- Ramana Maharshi
Every twenty-four hours we cycle through three basic states of consciousness. We experience the waking state primarily during the day and at night we experience the dream state and the state of deep dreamless sleep. It is generally assumed that we spend a third of our lives sleeping. Some people resent this thinking of all the wasted time when they could be doing something productive. Others of us wouldn’t mind a little extra time to sleep and dream. In any case, sleep and dreams are necessary for our physical and psychological health.
Sleep research differentiates these three states as waking, REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and NREM sleep. REM sleep is associated with intensive dream activity. Although there are sometimes dreams in NREM sleep, it is generally a deeper state of rest in which there is sparse mental activity. As Jayne Gackenbach, Ph.D. writes in The Emerging Mind
, “In brief, the function of REM sleep is information processing, and the function of NREM sleep is body maintenance.” Depth psychologists know that dreams reveal unconscious drives and motivations. While the ego dominates waking consciousness, it gives way to a deeper connection with the unconscious mind in dreams and sleep. In sleep states we are connected, not just with the personal unconscious but possibly with the transpersonal or collective unconscious as well.There are of course other states of consciousness generally described as altered states. These include peak experiences, religious experiences, drug states and meditative states among others. Psychiatrist John E. Nelson, M.D., in Healing the Split
, suggests that we can understand psychosis as an altered state of consciousness as well. There is perhaps a thin line between madness and mystical exaltation. A principal difference might be that while psychosis comes unbidden, perhaps as the result of extreme stress or of a genetic predisposition, mystical experiences generally come through the practice of disciplines designed to cultivate them, such as yoga. Of course, there also seems to be some overlap between mystical experience, psychosis and psychedelic or “entheogenic” drug experiences.Yoga and Vedanta pose the question though, “Who is it that ultimately experiences the varied states of consciousness?” In other words we seek to find the basic substratum from which various states arise. In the Yoga Sutras this basic substratum is referred to as drashta, the “seer” or inner witness. The inner witness is the basic condition by which all states are states of “consciousness.” There is ultimately an aware being present and consistent throughout all changing states. In the Upanishads this inner being is referred to as atman, which is often translated as the “Self.” The Self or atman is our deeper authentic being rather than our ego-personalities which are primarily a feature of our waking state of consciousness.
Because it is other than the ego, this substratum of awareness is referred to as “not-self” in Buddhist terms. Through the doctrine of anatta, or not-self, Buddha took pains to remind us that we cannot associate this deeper awareness with our individual ego identities. It is an expansive, all inclusive awareness which cannot be identified as any limited construct, idea or concept. It is important to remember as we engage in the practice of yoga that while the ego itself is associated with the idea of “I, me and mine,” our deeper being is unconcerned with these limited attributes.
Yoga suggests that one way to experience our inner being is to enter consciously into dreams and deep sleep. The Mandukya Upanishad gives us a succinct overview of this approach. The Mandukya is one of twelve “major” Upanishads which are some of the earliest written texts of the Yoga tradition. They represent the teachings of the earliest masters of this mystical yoga; spiritual pioneers who explored consciousness to the point of Self-realization (or “not-self” realization.) One of my favorite English translations and commentaries is The Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
. The central message of the Upanishads is that the atman, our inner being or awareness, is essentially inseparable from Brahman, the Universal Being or Consciousness. The Mandukya Upanishad tells us that it “lies beyond past, present and future.” Our innermost being is beyond space and time. It is eternal, immortal, omniscient and omnipresent. Our limited body-minds are the product of limited expression of this greater being. Long before Einstein theorized that space and time are actually aspects of a four-dimensional continuum, the sages of the Upanishads understood that space and time are actually limiting constructs or categories originating in a timeless, hyperspatial being of Consciousness. A potential new paradigm is currently arising from the discoveries of relativity and quantum mechanics which supports this ancient view. As physicist Peter Russell writes in From Science to God
, “While the old meta-paradigm saw conscious as rising from space and time, the new meta-paradigm sees space and time rising from Consciousness.” According to the Upanishad, sleep and dreams are essential to understanding how this process occurs. It occurs through the involvement or association of consciousness with the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. In the waking state consciousness is turned outward, or perhaps more accurately “projected outward.” In the waking state we are aware of the world of the five senses and either unaware or only vaguely aware of our inner being. In the dreaming state we are aware of mental patterns composed of memory and desire. In deep sleep dreams and desires fade into a state of deep peace and inner unity. In deep sleep there is no desire, no hatred and no suffering. The only problem is that we are not aware! The Mandukya Upanishad tells us that if we could only become aware within the state of deep dreamless sleep it would, “open the door to abiding joy.”
Within and beyond these three states is the inner witness. It is experienced in and of itself as non-dual consciousness in a fourth state of consciousness, called turiya, which is known only to mystic-yogis. Turiya is actually comprised of a continuity of awareness through the three states and represents an awakening to the deeper Self present within and beyond them. As the Upanishad states per Easwaran’s translation:
The fourth is the superconscious state called
Turiya, neither inward nor outward,
Beyond the senses and the intellect,
In which there is none other than the Lord.
He is the supreme goal of life.
He is infinite peace and love. Realize him!
While we are normally preoccupied with the world of the waking state and therapists are often intrigued by dreams, Yoga tells us that it is actually in the deepest state of dreamless sleep that we discover the reality of our beings – if only we would awaken.
, “Yoga helps us to develop the ‘witness position’ – the ability to stand back and get a new view of events, situations and even our own thought patterns. Then we can question the real truth of all of our valued opinions and decide if we should keep them or not.”
, he writes, “The local mind is personal and individual to each of us. It holds our ego, the self-defined “I” that wanders through the world a slave to our conditioned habits. By its very nature the local mind separates us from the rest of creation. It puts up thick, artificial boundaries that many of us feel compelled to defend, even when this means cutting ourselves off from the deeper meanings and joyous connections that come from feeling part of the universal.” It may not seem like it at first, but the inner witness is actually the presence of the universal consciousness within us. 
, Ken Wilber writes about the possibility of “subject permanence,” a concept developed by Charles Alexander based on his research into the developmental stages of consciousness through meditation. Subject permanence is a higher developmental stage which can be compared to “object permanence,” as identified by Piaget. Just as object permanence represents an important stage of cognitive development in the infant, subject permanence represents an important stage of mature consciousness development. Writes Wilber: