On Feb 25, 2008, at 3:01 PM, ruthsimplicity wrote:
I still want someone to tell me what they believe are the signs of
"witnessing" sleep. Whatever the stage of the sleep.
Vaj?
The witnessing of waking, sleeping and dreaming parallel the
meditative states of the calm state (no thought, dreamless
witnessing), movement of thought (dream state fabricating itself from
thought forms) and collapse of dream/dreamless back to waking (or the
death of waking into sleep). There are "sandhis" or "gaps" in the
transitions between these and very similar or the same as "dying". The
witnessing in deep sleep is like awareness witnessing a void, although
that dualistic witnessing can be further relaxed and it unifies into a
kind of 'luminous vacuity' where you simply rest, awake, aware. If you
can relax even further, you can see thoughts begin to shatter the
surface of the calm and dreams emerge into existence. If you relax
enough the state of luminous vacuity or clear light, the state of
unification pervades all the states and you watch thoughts emerge,
come and then go. Dreams become very under control--if you want to
meditate for hours, you can--and only a couple of minutes will pass in
"waking time". Some people will use it to gain tomes of knowledge or
simply to get answers to pressing questions or situations. If you are
able to relax enough to actually go through the "death" of falling
asleep and embrace the spheres of dreaming and deep sleep by expanding
beyond them, you remain aware, seamlessly enjoying the whole cycle.
The added advantage is resting in the bliss sheath of deep sleep is
somehow miraculously healing and rejuvenating. You awake as if cleaned
from the inside out, clean and clear.
And the interesting thing? You know that grogginess of emerging from a
nights sleep? Not only is it totally gone, there's no gap or seam at
all between sleeping and arising.
Some styles of witness, those associated with the head chakras can be
too "bright" for some people. If they fall into this type of witness,
it can develop into a sleep disturbance as it doesn't keep you wide
awake, but it doesn't let you fall into real deep sleep either. In a
case like that, I just place awareness in the hridayam and gently fall
asleep as I was taught. Not nearly as "bright" and supports deep sleep
easier. Once I get some rejuvenation, then I can raise it to the head
centers again and you can integrate the motion aspect (of thought
energy). The heart center tends to habituate for the calm state and
deep sleep, the head centers for "movement" of thought.
