chapter 7 Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Meditating

When I was a child I used to try to catch the exact moment when I would slip from waking to sleep—only to wake up hours later, disappointed that I had somehow missed it. Later, I found out that paying close attention to that transition phase is one of the practices of the Tibetan Buddhist yoga of dreams. What we call the ordinary or waking state (the “baseline state,” in terms of the heuristic model) may also be called, as Charles Tart has pointed out, the “consensual” state, because we orient ourselves and navigate our way through space and time using the consensual reality models of our culture. We may think of the waking state as the functional state, when we are most attuned to the time-and-space dimension of reality.

The functional waking state, like all states of consciousness, involves a period of time demarcated by two transitions—waking up and falling asleep. This waking state alternates with the sleep state for the two phases of the diurnal cycle. Like all forms of life, whether animal, plant, fungal, or cellular, our human organism is embedded in a circadian rhythm (approximately twenty-four hours) as the part of the Earth we inhabit turns toward or away from the Sun. Melatonin, the sleep hormone, is secreted from the pineal gland as the daylight dims and the vegetative nervous system moves into parasympathetic restorative mode. As the dawn returns, melatonin levels decline and adrenaline and various corticosteroids fuel sympathetic activation for daytime activity, effort, and movement. Of course, these basic alternating cycles of sleep and wakefulness can be, and often are, modified intentionally by the demands of work, and may be disrupted by stress. But as research studies have found, even people isolated in lightless caves for long periods still tend to sleep for roughly equivalent amounts of time.

The phase transitions, “falling asleep” and “waking up,” are described consistently in different languages using implicit spatial metaphors that capture something of the experience of those transitions. Why is it we don’t ever say, or subjectively feel, that we “wake down” or “rise asleep”? In German, aufwachen (“open-waking”) and einschlafen (“in-sleeping”) suggest a flowerlike opening and closing. In French, s’endormir also points to the reflexive, inward movement into sleep; and se reveiller (“to reveal oneself”), the opening, expansive movement into wakefulness. When I open my eyes and wake up, awareness expands, relative to the dream-sleep world I was in before: here is my body, in my bed with my partner, in my room, in the house where I live; and outside the window is the garden, the street, the larger world. The private, inner world of sleep and the idiosyncratic reality of dream-time recede as our senses open, ready for functioning in the time-space reality.

The transition from sleep to wakefulness is one of the exemplary metaphors for the heightened or expanded spiritual awareness of Zen masters, yogis, and mystics. This metaphor implies an important philosophical worldview: the view that our perception of reality, our ordinary awareness of the world, is a kind of dream, illusory and transient. In Buddhism, as well as in Vedanta and Yoga psychology, what we think of as the ordinary waking-state consciousness is called avidya, a “not-knowing” or unconsciousness. The not-knowing is not the ignorance of this or that information, but rather an unconsciousness of our true spiritual essence. When we awaken in this spiritual sense, we become more aware of the actual larger world around us, as well as more in tune with the essential spiritual core of our being. As the Katha Upanishad states, “That being who is awake in those that sleep…that is Brahman, that is called the Immortal” (Metzner, 1998).

The phase transition from the waking into the sleep state has much in common with the transition we call dying—including the prone and passive posture of the body. In Greek mythology, Hypnos (god of sleep) and Thanatos (god of death) were twin brothers, their dark robes and wings symbolizing the closing of our perception of the outer world and the release from body awareness, common to both transitions.

The Ultradian Cycle in Sleep and Wakefulness

Modern sleep researchers have identified four stages of sleep, with characteristically different EEG waves patterns: it takes progressively longer to awaken someone from the deeper stages, with lower-frequency, higher-amplitude EEG. The sleeping brain descends through the stages in about thirty to forty minutes, then re-ascends through stages three and two and enters a ten-minute period of REM (rapid eye movement) dreaming sleep—almost to wakefulness. The entire sleep-dream cycle, called ultradian, takes about ninety minutes, and is repeated four or five times during the night.

The REM stage of dreaming sleep has higher-frequency EEG waves similar to the waking state, but the electromyography (EMG) records no movement. This correlation supports the idea that during REM dreaming sleep the brain is sorting through and processing perceptions and thoughts, while the body musculature is safely passive. It was the discovery, in the 1950s, that measurable rapid eye movements (REM) were correlated with the dreaming phase of sleep, as well as distinctive brain-wave patterns (EEG), that led Western science to first establish that these were two distinctly different states of consciousness.

In the ancient Indian Vedanta and Yoga teachings the distinctiveness of dream-sleep and deep sleep was already recognized on the basis of systematic introspections. According to these teachings, in the dreaming phase (svapna), the mind is occupied with interior thoughts and images; and in deep sleep (sushupti), we are totally absorbed in the transpersonal, spiritual realms, and rarely remember anything. A fourth state of consciousness, turiya, is recognized in Indian yoga—and said to be a state of meditative oneness, akin to samadhi.

From the perspective of Western psychology, these four basic common states can be understood in terms of different configurations of attention. In the waking state, we focus perception on the sense objects of the external world, and the inner world sensorium is background (though strong internal sensations, vivid feelings, or persistent thoughts may capture our attention). In the relaxed, meditative state, when the eyes are typically closed, this figure-ground relation is reversed: the inner world sensorium (e.g., the flow of breath, the stream of thoughts and feelings) becomes the foreground of attention, and external sense objects become background (again, unless disrupted by a strong stimulus such as a loud noise). In the dream state, with the outer world more or less completely closed out, the figural focus is on visual imagery and emotions, and other aspects of the inner sensorium are background. In the non-dream sleep state, the selectivity of focus is suspended and everything is reduced to background.

The ninety-minute ultradian cycle, associated with dream and non-dream sleep, has also been observed to occur during the daytime waking state. When people were asked to write down their thoughts and images every ten minutes, it was found that roughly every ninety minutes, ideation became more fantastic, less reality-focused, more dreamlike and diffuse (Osowiec, 2000). People in meetings start to look out the window or daydream about their vacations or their lovers. There is evidence that during the dream-trance part of the cycle, the right cerebral hemisphere, the one concerned with imagery more than language, is more activated.

There is an interesting parallel to these research findings on the ultradian cycle in the tantra yoga teaching of two energy channels (nadis) and the innate cycle of alternate nostril breathing. There are said to be two subtle energy channels, ida and pingala, coiling like two snakes around the central channel (sushumna), which is aligned with but not identical to the spinal column. The left channel, ida nadi, carries cooling, relaxing, moist, and lunar energy; we activate it by breathing through the left nostril, which energizes the whole left side of the body and therefore also the right brain hemisphere. The right channel, pingala nadi, carries warming, stretching, dry, and solar energy; we activate it by focusing breath through the right nostril.

In tantra yoga practice, you try to consciously balance the energy flow through the two side channels and the central vertical axis for improvement in health and well-being. Unconsciously, in turning from one side to the other while sleeping, the breath and the energy flows more on the side that is uppermost—thus balancing the ultradian cycle of alternate nostril breathing.

Brain Wave Variations in the Waking State

With the discovery and application of EEG biofeedback technology, four different phases within the waking state have been identified as well, correlated with distinct brain-wave frequency patterns. A calm, eyes-closed, meditative state is associated with brain waves in the 8 to 13 cps (cycles per second) range, called alpha. When people are given auditory feedback of the presence of alpha waves, they can readily learn to put themselves into a calm, meditative state. With deeper concentrative absorption, more coherent alpha frequencies are recorded from different areas of the brain. When people are functioning in the regular, eyes-open, thinking and imaging mode, irregular, mixed frequencies in the beta range, above 13 cps, are recorded. With experienced meditators doing complex visualizations and insight meditations, coherent brain waves in the high beta range (40+ cps, also called gamma waves) can be observed. With meditation practice, as well as with brainwave biofeedback training, individuals can learn to maintain their focus in one particular frequency band and state for longer periods of time.

Brain waves in the theta frequency range (4–8 cps) are associated with the semiconscious transitional phase traditionally called twilight sleep or waking dream, where unusually rich imagery may drift through mental space while the body is virtually immobilized. Some artists and inventors obtain creative inspirations from this state, and healing imagery can occur as well, though it is hard to maintain as one tends to drift off into the delta range of the slower frequencies (0.5–4 cps) of deeper sleep. Brain waves in the theta and delta range are recorded in stage one of the sleep cycle as we descend, and during REM sleep as we partially reemerge from the dreamless sleep of stages two, three, and four. In any particular individual recording of brain-wave patterns, mixed frequencies may occur, along with bursts of coherence, which suggests that the different levels of sleep depth merge and drift into one another.

What Do Dreams Mean?

Neuroscientists studying the brains of humans and other mammals have emphasized the physiological restorative and biochemical rebalancing functions of sleep. Consolidation of daytime learning and reprocessing of perceptual memories may also be occurring while the sensorimotor systems are quiescent. Indeed, enhanced learning and cognitive problem solving after sleep has been demonstrated in laboratory studies. Dreams, from this reductionist perspective, are viewed as the incoherent residual detritus of daytime reality focus, a meaningless waste-stream of discarded thought fragments.

On the other hand, depth psychologists have seen dreams, in Freud’s words, as “the royal road to the unconscious.” A vast literature on the interpretation of dream symbolism and on working with dreams in psychotherapy exists, with Freudians focusing on how dream imagery reflects our sexual and aggressive conflicts, and Jungians broadening the scope to recognize creative inspirations and spiritual visions coming into consciousness through dreams. For myself, the visions and insights I’ve received through dreams have been at least as meaningful, varied, and innovative as those received from psychedelic drug states. For some visions I’ve had, I can’t remember anymore whether they came to me in a dream, a psychedelic state, or a meditation. In all cases, I do not take the images or visions received at their face value, but rather use further reflection and divination to discern their meaning and relevance.

Most Western dream theories, including even the Jungian, regard the imagery and visions received in dreams as being creations of the human unconscious, whether personal or collective archetypal. Here is the big dividing line between the Western scientific worldview and the worldview of indigenous, shamanistic societies: in the latter, dreams and the beings we encounter in them can be as real as the beings we encounter in the waking state of ordinary reality.

In some shamanistic societies, such as the Australian aboriginals, dream reality (or dreamtime, as they call it) is considered more real—in fact, it is considered the originating source of the reality we encounter in the waking state. For example, women and men may connect in dreamtime at conception with a child that intends to be born into their family. Dreams are, like shamanic drumming journeys, among the ways in which shamans might obtain diagnostic information about a patient. Among the Pomo Indians of Northern California, for example, a healer, such as the revered elder Essie Parrish, might listen to their client’s request and then tell them to come back the next day or in a couple of days, giving the healer some nights for diagnostic dreams.

Probably because of my contact with shamanic practitioners as well as with yogic practices, my own worldview has evolved over time. When I dream of meetings with friends, teachers, or colleagues, I hold these in my mind either (a) as memories of meetings in the waking state, or (b) as anticipatory visions of meetings and conversations to come, or (c) as encounters with the soul or spirit of that individual. I’ve also practiced, and continue to practice, personal problem solving or divination through dream incubation: before going to sleep, I hold the question in my mind, and that set or intention then provides clues to the interpretation of the dream’s symbolism. Many artists and scientists have reported obtaining inspiration for their art or insight for their research interests in dreams.

The occurrence of telepathy in dreams was demonstrated in an experimental setting in studies by Montague Ullman and Stanley Krippner (Ullman and Krippner, 1974). In these experiments, a person sitting in a room adjacent to where a subject was sleeping would look at a picture and intentionally “send” the image to the sleeper. The matches between the dream imagery and the picture, evaluated independently, were statistically significant. Some time ago, my friend Stanley Krippner was giving a talk at the Esalen Institute about his dream telepathy research. I was scheduled to come and join the group at Esalen as well. On the night before I drove to Esalen from San Francisco, I dreamed of some horses galloping out of the sea. This was in fact the theme of one of the pictures from Krippner’s research that he had presented to the group at Esalen, as I found out later.

Friendship and close personal relationship between individuals facilitates the occurrence of telepathic and precognitive dreams. There are numerous anecdotal accounts of precognitive warning dreams: for example, a woman dreams the plane her husband is scheduled to take will crash, and thus is able to warn him. Through my own repeated experiences, I’ve come to the view that many of our dreams are anticipatory visions or rehearsals of our probable futures, perhaps as often as they are the reprocessing of the events and memories of our past.

In dreams, as in other altered states, we are released from the strict confines of the time-space level of reality: we can visit and converse with a beloved person who lives thousands of miles away, and it takes no real time to travel there. Indeed, we can have meaningful dream encounters and conversations with persons who are “dead” in the physical world, but living in the inner dimensions or spirit world. Like closeness, distance in dreams is emotional distance and can be bridged by affinity, by desire and longing.

In recent years, the phenomenon of dream lucidity, knowing that you are dreaming while in the dream, has attracted a great deal of attention. The psychologist Stephen LaBerge and others have developed training programs to enhance dream lucidity. LaBerge also invented a biofeedback device that gives the sleeper a signal that REM is occurring, thus facilitating awakening in the dream—but not from the dream. Lucid dreams are often associated with flying dreams—both are states where we can move intentionally in another dimension of reality (LaBerge and Rhinegold, 1990).

As I pointed out in chapter 3, lucid dreaming relates to ordinary dreaming the way mindfulness relates to the ordinary waking state. Lucidity in dreams, like mindfulness in the waking state, affords more choice and more possibilities. The most commonly experienced moments of dream lucidity occur when we realize that a painful or unpleasant experience we are having is a dream—and promptly exit from the nightmare.

Here is the point where lucid dreaming work converges with yogic dream practices. In Buddhism the term for a state of consciousness is bardo—which literally means “between phase.” As we have seen, every state of consciousness is defined by its transition points in the timestream. In Vedanta and in Yoga, as in Western psychology, four different common states are identified—waking, meditation, dreaming, and non-dream sleep.

In Buddhism, the sleeping and dreaming states are combined and, along with the meditation state, make up the three bardos that we cycle through all our lives between birth and death. (In addition to those three, there are three other bardos, or intermediate states, between death and rebirth, that are spoken of in The Tibetan Book of the Dead.) There is a text by the great fifth-century Indian philosopher Naropa called the The Yogas of the Six Bardos, which describes the practices by means of which one can attain enlightenment or liberation from each of the six bardo states (Wangyal, 1998).

In this text by Naropa, there are verses epitomizing the yogic liberation practice for each of the six bardos. Here is my version of the yogic prayers for the three common bardo states of daily life.1

Now that the bardo of waking life has dawned upon me,

Developing awareness without distraction,

I will listen, reflect, and meditate,

As I pursue the path to enlightenment,

Through investigation of the nature of perception and mind.

Now that I have come into human form,

I will not waste this lifetime in idleness.

Now as I enter the bardo of dreaming,

I will abandon corpse-like unconscious sleeping,

Keeping awareness mindfully in its natural state.

Lucidly recognizing dreams, I practice the transformations;

Avoiding the unconsciousness of animal sleep,

I practice merging dreaming and waking consciousness.

Now as I enter the bardo of deep meditation,

I will try to let go of all distractions and illusions,

And focus with complete concentration in the unitive state.

I will visualize clearly while moving through the stages.

Meditating and leaving aside all mundane concerns,

I will not succumb to craving or anger.

Practices for Working with Dreams and Sleep

1. Monitoring your sleep cycle and eliminating sleep debt.

Many researchers believe that a large majority of people in modern societies suffer from cumulative sleep deprivation, leading to waking-state accidents and lost productivity. The simplest way to eliminate sleep debt is to arrange your schedule so you can wake up without an alarm clock. Judicious use of melatonin, the sleep hormone, can help reset the sleep cycle after periods of stress or travel.

2. Increasing dream recall.

Right-brain dream images have to be translated into usable verbal, left-brain form. Have paper, pencil, and a tiny flashlight by your bedside to record dreams when you emerge from REM periods (without disturbing your partner). Don’t censor what you’re recording—you can sort out meanings later. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep—the focusing needed for recall is difficult if the brain is fatigued. Affirm your intention and request for dream memory as you go to sleep. Use of melatonin, galantamine, and/or vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) increases dream recall for some people. Alcohol or cannabis before bedtime decreases it for most people.

3. Using dream incubation and divination to work with your dreams.

Asking for a dream related to a current problem or question in your life can be part of the intention or incubation as you transition into sleep. Having posed such a question beforehand will also be helpful in interpreting the symbolism of the dream. Assume that the dreams are messages sent to your personal ego-self from your Higher Self or Dream-Weaver in response to your implicit or explicit need or request. Ask yourself how the dream could relate to your current life concerns. Notice your feeling mood as you emerge from the dream state.

4. Consider whether your dream is related to the past or future.

Your dream imagery and story may be pointing you to the causes, origins, or underlying issues of a problem or an illness or a conflict. Dreams of creative activity may be visions sent by the Dream-Weaver to inspire you. Or dreams may help prepare you for something new or warn you of some approaching challenge or danger. Keep in mind that future dreams or visions don’t usually come with a date-stamp attached. They provide unparalleled access to the realms of consciousness beyond the time-space world of our functional waking-state reality—where past, present, and future coexist in a timeless matrix of interconnections.