"In other words, is deep sleep the absence of awareness or the awareness of absense?" Nice.

I love sleep. I’m disappointed when I awake at times.

Dennis Waite states: "In deep sleep, you do not experience anything. But this is because there is 'nothing' to experience, not because ‘you’ have disappeared. You see neither external world (because the senses are inactive) nor internal thoughts (because the mind is inactive). But the Self that is the witnessing Consciousness in deep meditation is still present in deep sleep. It never ‘sleeps’ (or dies) because it is the only thing that really exists. It is who you really are."

It is not the awareness of the deep sleep that makes you feel 'rested', but the relaxed feeling after a deep sleep. So it is not a memory, but an observation AFTER sleeping. And an assumption that it is because of the deep sleep.

This is such a deep truth, it's something that keeps dawning on you, the more you think about it and experience it. Amazing. Thank you Rupert.

Thank you sir for your time and teaching 🙏

Thank you! I've been pondering this question for months. The words are now pointing somewhere. I now know where to look and experience this for myself.

You're teachings are perfect, thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you Rupert Spira Sir. Your insights are astounding

Such a great teaching. Lots of pranam to enlightened yogi like you.🙏🙏🙏🙏

When I was a child I feared sleep and the loss of my self, of death.

Excellent direct teaching that clarifies alot of misconceptions and confusion.

Brilliant 🙏🏼🙏🏼 Beautiful and Big Thanks

This answer/understanding was profound for “me”.

The clarity and elegance in this is beautiful!

just a simple investigation close ur eyes, are you there? close ur ears, are you still there? stop your thoughts, still u exist? forget about the body, are still there? if your answere is yes to all that, then thats what hapens in deep sleep.

Brilliant talk.

Thanks for posting this. I have had this question for a long time. To answer “did you sleep well?” why can’t you base how rested you feel presently?

You answer that you slept well because you wake up feeling rested and refreshed. That is my question as well.

Brilliant, as per. My book arrived today 👍🏼

Impresionante!!! Muchísimas gracias

I take issue with this explanation of deep sleep though. When I awake, I decide whether I slept well or not on of I feel *in the present*. If I feel refreshed, I assume I slept well; if I'm tired or stressed, I don't. I have no memory - except occasionally for dreams - of how deep sleep feels. I do know that I can't remember consciousness either disappearing or re-appearing at the beginning and at the end of my sleep time; but the point about how "it felt" seems really wonky to me.

I don’t look forward to deep sleep, I look forward to waking up rested. I don’t fear deep sleep because I’ve literally woken up every time. It’s not the same as fearing death. That said, there is also no fear of death.

I have to sleep on this one ;) Thank you Mr Spira.

I feel fine when I wake up therefore i know i slept well. The awareness of continuity and the halt of it, makes me know am devoid of consciousness.

Always the same weak argument, I know I slept well because I feel the positive effects of a good sleep on my body, that's it. Love Rupert but time to find better arguments for this.

If there were no awareness in sleep we would not be aware of any gap between falling asleep and waking up, except by inference e.g Looking at a clock. But we are aware of it and not simply by inference. Rupert is correct and his answer is valid one. The reason you say you are not aware is because of the arising of your mind or ego, with which you identify, and which does not function in sleep. Actually even the so-called sleep-waking cycle itself is a function of ego. Ultimately it doesn't exist. All there ever is is the one eternal unchanging pure awareness.

He briefly touched on it, but just barely scraped the surface of that question - "Is it myself that wakes tomorrow?"

I know i slept well if i am feeling good in morning there is no awareness there when i am sleeping

In deep sleep we are all one, without a separate someone there to know that.

I agree with Rupert on everything except this. To me, did I sleep well, I'm referring to my current experience in the waking state: if I'm tired NOW then I say no; if I feel NOW rested and bodily satisfied with my rest, then I say yes. If I didn't go with my current feeling, then I'd say I don't know, I wasn't aware of the quality of it - there was just nothingness until I woke up. Also, EXPERIENCIALLY, isn't the absence of awareness the same as the awareness of absence? It doesn't make a difference other than another way of interpreting what happens in deep sleep - but the experience is still the same - voidness, emptiness and nothingness

Wow 🙏

Sweet

I’ve thought about this and came to realize that it is a matter of semantics. Consciousness + Awareness are in actuality, two different things. Awareness is a function of the nervous system thus when in deep sleep, drunk or disturbed mind, your awareness is altered. Consciousness is that in which all is.

not convinced by his explanations, cos I fight every night to go to bed despite appreciating sleeping , but I wonder is deep sleep the most accurate representation of what death could be ? it's really intriguing ...

I think what Rupert means by awareness is the single indivisible whole reality, and if you just stick to this meaning, what he says makes sense. Initially, I found myself too confused and not convinced by what Rupert was saying about deep sleep, for deep sleep is not an experience by definition, so how can you state or prove that there is still awareness of absence, which is a legitimate and logically-correct observation. However, once you see awareness is just a name for the single whole reality, it becomes obvious that when you are in deep sleep - or generally when there is absence of human conscious experience - the single whole reality is still there, just being itself as "always". In my opinion, "awareness of absence" should not be interpreted as a kind of experience of absence, for that is a contradiction, experience of absence does not exist by definition. The point is to fully realize that you are this single indivisible whole reality which is manifesting in what we call "here and now" as you. Therefore, If there is no separation between you and reality (non-duality) then there is just reality, and when conscious experience goes away reality does remain, we all know this very well but we simply forget and leave ourselves out the reality as detached independent conscious observers.

Right, Rupert needs to look up the word "inference". You don't dread awareness going byebye during sleep b/c you know you're safe and will wake up. You know you slept well b/c you infer it from your body feeling refreshed in the morning. If these spiritual teachers told you that the peace of enlightenment is the peace of a rock or a tree you wouldn't pay to see their seminars lol.

It’s right here

I believe there are different stages of consciousness of reality (and ourselves since we are a part of reality). Dreams in r.e.m. are different than being awake. Comatose is different than dreaming...then there is death.

When someone says they slept well they are referring to the feeling of being refreshed in the morning. At least that’s what I’d be really referring to because there’s no memory left of any experience in deep sleep. And the notion of awareness of absence is just self-contradictory. If you’d be really aware of absence it wouldn’t really be absence would it? Sorry I don’t like to be so critical usually. I think Rupert can be a great teacher, but I’d like him to appear a little more humble sometimes, not so know-it-all. I suggest you listen to Bernardo Kastrup, a friend of his, in case you haven’t already. He has some good thinks to say with regards to the consciousness-only ontology

Potentially a big “fan” of Rupert, but I have a problem with this reasoning. I have made numerous comments/questions about this, but never get an answer. My objections are along these lines: In all other matters, Rupert encourages to deduct from self inquiry and experience. When people return the answer, that they’re completely unaware in deep sleep, Rupert demands their consciousness to be aware of the fact, that they are not aware. Doesn’t make sense! If I missed a dentists appointment at 2pm yesterday, Rupert suggest that I can only be sure that I did not show up, if I was there to witness it. Huh???

Isn't the answer to the question based off of how you feel now that you have woken up ? I answer the question "did you sleep well?" Based off of how I feel in that present moment. If I feel awake and well rested then the answer is yes. If I still feel groggy and tired then the answer is no . The answer can also be based off of how many times I remember waking up throughout the night . These are just thoughts I have associated to this question. Can anyone help to clarify these things ?

The "yes" refers to feeling rested, not to the experince of sleeping deeply.

When Rupert asks what your experience was during deep sleep, keep this in mind: 1. This implies with such a question that in deep sleep there is an passing. duration, time. But has anyone ever experienced such an experience in the supposed "state" of deep sleep itself? The answer in my case is no, and therefore there is nothing like a "state" of deep sleep. If he asked my reactionary the same question, saying "what deep dream are you talking about?" 2. Who experiences peace during such a state? This question does not apply, because there has never been an experience of passage, duration, or time, in deep sleep itself. In deep sleep, the mind is not active, therefore there is no memory, however, how could you upon waking up report that you experienced peace or happiness in such a state? My experience regarding sleeping is this, I close my eyes, there is dreamlike sleep, I look at the clock, and 8 hours have passed. In the event that there was no dream, there was only a closing of the eyes, and opening them, nothing to report. My comment to all this is that the stories of peace/happiness/ associated with a supposed state of deep sleep are just conjectures without reference. Anyone who agrees/disagrees with this?

yes

You can't recognize your self during deep sleep because you don't have perception. The awareness of absence exist only at the waking state. You know anything ONLY in the waking state. You cannot know your self during deep sleep.

I know i slept well bc i remember me sleepint well and i think i also dont feel tired and skeepy later on during the day. But at the time of sleep im still not conscious

Thank you, but I genuinely respond I don't know how I slept except I feel rested. What would you respond with this reply!🙏

Knowing 'I slept well' is inferred from the feeling of rest and refreshment on waking, not from any experience in deep sleep.

I always have to check the clock to see how long I have been asleep after awakening from sleep, that only than let's me know that I must have been in a deep sleep if a lot of time has gone by.

Doesn't quite do it for me. Perhaps someone else can explain? I don't know whether anything is present during deep sleep. To answer the question "did you sleep well? ", it is retrospective and assumes a past. How can it be answered in deep sleep - when the mind, at least, has "departed" ? I am not aware that I am present there.

Deep sleep is our true reality. Yoga nidra gives you access to it. 🙏

rupert’s argument is nonsense. “i slept well” is just stating that you feel rested in the morning after waking up.

🌻

What we need to ask is why conciousness slow the passing of time from the infinite speed it passes at in the absence of conciousness. We wake knowing time passed due to the concious observations of change, but we do this by experiencing time at the rate we do while concious. There is no objectively true speed for time.. it passes relative to each observer... so why slowly enough for us to do meaningful things with it?

What if I said, “I assume I slept well because I have no memory of waking up multiple times in the night”. ?

honestly my theory is that you just forget what you experience during deep sleep, or rather, your mind doesn't form any memories during deep sleep. i say this because it's still possible to wake someone up from deep sleep, which not only implies that awareness still exists but also that the senses are still active.

What is the difference between deep sleep and time travel (wich called astral projection), even though time travel doesn't use any of the five senses?

The fact that you know that you slept, is the awareness itself. Therefore, the Self/Consciousness /or the Awareness is ever present, never sleeps, never dies.

❤️❤️🙏🙏

If the world is an image-- sleep is also an image

Sir I have been trying to use turiya state of consciousness to manifest but somehow I am aware of my sleep each night but can’t manifest. What should I be doing to manifest in sleep?

It is the absence of awareness for me. And when someone asks if you slept well, the question and answer are generally rhetorical. If anything, you answer that you slept well because you didn’t toss and turn and in fact, you feel rested. My consciousness is not conscious when I sleep. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be sleep.

Por gentileza, coloquem legendas em português...🙏❤😊

This is what my direct experiences have thaught me. There is this Human You and the Higher You. This Human You is a mental product, it's not even real, while the Higher You is more real than this Human You but it's still not the ultimate thing, the ultimate thing is the Inner Self, the Higher Self, the True Self, the Atman, the Spark of God. It appeared to me in the form of a sphere of Golden Light, people call it the Inner Sun, that's how it actually looks. When we go to sleep, the physical body goes to sleep, the Higher You awakens. The Higher you is the one who planned your earthly life, it travels to other realms and it communicates with other beings. Sometimes this Human You passes through and this is how we get to have out of body experiences and lucid dreams. You are both the Human You, the Higher You and the Higher Self, it's just while in this body, you do not remember. Deep sleep is only for the physical body, it is the deepest state in which the body recovers itself, full relaxation. Of course, most people lack the experience and they only talk using mental concepts and being limited by the material world so for them, deep sleep means no awareness or awareness of absence which both are not true. Oh, you are very much AWARE when you got o sleep, except that maybe not this Human You but the Higher You for sure. I have over 400 out of body experiences.

The experience of rest is only enhanced with the mind and sensation, if you eliminate that, is only deep sleep or rest without it. If people were told that tonight when they go to sleep they never gonna wake up again, the majority will be terrified of falling asleep. Ultimate experience is not non duality, it is the enhancement of non duality as duality. Reality would be incomplete without diversity. God Himself is a unity in a diversity.

Are general anesthesia and deep sleep in the same category? If not then where are the differences?

Deep sleep is called the doorway to mass consciousness and enlightenment is called "deep sleep while awake" (Nirvakalpa Samadhi). Is the void in the middle of the Zero (deep sleep) really empty? Maybe it is beyond awake state comprehension, as in pure consciousness? After all something is derived from it, if only being refreshed in the morning?

I only sleep well if i wet the bed

While you're in deep sleep it's the absence of awareness it's not the awareness of absence until you wake up. So then what happens to this consciousness when you go to sleep and never wake up? AKA death

Consciousness is always there. Even in deep sleep. I believe the question should refer to awareness not to consciousness. Are you aware, do you have perception of yourself during sleep?

The response to “How do you know you slept well? “ would be given by checking memory for how many times did I wake up? The truth is this. It is another experience that is so common that it is very rarely remembered. Our minds forget it and disregard the experience of deep sleep 99.9% of the time. That being said you can be aware of and remember the experience of deep sleep. It requires a good amount of ... not sure what word to use... building up of the familiarity of being in a state of awareness. You are always aware but not knowingly. If that makes sense. Speaking from personal experience there have been times while intentionally meditating that I have watched thoughts turn into dreams. That is how I know that dreams and thoughts are made of the same mind stuff. And that the amount of control we have over our thoughts and dreams in little to none. We can disregard our thoughts and in doing so remove the hold they have on our true self. Awareness/ Consciousness. I have also experienced deep sleep on a couple of occasions. What is it like? I’ll tell you exactly. Time moves differently, it may seem like an hour but three have gone by. There is no mind activity at all. Just peace. What does it look like? There is infinite space. It looks like deep space, no objects to perceive. But it is also like deep space in that although it appears to be dark it is actually filled with the light of consciousness. It only appears to be dark because there are no objects for consciousness to reflect on. This is what Vedanta calls the state of potential, and that the waking and dreaming worlds actually arise from this state. I have to agree because I have seen the dream world rise from a point in this infinite space and envelope my perceptions and instantly I was within a dream. On another occasion I was able to... again not sure what word to use... move back and withdraw from the dream world and experience a wall or veil that separated the dream world from my self and I found I was outside the dream and was able to move in and out of it slowly like putting your head around a corner and seeing what Is there and moving it back and veiling it again. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m asleep and dreaming or awake and thinking it is that similar. We just forget it most of the time because it’s something we have been experiencing our entire lives and we train our minds to disregard the common. So why don’t we experience deep sleep? You do, you just don’t remember.

Then does that mean during deepsleep - for one who experiences it - does the world really disappear with all its constituents (for real)? And if it be so, without any volition of the Consciousness, the world / Universe appears and (really) disappears ?

If you died and didn’t wake up again you wouldn’t know how your sleep was. Therefore it’s the absence of awareness tho, no? That’s why people fear death, not deep sleep

To say that one is always aware of ones innate peace and happiness, but sometimes doesn´t know it seems to me to be a matter of belief. Perhaps you are not aware of your innate peace and happiness when you don't know it. How can you tell?

I'm still stuck on this too. "I slept well" refers to the fact that I didn't wake several times during the night. I am not self aware while unconscious. Respectfully, Rupert just saying I am does not make it so.

But what about anaesthesia is the also the awareness of non existence ?

Has anyone here read any Nisargadatta or Ramesh Balsekar. That’s probably a silly question.But anyway they both refer to the Absolute as being prior to Consciousness.I don’t understand what they are pointing too. It can’t be an experience per se. Does anyone have a way of explaining what prior to consciousness is. Has anyone got any good metaphors or analogies ? I hope everyone is well.

This is the one thorn in the side of the otherwise remarkably coherent “ramana- type” advita. The sleep explanation of apparently ever present awareness does not stand up to scrutiny. The explanation relies on lazy language about awareness of sleep and a misunderstanding about what it means to have felt you slept well. The irony is that 99% of ramana type advita (correctly imo) directs you to trust your in moment awareness as the only source of verifiable truth. Yet when it comes to deep sleep, there is a u turn and one must suddenly draw on a (phantom) memory of an experience just gone to verify awareness WAS apparently allways there. In reality, its actually the present state of feeling refreshed without memory of dreams or intermittent waking (in that present morning state) that tells you - you slept well. But of course this explanation would not support the idea of ever present awareness -so it is avoided at all costs!

Dear All, Please kindly give me the explaination as follow: According to Mr. Rupert Spira, Awareness is always experiencing at present and knowing objects. Therefore, awareness should know my breathing in and out during my deep sleep (breathing is still object in deep sleep) same like i am in awake state. However, i am not aware any my breath at all during deep sleep. So where is awareness which should know objects. Please kindly let me understand this situation. Thank you very much!

How can we know if sleep is not a gap in a memory? And maybe there are some objects to experience but I do not remember them?

You cannot say it's an experience when there's nothing being experienced. You can't watch a TV program if the TV screen is off. So to say you experience yourself because you wake up and see that time has passed makes no sense. Like saying i experienced the TV program by looking at the TV being off during the duration of said program. To have an experience something need to happen, like a TV program. Nothingness is not an experience, it's nothing.

The 'Deep-Sleep' present the Night-consciousness, Night-bodies. When We move our Day-consciousness, to the Night-bodies, one by one, our physical body become Night-body. (We dont remember any thing from the Night-bodies/Deep-Sleep) REM-sleep present, the 'transfer-body', dreams, OBE, NDE, ghosts coma. So, We are always Here and Now, and our consciousness too. The 'Night' present a Circuit, some of the Night-bodies are old, and some are young, compare to our physical body, which is our primary developing-body. We dont develop at night, it is rest and repair. When We leave our physical body permanent, then We also stay in the Night-bodies, just much longer, which means, that We stay 'above' about the same time as We stayed in our last physical body. (We stay max.100 year)

So sleep held the answer all along 'alone and apart from the world we experience peace' - why do we then wake up and go in search of fulfilment in activity engaging the world? Insanity?

The guy who asked was right. In retrospect you can say u had deep sleep-because of no dreaming or you feel good - bec. Of good ‚rest‘ - but there is no experience of deep sleep- because - if this game is ‚an illusion‘-sleep is it also.... (...part of the game called live....or simcity....it seems as if you send the pc to sleep .... and continue the game next day - how much do you perceive of tour gamecharacter when the pc is shut down? How can zu know his sleep, when his sleep is a Code of the game? And the pc is shut down?)

If there is nothing to be aware, there is no awareness

While in deep sleep, you rest in peace.

The problem for me is I can accept deep sleep is unremembered awareness - but in what sense is it self-aware? Shouldn't Rupert be able to assert "you are aware that you are aware"? Wouldn't that be the authentic experience of deep sleep at least for the adept?

spira says that at night you experience nothing because the human is sleeping so consciousness is alone with itself. But since consciousness is the whole universe, shouldnt consciousness still be busy with the rest of the universe when i (the human im aware of) go to bed?

Rupert is wrong about this and it shows in his body language that deep down he is unsure of this topic. We can know we slept well because WE FEEL REFRESHED UPON WAKING. There can be no experience in deep sleep because there is no time, no change, and experience is made of change/time/memory. We don’t fear deep sleep like we fear death because we, from experience have learned that WE WAKE UP AGAIN AND FEEL REFRESHED. Everything else Rupert says I can buy but not this.

So he's saying we should be afraid of death?

If someone calls your name in deep sleep, do you respond?

@~5:00 So then, if that is the case, why would young children fight going to sleep at a specific time?

I don’t think this has to be a big complicated deep discussion. When you deep sleep, you’re ‘unconscious’. You’re simply not aware of anything taking place. It’s no different than being drugged. To presuppose all this other stuff is just projecting and trying to force a philosophy to fit. Rupert does this from time to time where you can feel the ‘push’ behind it. It’s a forcing type energy rather than a leading, allowing. I like a lot of his talks but sometimes he goes too far to always ‘know’ and be right. I imagine this is a big challenge for guru types and upholding that image. ET is one of the only ones that seem beyond it and are ‘ok w/not knowing’...

I am only aware of the "nothingness" experience during deep sleep when I am in the wake state. However, I am NOT aware of the nothingness during the sleep itself. By that, I am also not aware of being aware during sleep. I am still ooen to the idea of eternal awareness but this rupert guy isnt helping.

Yes, this is where the issue of "consciousness is everything" runs into a core problem. I'm not saying that the problem is unanswerable in principle, only that it is not answered by this video or Rupert's other videos where a similar question was asked. Perhaps the questioner was a bit intimidated or celebrity struck by the stage context, who knows, so let me be clear here. I don't have any experience in deep sleep that I am aware of. To reply to this that I may be having an experience anyway, but that I am just not aware of it is a fundamental contradiction. Because awareness IS consciousness. I cannot have a consciousness that I am not aware of, any more than I can have a pain that doesn't hurt. To the question "how do you know that you slept well" the answer is simply because the body and mind feel refreshed, and thus "slept well" is inferred...in fact, again, it is not known as a consciousness or an awareness. I don't want to give the impression that I am an enemy of the idea that consciousness is fundamental, but the deep sleep problem is a BIG problem for Rupert's worldview, imo. It's the same problem Bernardo Kastrup has with the claim that consciousness is everything. If one can subtract from consciousness everything to the point where it is no longer aware of itself even as consciousness (which is so... this is exactly what happens in deep sleep and anesthesia) then consciousness must rise up out of something that is more fundamental yet than consciousness. Consciousness may be the only thing that can rise from it, but it doesn't follow from this that it is absolutely identical with it.

Consciousness seems to be the act of prehension. There is a mystery to this act, for sure, but there is little sense in reifying consciousness as a thing-in-itself. Consciousness is "consciousness of". Because there is no prehension in deep sleep, there is no consciousness there. It really is not more complicated than that. Coma patients who have a degree of "consciousness" in coma do so because they are prehending at a low level, for example registering the voices of people around the bed.

Summary: Q: Am I aware during sleep? Where is my consciousness during sleep? Rupert: What is your experience of deep sleep? What is it that's aware there is nothing there during deep sleep? What enables you to know you slept well? Is deep sleep the awareness of absence or the absence of awareness? (3:50) If it were Absence of Awareness you would not be able to answer "yes" to "Did you sleep well?" The reason you can answer yes is it is peaceful there. Do you feel you are approaching non-existence / nihilation when you go to bed? Answer: No. In sleep you know your essential nature of peace/happiness. When you awake the peace/happiness is eclipsed by thoughts/perceptions.

I know that deep sleep is the awareness of absence. But I never look forward to going to sleep. I would much rather stay up, putzing about. What gives?

Dualistic