Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / The Lack of Transcription or Bridges of Consciousness Prevents Awareness of the Waking Consciousness of Experiences of Deep Sleep and Other Alternative States of Awareness

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The Lack of Transcription or Bridges of Consciousness Prevents Awareness of the Waking Consciousness of Experiences of Deep Sleep and Other Alternative States of Awareness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Where does the consciousness go when we are deep asleep?
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  Numerous reports tell us that it can go out to other planes or
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  realms, or down into subconscious levels, or up into
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  superconscious levels. When we awaken from sleep, we
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  generally are unable to describe what we did during sleep, or
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  where we went or what happened to us while we were asleep.
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  There are other statuses of consciousness into which an
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  individual can enter and upon returning to his waking
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  consciousness which he cannot describe.
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  For example, certain hypnotic states, trance states, certain
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  states of coma, certain states of physical trauma.
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  Clearly, the consciousness remains alive and the waking
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  consciousness can and generally is reinstated following these
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  various states. Assuming that the coma or trauma
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  are not permanent or lead to death.
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  What they all seem to have in common is that the consciousness
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  departs temporarily from the waking ego personality.
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  In certain of these states, such as in the trance known as
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  samadhi, consciousness is aware and concentrated.
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  Yet when the individual shifts from the trance to the waking
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  state, as also in the transition from deep sleep to waking, he
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  does not generally remember. Or if he does remember, he
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  cannot adequately describe the experiences as he does not have
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  the words or the conceptual framework to translate the
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  experience of 1 realm or status into another.
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  In some cases, when he retains some memory of the state he
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  experienced, he is forced to use imagery or poetic language to
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  try to convey what happened. In other cases, the experience
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  was traumatic in some way that causes him to block it out of
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  his conscious awareness. In yet other instances, he is
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  given a message or teaching that he is asked to disseminate.
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  In her book Out on a Limb, Shirley MacLaine recounted
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  several experiences with psychics who could channel other
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  personalities while in a certain type of trance state.
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  They could not remember what occurred during that state,
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  while the channelled presence, if it returned at a later period
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  of time, had total recall of the events of the prior occasion.
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  An individual reported that after doing some extensive
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  chanting and deep meditation practice, he entered another
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  state of awareness which he could not describe.
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  He felt somehow that if he continued and went any further
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  he would dissolve. He could not tell exactly what
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  had happened or where he had gone in his awareness, only that
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  he experienced fear. Reading later reports of others,
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  he identified the status of the ego awareness, recognizing that
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  its dissolution was going to occur if he kept going.
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  It was not about physical death, but ego death.
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  Another aspect of the discussion revolves around what are known
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  as out of body experiences, near death experiences or astral
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  travel. The individual in such instances
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  generally returns with a quite detailed remembrance of his
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  experience and can recount it as to what he saw, what he heard,
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  what he felt, what he experienced.
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  Somehow in these cases, the waking consciousness maintains a
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  type of bridge to the alternative awareness state,
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  Triorobindo observes. Quote the sleep you describe, in
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  which there is a luminous silence, or else the sleep in
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  which there is ananda in the cells.
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  These are obviously the best states.
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  The other hours, those of which you are unconscious, may be
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  spells of a deep slumber in which you have got out of the
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  physical into the mental, vital or other planes.
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  You say you were unconscious, but it may simply be that you do
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  not remember what happened. For in coming back there is a
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  sort of turning over of the consciousness, a transition or
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  reversal in which everything experienced in sleep except
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  perhaps the last happening of all, or else one that was very
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  impressive, recedes from the physical consciousness and all
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  becomes as if a blank. There is another blank state, a
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  state of inertia, not only blank but heavy and unremembering.
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  But that is when one goes deeply and crassly into the
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  subconscious. This subterranean plunge is very
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  undesirable, obscuring, lowering, often fatiguing rather
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  than restful. The reverse of the luminous
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  silence. End Quote reference.
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  Srioro Vindo Bases of Yoga Chapter 5.
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  Physical Consciousness, subconscious Sleep and Dream
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  Illness. Page One O 2.