Sleep: Astral/Physical?
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Jul 19, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Is sleep a physical phenomenon or an astral one or both?
Even though I knew that sleep was a physical and an astral occurrence, I did not do research on this in mediation. Patanjali listed sleep as one of the five mento-emotional natural processes (vritti) of the ordinary awareness (citta). Something happened during meditation this morning that shed some light on this issue. It was a very tiny realization that I may have overlooked but I am glad that I discovered this.
Of course such discovering is usually inspired into the student’s mind by a yoga guru but when the guru acts in a subtle way, the student may fail to trace the inspiration. I would guess that this was inspired by Srila Yogeshwarananda.
So long as sleep is a necessity, categorizing it as an unwanted vritti is like fighting a losing battle. If it is a necessity, one will never get rid of it anyway. Thus Patanjali’s instruction about nirodhah or putting an end to it once and for all, would never be fulfilled.
If on the other hand Patanjali is correct, then sleep is not a necessity. Hence if it is a necessity it must be only a necessity for certain phases of the individual psyche. What are those phases? How can the individual transcend those completely? Does the yogi have to transit totally to other levels of existence abandoning this one, before experiencing the end of the sleep states?
This morning during meditation, for the first time while using this present body, I was able to observe objectively that the sleep of the physical body is a completely separate process to the sleep of the astral form.
I sat to meditate after doing a very intense breath infusion using bhastrika rapid breathing in various postures. In the subtle body in the trunk up the knees, in the neck and then in the head, I infused much fresh subtle energy, displacing all the stale used astral energy. When I sat to meditate, there was a pushing force coming from the front, pushing the physical form even, back to the wall. I was sitting in lotus posture with the lower back braced with a pillow, while the upper back was against a wall. The entire trunk of the body was being pressed in to the wall by the infused power of the breath infusion practice which I did just before sitting to meditate.
After observing that pushing force, I moved my attention to naad sound. Naad sound is my reference meditation focus. Naad sound was in the back right part of the head, further back than the right ear and up near the top of the head in the back.
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It sounded like trillions of crickets screeching in the dead of night with a clear treble sound mixture. I noticed that there was a node to the naad sound. When I tried to go to the node, I saw it through prana-vision as being of a nickel color shimmering. I adhered to the naad sound and was pinned to the top right side of the subtle head.
Node means an original point or area of origination of the sound, where it is the most intense.
After sometime, after about 40 minutes, I became aware of the physical body again but it was with the head of it bent forward. It was sleeping away. I was so objective to it, so separated out of it, that it seemed to be the sleeping body of another man. I then did the unusual, which was to let it remain sleeping away. And then I revised what happened before I entered the trance state.
This is a new procedure for me because usually I would just arouse the sleeping physical system. I feel that Srila Yogesh put some alert energy in my psyche which caused me to take this new action.
When I check through the occurrences of how I meditated, how I connected into naad sound and what happened from then onwards up to the point of again becoming aware of the physical body which was sleeping, I found that the physical body went to sleep while the subtle form remained interspaced in it but was displaced dimensionally from it.
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So what does this mean?
Usually the physical body does not fall asleep if one is sitting in lotus posture. Rarely does it do that. If however one has meditated in lotus for years, then it is likely that the physical body will get so used to that difficult pose, that it might fall asleep in it.
When I checked the record of what happened, I found that the subtle body had entered a higher dimension before the physical body fell asleep. When I returned to awareness of the physical system, I found it to be asleep and I aroused it. For me this is conclusive proof that the need for sleep in the physical system is completely different to the need for sleep in the subtle system, even though usually both bodies utilize sleep simultaneously.
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The contrast of it is dream states or astral projections during dream states. If there is a dream state, it usually occurs after both the astral and physical bodies sleep. In addition in that case the astral body sleeps first even if it is only a split second before the physical system sleeps. Nature’s system of sleep usually begins with the astral system sleeping first and then the physical system sleeps some split seconds after. In the experience this morning the physical system slept first and this is why I could review what happened.
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Usually the routine is like this:
Astral body sleeps
Physical body sleeps a split second after
Total unconsciousness of the subtle body (first phase)
Partial conscious of the subtle body in real or imagined dreamscapes
Total unconsciousness of the subtle body (second phase)
Awareness of a partially awake physical body
Fully awake physical body
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The unusual routine this morning was like this:
Astral body enters a higher dimension
Physical body sleeps
Astral body goes into various dimensional experiences with no awareness or recall of the physical body
Awareness of the partially awake physical body
Awareness of higher dimensional contact of the subtle body
Full awareness of the physical body with memory of the dimensional transits.
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Special Note:
I did have a similar experience some years ago around 1973, when I fell asleep at the wheel of a car. The car flipped into the air and then the subtle body separated completely from it. Then I looked down and saw the crumpled up physical body in the upturned crashed vehicle.
In that experience what happened was that the subtle body left the physical form as the physical form was falling asleep. Then when the car flew off a steep shoulder, the physical body was in full sleep, totally obvious of what was taking place. Because the subtle body had left the physical system and was awake outside of it, that subtle form saw what was happening but it did not feel any of the trauma of the physical body which was moving this way and that way in the spinning car. Seat belts were not in usage at the time.
When the car came to a standstill, then the astral form re-synchronized into the physical system and became aware of its condition in the smashed car.
Dear Beloved 3 years ago
This is a very significant experience that you had. Thanks for sharing it. I get this feeling from time to time when I lay down to sleep and I feel my body falling asleep but my inner psyche is still active. I also feel this if I am very tired especially in a meeting. My body will start to fall asleep but I remain conscious and I can observe this process.
Sounds like the many years of constant meditation paid off with this experience after you have become very comfortable in the lotus position. I'm encouraged by this. I think a similar state can occur if I wake early in the morning and then go back to sleep a couple hours later and have an out of body experience in the process. However, it's not linked with meditation in that state and the link to meditation is more controllable and valuable.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
It is a result of years of meditation practice and very minute observation of these states.
Such occurrences take place all the time but it is so flimsy and subtle that the gross consciousness which one is endowed with by nature, cannot detect it.
Thus one has to develop very subtle perception over time in meditation and then these experiences become available.
These experiences are not repeated unless one pushes the limit of subtle perception by more practice, otherwise it becomes a once in a life time type of experience.
unlimitedsun 3 years ago
So in the cases of lucid dreams or astral projections, the physical body is and remains sleeping as long as one is so called sleeping; what of the subtle body then?
So long as there is objectivity during sleep can we infer the subtle body is conscious therefore awake, albeit in a non-physical dimension?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
During sleep if there is conscious alertness on any other plane of existence, it means that the subtle body is objectively conscious there.
unlimitedsun 3 years ago
Being objectively conscious implies wakefulness. So those who are adept at dream lucidity and or astral projection while the physical body restores are certainly partially achieving sleeplessness as per Patanjali!
And it implies that at one point whether before or after the physical body fell into slumber, the astral body regained awareness (to a more or less degree) at less enough to recall the dream(s).
MiBeloved 3 years ago
That is true, that those who are adept at dream lucidity and/or astral projection while the physical body restores are certainly partially achieving sleeplessness as per Patanjali!
However, eventually one has to reach the stage where there is a clear segregation between the sleep of the astral body and that of the physical one. As it is this is confused, where one feels that one is the combination of both bodies and that the sleep has to do with one system only. One has to sort it out and keep it sorted, like two separate bank accounts.
This is in our interest because when the physical system is done, then there will be the one system only, so if we can identify for ourselves that one system which will continue after death of the physical body, we would be in a better position in the hereafter.
The challenge for the yogi is to find out why the subtle body sleeps and how to control that. The yogi should also try to remove those habits of the subtle body which causes it to sleep in low frequency astral energy.
Just as you do not want the physical body to sleep in a room which is poorly ventilated and has polluted gases, so you would not want the subtle body to doze in a place which has a low level of astral energy.
Yogic sleep has a special Sanskrit word called nidra but when it is swapna, then it is the low aspect type of astral sleep which is undesirable.
unlimitedsun 3 years ago
This is phenomenal! Although I don't understand "yogic sleep" per se.
Also, at the level of Siddha yoga it seems that the individual does not know sleep any longer, but only perpetual yoga - practice/ cognition!
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Whatever is within the consciousness of the creator deity Brahma will have to sleep, because the deity himself sleeps. A siddha yoga form also has to sleep.
It is a question of the quality of the sleep, regarding the energy used during sleep.
Yoga nidra concerns no use of the dulling mode of material nature which is tama guna or sleep in the mode of ignorance.
Some clarification of this is in the book Krishna Cosmic Body.
