SLEEP, DREAMS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

As many light snacks would actually be much better than three large meals a day, so short naps rather than such an extended period would also be more effective. There would be other benefits. The conscious self would recall more of its dream adventures as a matter of course, and gradually these would be added to the totality of experience as the ego thinks of it.

As a result of more frequent, briefer sleep periods, there would also be higher peaks of conscious focus, and a more steady renewal of both physical and psychic activity. There would not be such a definite division between the various areas or levels of the self. A more economical use of energy would result, and also a more effective use of nutrients. Consciousness as you know it would also become more flexible and mobile.

This would not lead to a blurring of consciousness or focus. Instead the greater flexibility would result in a perfection of conscious focus. The seeming great division between the waking and the sleeping self is largely a result of the division in function, the two being largely separated — a block of time being allotted to the one, and a larger block of time to the other. They are kept apart, then, because of your use of time.

(9:36.) Initially, your conscious life followed the light of day. Now with artificial light this need not be the case. There are opportunities here, then, to be gained from your technology that you are not presently taking advantage of. To sleep all day and work all night is hardly the answer; it is simply the inversion of your present habits. But it would be far more effective and efficient to divide the twenty-four-hour period in a different way.

You have trained your consciousness to follow certain patterns that are not necessarily natural for it, and these patterns increase the sense of alienation between the waking and dreaming self. To some extent you drug the body with suggestion, so that it believes it must sleep away a certain amount of hours in one block. Animals sleep when they are tired, and awaken in a much more natural fashion.

(9:52.) Your sense of time would also be less rigorous and rigid. Creative abilities would be quickened, and the great problem of insomnia that exists for many people would be largely conquered — for what they fear is often the long period of time in which consciousness, as they think of it, seems to be extinguished.

Now the period just before dawn often represents a crisis point for persons severely ill. Consciousness has been away from the body for too long a period, and such a returning consciousness then has difficulty dealing with the sick body mechanism. The practice in hospitals of giving drugs to patients so that they will sleep entirely throughout the night is detrimental for this reason. In many cases it is too great a strain on the part of the returning consciousness to take over again the ailing mechanism.

Such medications also often prevent certain necessary dream cycles that can help the body recuperate, and the consciousness then becomes highly disoriented. Some of the divisions between different portions of the self, therefore, are not basically necessary but are the result of custom and convenience.

This resulted in a mobility of consciousness that indeed insured his physical survival, and those intuitions that appeared to him in the dream state were remembered and taken advantage of in the waking state.

Now, many diseases are simply caused by this division of yours and this long period of bodily inactivity, and this extended focus of attention in either waking or dreaming reality. Your normal consciousness can benefit by excursions and rest in those other fields of actuality that are entered when you sleep, and the so-called sleeping consciousness will also benefit by frequent excursions into the waking state.

(10:10. Jane’s trance had been deep, her pace fast throughout. Yet she remembered some of the material, which usually isn’t the case. She hadn’t been reading about sleep recently. “The whole bit is far out to me,” she said. “I haven’t been entertaining any ideas like these, at least consciously.” Resume in the same manner at 10:22.)

The psychic centers would be activated more frequently, and the entire identity of the personality would be better strengthened and maintained. The resulting mobility and flexibility of consciousness would cause an added dividend in increased conscious concentration, and fatigue levels would always remain below danger points. A greater equalization, both physical and mental, would result.

If you do not understand that in periods of sleep your consciousness actually does leave your body, then what I have said will be meaningless. Now your consciousness does return at times, to check upon the physical mechanisms, and the simple consciousness of atom and cell — the body consciousness — is always with the body, so it is not vacant. But the largely creative portions of the self do leave the body, and for large periods of time when you sleep.

(10:39.) Some cases of strong neurotic behavior result from your present sleeping habits. Sleepwalking to some degree is also connected here. Consciousness wants to return to the body, but it has been hypnotized into the idea that the body must not awaken. Excess nervous energy takes over, and rouses the muscles to activity, because the body knows it has been inactive for too long and otherwise severe muscular cramps would result.

The same applies to your eating habits. By turn you overstuff and then starve the tissues. This has definite effects upon the nature of your consciousness, your creativity, your degree of concentration. Along these lines, for example, you do literally starve your bodies at night, and add to the aging of your bodies by denying them food throughout those long hours. All of this reflects upon the strength and nature of your consciousness.

The problems of senility would also be reduced, for stimuli would not be minimized for so long a time. And consciousness, with a greater flexibility, would know more of its own sense of joy.