Dreamless Sleep
"Witnessing in deep sleep or ... dreamless sleep was described ... as ... a feeling of infinite expansion and bliss". Among "witnessings" during sleep is included "witnessed dreamless sleep, a sort of expansive awareness, often described as "bliss."" We may "regard witnessed dreamless sleep as enlightened". "Then there is dreamless sleep, persistent through all sleep stages and different from mere dreamlessness because it is recallably conscious. ... It begins with an awareness that I am not dreaming, and I know that I am not awake. I become aware of a whirlpool of vast energy and sound -- rising and falling -- oscillating within itself. I experience it as a NATURAL part of myself ..., and at this point I have a strange awareness ... that this vast field of energy is who I really am. Through all this I don't forget who I am as a person, or the fact that I know I am not dreaming." "In Tibetan Buddhism, "dreamless sleep is described in term of a series of eight visual experiences, consisting only of light and darkness."
- "[... 1] ... an apparent lake in the desert"
- "[2] ... smoke"
- "[3] ... sparks"
- "[4] ... sputtering light"
- "[5] ... night sky"
- "[6] ... glaring ... sky"
- "[7] complete darkness"
- "[8] ... very bright lasting light"
"The fullness of light is an intense, vibrant white light filling the visual field ... It is accompanied by uncontrollable joy and devotion". "The expansiveness is one of light -- like the light of awareness."
Bibliography
- Anthony Shafton : Dream Reader : Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Dreams. Albany : State University of New York Press, 1995.