The State of Conscious Sleep

One of the reasons that a seeker is advised to have the assistance of an experienced guide, or guru, in the spiritual path, is that it is easy to be confused about the real meaning of what is written in the texts. For instance, when we hear about the concept of ‘conscious sleep’ or we see Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita extolled as gudakesha, usually translated as ‘conqueror of sleep’, we tend to believe this implies staying awake, and strugglilng to not let the observing mind fall into a state of sleep. What generally results is a state of exhaustion as the body and mind do not get the opportunity to refresh and rebuild and the struggle itself leaves the seeker irritable, out of sorts and prone to making mistakes or having accidents. Some will push themselves to limits that their bodies and minds are simply not prepared to address and, instead of conquering sleep, they amplify its powers over the being.

So, what is intended by the concept of conscious sleep. The Mother speaks about infusing a state of awareness into the sleep state. We know, from the work of scientists and many anecdotal reports, that an individual can wake up from sleep with solutions to problems that seemed impossible to resolve when he went to bed. We also can experience a state of more conscious dreaming where we become fully aware of what is taking place in the dream state, even to the extent of actively involving oneself in the working out of the dream. Yogic practitioners speak of a practice called ‘yoga nidra’, or ‘yogic sleep’. These various experiences and practices provide a glimmer of insight into the question of conscious sleep. 

We often wonder what happens to our consciousness, to our awareness, during times of sleep. Where does it go? What does it do? Is it, as some have framed it, akin to the state of death? The question takes on most of its significance when we look at the matter as an individual, limited ego-personality with a specific self-awareness. When we look at the question from the larger sense of the universality of consciousness, however, we can recognise that sleep provides an opportunity for the consciousness to gather experience and move in other planes, other realms, other areas of experience. Some individuals report the sense of interacting with teachers, sages, gurus during the time they are asleep. In some cases they gain new understanding and insights from these interactions or teachings that occur during a time when the body is fully at rest and the mind is quiet, asleep. The method of extending consciousness into the sleep state without the struggle to artificially try to stay awake against the needs of the body and the mind for rest and regeneration, is based in the manner in which the individual approaches the state of sleep, the aspiration with which one enters into the state, and the quiet of the mind that maintains a state of receptivity. Over time, this approach of consciously entering into sleep with a quiet aspiration and awareness, will lead to a state of consciousness that can utilize the sleep-state and allow the body to awaken refreshed and energetic and the mind to have more focus and clarity for the daily waking awareness.

The Mother observes: ”For example, to take the most positively material things like food and sleep: it is quite possible that, if he has not taken care to infuse, as it were, his new consciousness into his body, his need for food and sleep will remain almost the same and that he won’t have much control over them. On the other hand, if he has taken care to unify his being and has infused his consciousness into the elements constituting his body, well, his sleep will be a conscious sleep and of a universal kind; he will be able to know at will what goes on here or anywhere, in this person or that other, in this corner of the world or any other; and his consciousness, being universal, will naturally put him in contact with all the things he wants to know. Instead of having a sleep that’s unconscious and useless, except from a purely material point of view, he will have a productive and altogether conscious sleep.”

“For food it will be the same thing. Instead of being a slave to his needs, usually in almost entire ignorance of what he needs, well, he will be perfectly conscious, at once of the needs of his body and the means of governing them. He will be able to control his needs and rule them, transform them according to the necessity of what he wants to do.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pp. 178-179