SLEEP & DREAMS
                        By Ullasa Mihira

Sleep and wakefulness are not polar opposites, but states of consciousness; something in us is aware of both these states though the normal tools awareness, sense perceptions, are suspended during the state of sleep. Though the body and the world of phenomena are physically present neither of them exists to our subjective consciousness when we are asleep. Consequent on the withdrawal of the senses our sense of identity is also temporarily kept on hold. Our experience of the ‘otherness’ of the external world is owing to the ‘otherness’ posited by the eyes that look out. Eyes cease to see during sleep. This is tantamount to the outerworld ceasing to exist. In other words, the net result of sleep is that the body is neither aware of itself nor of the surrounding world. The strangest thing is that a man gets up from the sleep with his identity fully intact and resumes his life from where he left off. This mysteriously continual memory we have whether from childhood to youth to oldage or from the pre-sleep to post-sleep states, is a clear indication that there is a plane of consciousness within us which is changeless. This makes one wonder about the possible contact point between this ever alert consciousness operative both in the sleeping wakeful states and the bodily consciousness blocked during the sleeping state. The crux of the problem is : ‘which of the above two is our true self ?’ The answer to this helps to clarify our understanding of the doctrines of karma and eincarnation. If karma is to be understood as the reaping of the results of one’s own actions and thoughts then one’s identity as necessarily to be with the outward-turned-consciousness of the wakeful state. Another dimension of complexity lies in the inexplicable gap between the remembrance of the peace. Restfulness which deep sleep leaves in its wake and the inability to either recall or draw upon that aspect of ‘divinity’ discovered during dreamless sleep. If a recollection is possible it will engender right thinking which in turn will give rise to right action. Since right actions are the seeds for a better life according to the reincarnation theory “sleep” to be seen not just as a biological process but as a gateway to yet to be apprehended metaphysical issues. 

The experiences we have in dreams belong to a realm that has no exact correspondence with the experiences we undergo in the physical world when we are wide awake. In sleep the body is inert. The senses are withdrawn. But in dreams all sensory perceptions, sight, hearing smell, taste, touch have a free reign. This proves that there is a plane of consciousness in us that can experience mind-generated bodily sensations without the agency of a body. Next comes the question of duration of experience in the dream state and the annihilation of all experience during the dreamless state. What is experienced as lasting for a few minutes during a dream may in times of physical, time last a few hours or even days or months (Like a journey to another country). Modern Science which can measure Space-Time come up with a universally uniform Table of equivalence between clock Time and the condensed Time of dreams. Whether dreams are the surfacing of a subliminal desires suppressed during the wakeful state or mental constructs or fantasies created by a hyperactive imagination, they are valuable as indices of human psychology. With the current widespread acceptance of what once was an exclusively Indian approach of treating psychology as a branch of philosophy, dreams are no longer considered the aberrations of the Id. Their evasive nature is seen now as a re-enactment, on a different plane, of the human drama, which is in itself a construct of the cosmic mind.