,

you may need to practise lucid dreaming a bit
consider it as exercise of the imagination

you can do this by half-entering the dream state
while in your waking mind,
you need to cut yourself off from your senses
and drift inward into your innermost recesses of your being

spiritual connections advised

;-j