Process of waking and sleeping

In the daily alternating process of waking and sleeping in Man, the I and astral bodies ‘check in and out’ from physical and etheric bodies. Evolutionary this has not always been the case, as the length of day and night was very different in the Lemurian epoch and only stabilized during the Atlantean epoch. Also the nature of Man's consciousness during day and night experience evolved greatly (see eg Schema FMC00.475).

Aspects

Man's waking and sleeping as a cosmic breathing level, as part of the Earth’s daily rhythm
The integration of experiences over a three days period during sleep - see the process of Memory
Ahrimanic beings influencing Man while asleep - Irregular Moon/Mercury/Venus beings (1922-12-03-GA219)

Illustrations

FMC00.475 is a first version of a table to show the evolution of Man's consciousness experience across three epochs, showing alternation of waking and sleeping, a qualitative description of day and night consciousness as well as the experience during incarnation or between death and a new birth (based on1908-09-11-GA106 and 1908-09-12-GA106), and the evolution and individuation from group soul to the individual human I (based on 1908-06-01-GA102).

The current schema can be greatly improved upon as Rudolf Steiner gave many qualitative descriptions spread across the GA. The intention of this table is to initialize the idea and format, a next stage should further enrich the contents with (and truncate current texts to) more concise bullet point descriptions).

Schema FMC00.288 is a high level representation of

above: evolution of macrocosmos (solar system) and microcosmos (in this case Man's perspective as one of the spiritual hierarchies in development) - and especially the descent where Man received from the spiritual hierarchies, and the ascent in which Man starts to contribute and create, see Free Man Creator.
middle: the current situation with the cycle of reincarnation and descent into a human physical body (incarnate life, showing the seven year phases) and the life between death and a new birth, spent in the astral world and spirit world
below: our life of Earth is characterized by the daily cycle which is essential for understanding how Man 'functions' in terms of I-consciousness, sensory experience and incorporating life experiences between the different bodily principles (physical and etheric bodies, astral body and Human 'I').

Notes:

for a full systematic coverages with references, see 25920
see also Schema FMC00.327 on IAO
this is based on a very early schema of 2013, still to be extended with embedded schema numbers and enriched (eg above with FMC00.055). .

Lecture coverage and references

1915-08-27-GA163

is a lecture called 'Consciousness in sleeping and waking states'

It is quite natural, in considering the problem of waking and sleeping, to concern ourselves with questions of the difference involved in the two states of consciousness. For we have certainly learned from a great variety of studies that we are here dealing with different states of consciousness, so that the question of consciousness is the all-important one here. We must realize that our most important concern in dealing with this question is to base it on the matter of consciousness. We will have to ask ourselves what the real difference is between the waking and the sleeping states.
And this is what we find:

When we are awake — we need only to register what each one of us is conscious of — we look at the world around us and perceive it. And we will be able to say that when we are in the day- waking state, we cannot observe our own inner life as we do our surroundings. I have often called your attention to the fact of what a crude illusion it would be if we were to conceive of the study of anatomy as leading to observation of the inner man. Only what is external in us, though it lies beneath our skin, can be studied by material anatomy; our inner aspect cannot be studied during ordinary waking consciousness. Even what a person comes to know of himself while he is awake is the world's outer aspect, or, more exactly, that aspect of him that belongs to the external world.

But if we now observe the human being from the contrasting aspect of the sleeping state, its essential characteristic, as you can see from the various discussions that have previously taken place here, is that he is observing himself. While we are in that condition, the object of our attention is the human being; our consciousness is occupied with ourselves.

If you examine some of the most commonplace phenomena from this standpoint, you will find them readily comprehensible.
...
You can gather from what we have studied that sleeping consciousness is still at the stage that prevailed in man during the ancient sun period. It is the same consciousness we share with plants.
..
Now it becomes more and more important for people to learn how various conditions of consciousness provide insights for a study of life. Sleeping and waking are alternations in states of consciousness. But while sleeping and waking bring about sharply marked changes in our state of consciousness, smaller changes occur as well. Day-waking consciousness also has its nuances, some of which tend more toward sleep, others more toward the waking state.
We are all aware that there are individuals given to spending a large part of their lives not actually asleep, but drowsing. We say of them that they are “asleep,” meaning that they go through life as though in a dream. You can tell them something, and in no time at all they have forgotten it. We can't call it real dreaming, but things flit by them as though in a dream and are instantly forgotten. This drowsiness is a nuance of consciousness bordering on sleep. But if somebody beats another up, that is a nuance that goes beyond the state of ordinary sleep and doesn't remain just a mental image. Life presents a variety of nuances of consciousness; we could set up a whole scale of them. But they all have their own rightness.

1918-02-23-GA174B

when we dream of a deceased person, then this in very many cases (though of course not in all cases) stems from or originates from a real relationship to the person.

then is described how dreams of deceased are not messages from these, but relate to messaging in our subconscious and impulses in the phase of slumbering into sleep.

when we dream of a deceased person, then this means: we have in one of the previous days directed such thought to the deceased person consciously or unconsciously, as described before. This thought has found its way to the deceased person, and the dream shows us, that we have actually spoken with the deceased person [this way]. What the deceased person answers and communicates to us in return, these messages we only become in the moments of awakening.

1919-09-13-GA193

explains a secret that Rudolf Steiner states becomes quite important to become conscious of, and that is that Man has foresight at night on the happenings of the next day, but such that he doesn't have full consciousness of it. Man's angel though has full consciousness of this, and this encompasses the nightlly communion with one's angel.

This has nothing to do with being curious or nosy, but rather the preparation for and fruitful execution of the actions of the next day. Its meaning is that Man will have to learn to see his incarnate life between birth and death, as a continuation of the life of soul and spirit before his birth.

Hence the importance to be able to experience the emanation of the divine in his own being throughout its life, and it would be good that Man can be conscious and nurture the thought that his actions of the day have been discussed in advance in the time between going to sleep and waking.

1922-08-30-GA214

sketches Man during sleep, and describes the astral organs called Heart-eye to relate to the planetary worlds, and the Sun-eye to the Zodiac and world of the stars. The section below explains why, whereas mostly dreams are a mixture of elements of our subconscious without direct meaning but more often symbolic feelings-based contents, some dreams do contain some prescient meaning:

.. no sooner have you passed over into the condition of sleep than the part of your astral body which belongs in waking life to your heart, becomes for you an eye, — becomes, in very fact, what we may call a heart-eye; and with this heart-eye you ‘see’ what is now taking place. For present-day mankind, the perception is a very dim one. Nevertheless it is more assuredly there; the heart-eye perceives the experiences of this first sphere of sleep. Very soon after you have fallen asleep, the heart-eye begins also to look back at what has been left lying in bed. Your I and astral body look back with the heart-eye upon your physical and etheric bodies. And the picture of planetary movements that you are now experiencing in your astral body, rays back to you from your ether-body; you behold a reflection of it in your ether-body. Present-day man is so constituted that as soon as ever he wakes up, he immediately forgets the dim consciousness that he had in the night by means of his heart-eye. There are however, dreams in which we can catch, as it were, an echo of it. Such dreams are astir with an inner movement that is reminiscent of the planetary movements. Then into these dreams come pictures from real life; but that is only when the astral body has begun to dive down into the ether-body, which latter carries and preserves for us the memory of our life.

Compare this with the process of clairvoyant perception beyond waking consciousness, explained in 1914-10-04/5/6-GA156 on Stages of Clairvoyance.

1922-12-03-GA219

discusses Ahrimanic beings influencing man while asleep - Irregular Moon/Mercury/Venus beings

1923-05-02-GA224

describes the activity of the hierarchies in the human etheric body during sleep. Below is a structured outline of that lecture.

Consider the real nature of the etheric or vital body, not in abstract terms but by describing what we find with supersensible perception.

During sleep:

1/ Internal flows in the human being during sleep, etheric activity:

o As a person falls asleep and the functions of the physical body come to rest, the human etheric body becomes more active between falling asleep and awakening. When asleep, the etheric body becomes inwardly mobile and filled with lively activity. From the places where the sense-organs are located, a continuous lively activity streams inwards.

For example, the eyes darkened and closed, begin to glow and irradiate the interiar of the physical sleeping human being like two phosophorent suns. As a result, the inner human being becomes a mild glowing phosoporescent light (which however cannot be seen with the physical senses), the etheric body is radiant with light.
From the region of the organs of hearing he interior of man becomes filled with a humming murmur, like a resounding music in the etheric body, coming.
From the whole surface from the skin, etheric streams of warmth flow into the interior of man. The result is a beautiful living and streaming activity of the human etheric body.

o The I and astral body, outside of the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, receive stronge impressions from this (although all this happens unconsciously).

o And note it is this streaming (phosophorent glow, humming music, flooding warmth) that detaches itself a few days after man's death, as etheric body from the astral body and I, and flows out into the general cosmic ether.

o What was described above is external revelation, manifestation or emanation of spiritual beings; in reality this flowing warmth, this gentle phosphorescent glow, this living music, are an outer revelation of cosmic beings called SoF. In accordance with their inner nature they live in the shining stream which, during earthly sleep, flows from the human sense-organs towards the interior of man.

2/ The etheric organism of man consisting of flowing thoughts:

o Let us follow these streams of flooding etheric radiance inwards along their course into the interior of man's organism. The mild phosphorescent glow, proceeding from the eyes; the living music, which comes from the region of the organs of hearing; the streaming warmth, which goes inward from the whole surface of the skin — all these become an organically coherent etheric system.

(When one observes the waking human being, one sees the etheric body in activity — the physical body of course as well — and this activity is somewhat different from that I have described for sleep; the activity then extends a little outside the physical body.)

o All that streams and flows and shines inwards, from the senses and from the whole skin, is formed into a shell-like copy of man within him, extending to a certain depth. The streaming warmth goes inwards from the skin, attains a certain thickness like a shell, and forms the etheric organism of man which is compounded of the living music, the glowing light, the streaming warmth, intermingled with one another, flowing through one another, influencing one another mutually.

o This etheric organism consists of the forms of thoughts, of flowing thoughts. If one were to draw this continuous inner flow activity of the etheric body during sleep at a particular moment, one would draw coulored lines and forms that would represent flowing thoughts. It is the thought-process of the Universe individualised. This individualised thought-process of the Universe reveals itself as individualised Logos.

o This forming of thoughts streaming and weaving within man, connected with these movements shining in from the senses, is not just thought but it speaks. It speaks a human speech that is directed inwards, a silent language belonging to the interior of man. It speaks in an individual form, expressing in an inner Word, that can be perceived spiritually, the essential being of Man.

During sleep, the I and astral body of man (outside the physical and etheric bodies, and unconscious as far as the ordinary consciousness is concerned), experience what is happening. They experience the etheric body .. as individualised Logos.

Speech, which otherwise is directed outwards to the ears of our fellow men, is as if transformed, turned inwards etherically.

It is as if we were to repeat inwards everything which we have said during the day, from waking to falling asleep — but in the opposite order, beginning with the evening and ending with the morning. In a silent language we repeat all that we have said from morning to evening — but in a way that reveals the whole nature of our soul.

In so far as man's essential being is experienced in what is spoken, from morning to evening, this experience is manifested inwardly, from evening to morning, in the resounding, speaking, individualised Logos.

And this resounding, speaking, individualised Logos brings to expression at the same time — writing, as it were, into the time-sequence of the etheric, in that gleaming, gently phosphorescent light — the occult script corresponding to everything that works inwardly during the night, as the other side of what is spoken during the day.

(The same thing happens during every sleep, even during a daytime nap, but in a more fragmentary way.)

Looking at this still more closely, using the same methods through which the individualised Logos that weaves within man is revealed — seeking the ultimate reality, behind what is fundamentally only appearance — one finds all those hierarchical beings called in the anthroposophical writings SoM, who are above the SoF.

Thirdly — in this attempt to exercise the art of seeking the real being behind the words — we find the ultimate reality of what I once described as a kind of opposite vertebral column.

In describing the human etheric body .. it is described how the streams that compose the etheric body as a whole work together to form a structure that lies towards the front of man, just as in the physical body the bony structure of the vertebral column, and the vertebral canal, lie towards the back.

In the physical body we have this vertebral column and vertebral canal, running vertically.
And in the etheric body we have a confluence, a radiating together of what I have just described, into a kind of opposite vertebral column — lying in relation to the physical body towards the front.
And just as the nerves proceed from the physical vertebral column, and also the rib-bones, for example — in the same way the rays and the streams in the etheric body flow together into this other column. They do not proceed from it, but flow together and work together, with all that they contain, here in the front of the human etheric body.

The result is an exceptionally beautiful and impressive etheric organ. Particularly during sleep, it is revealed in its gleaming and glowing, its resounding and its manifold effects of warmth, its inner language.

And beholding it more closely, one can see that this organ permeates what I once described as the various Lotus-flowers. Thus you can realize how through this organ — which develops in this confluence of the etheric body, and connects with the streams of the astral body, forming the Lotus-flowers — man finds his connection with the external astral and cosmic universe.

This, too, is a manifestation and can be described as an appearance, and its true inner reality must be sought. This reality is found in the Hierarchy which in anthroposophical writings I have called the SoW.

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Rudolf Steiner's lectures:

Rudolf Steiner - selection of lectures: 'Sleep and Dreams - A Bridge to the Spirit' (selected and introduced by Michael Lipson) (2003)
Rudolf Steiner - selection of lectures: 'The night as a wellspring of strenght' (selected and introduced by Edward de Boer)

Dreaming and dreams

Anna Kingsford: Dreams and Dream Stories (1888)
- records of dreams, occurring during the last ten years, transcribed from diary
Phyllis L. Pipitone: 'The Inner World of Dreams' (1996) - freely downloadeable
Peter Fenwick: 'The Hidden Door: Understanding and Controlling Dreams' (1999)

Esoteric

Emil Stejnar: 'Träumen kann gefährlich sein' (2018)

Psychology and psychotherapy

just a selection (unqualified)

C.G. Jung: 'Dreams' (1974)
E.T. Gendlin: 'Let your body interpret your dreams' (1986)
L. Weiss: 'Dream analysis in psychotherapy (1986)
Clara E. Hill (editor): 'Dream Work in Therapy - Facilitating Exploration, Insight, and Action' (2003)

papers (freely downloadable on the web)

Nicholas Pesant, Antonio Zadra: 'Working With Dreams in Therapy: What do we Know and What Should We Do?' (2004)
Herma Reeskamp: 'Working with Dreams in a Clinical Setting' (2006)
Clara Hill, Michele Schottenbauer, Patricia T. Spangler, Wonjin Sim, Jingqing Liu: 'Working with dreams in psychotherapy: What do psychoanalytic therapists report that they do?' (2008)
Clara Hill, Sarah Knox: 'The Use Of Dreams In Modern Psychotherapy' (2010)

various

The International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD); founded in 1983, originally named the Association for the Study of Dreams; publisher of 'International Journal of Dream Research'

Lucid dreaming

The two books with (*) are by two pioneers and are recommended reading if one has to choose a book to start.

Oliver Fox (pseudonym for Hugh George Callaway, see also OBE)
- Dream-travelling: Some Additional Notes. (1923 in The Occult Review 38: 332-338)

Stephen LaBerge
- Lucid Dreaming: The power of being aware and awake in your dreams (1985)
- Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming (1990) (*)
- Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in your Dreams and in your Life (2009)
Robert Waggoner
- The Lucid Dreaming Pack: Gateway to the Inner Self (2008) (*)
- Lucid Dreaming, Plain and Simple: Tips and Techniques for Insight, Creativity, and Personal Growth (2015)
Thomas Peisel, Dylan Tuccillo, Jared Zeizel: 'A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics (2013)
Daniel Love: 'Are You Dreaming?: Exploring Lucid Dreams: A Comprehensive Guide' (2013)