The Mystery of Sleep

Sleep is such a mystery.

Baha'u'llah has said...

"Consider thy state when asleep. Verily, I say, this phenomenon is the most mysterious of the signs of God amongst men, were they to ponder it in their hearts."

For one thing, I have never really been able to understand how waking up works in relation to the ego. In my period of waking up, half dreaming, my ego seems half present. I have a sense that I should be waking up, in some tension with a desire to remain asleep. It is rare for me that waking up occurs as a result of deciding to do so from within that state, as an operation of that partially ego-aware condition. It often surprises me that I find myself getting up physically without having decided to do so. As if my body is getting up on its own. Mysterious. The Baha'i teachings tell us that ego is a function of this world, and doesn't work the same in the next world. Perhaps dreaming plays a role in teaching us some things about functioning in the next world.

Baha'u'llah has likened this world, in relation to the next, as that of the womb experience in relation to this life. The limbs and faculties that we must develop in this world for use in the next must surely include the faculty or quality of reliance upon God. Sometimes in my half waking state I can remember reliance upon God. I am still learning about this and how it works.

And sometimes, in partially awakening from a difficult dream, there is a sense of rising up to light, of transcendance, and I think this is an analogy for us of passing from this world to the next, a waking up to a higher brighter reality, a realization that the previous state was less real, relatively an illusion.

And then there are dreams themselves.

Baha'u'llah has said...

"Behold how the thing which thou hast seen in thy dream is, after a considerable lapse of time, fully realized. Had the world in which thou didst find thyself in thy dream been identical with the world in which thou livest, it would have been necessary for the event occurring in that dream to have transpired in this world at the very moment of its occurrence. Were it so, you yourself would have borne witness unto it. This being not the case, however, it must necessarily follow that the world in which thou livest is different and apart from that which thou hast experienced in thy dream. This latter world hath neither beginning nor end.

It would be true if thou wert to contend that this same world is, as decreed by the All-Glorious and Almighty God, within thy proper self and is wrapped up within thee. It would equally be true to maintain that thy spirit, having transcended the limitations of sleep and having stripped itself of all earthly attachment, hath, by the act of God, been made to traverse a realm which lieth hidden in the innermost reality of this world.

Verily I say, the creation of God embraceth worlds besides this world, and creatures apart from these creatures. In each of these worlds He hath ordained things which none can search except Himself, the All-Searching, the All-Wise. Do thou meditate on that which We have revealed unto thee, that thou mayest discover the purpose of God, thy Lord, and the Lord of all worlds."

"... the human soul is exalted above all egress and regress. It is still, and yet it soareth; it moveth, and yet it is still. It is, in itself, a testimony that beareth witness to the existence of a world that is contingent, as well as to the reality of a world that hath neither beginning nor end.

Behold how the dream thou hast dreamed is, after the lapse of many years, re-enacted before thine eyes. Consider how strange is the mystery of the world that appeareth to thee in thy dream. Ponder in thine heart upon the unsearchable wisdom of God, and meditate on its manifold revelations... Witness the wondrous evidences of God's handiwork, and reflect upon its range and character."

I think that for most of us, precognitive dreams like Baha'u'llah is describing here are rare, or at least rarely remembered. But I have had a few of them in half a century of living. The most distinct in my memory occurred during a time when I was keeping a dream journal in Santa Cruz in the late 1970's. Dream journaling has two interesting effects in my experience. One is that dreams become more lucid and better remembered. And the second is that they evolve a more meaningful relationship to life. When we pay attention to them, then they become more useful.

In any case, I'll relate that dream here, and how it appeared to me some years later in life.

In my dream, I was in some sort of institutional building, green-walled hallways, offices, and more than one floor. In the dream I ascended to the second floor, and at the end of the hall was a jail. In the dream I observed the inmates being taken out of the jail, and into a new jail that was next door.

In 1980 I moved to Delta, in Western Colorado, and when it came time to obtain some local paperwork, perhaps it was a Colorado drivers license, I went to the Delta county buildings, and once I was in the building I recognized it from my dream. It felt like deja vu, but a sustained state of recognition in which I could actually act upon the foreknowledge. After I completed the paperwork transaction on the main floor, I went upstairs, and indeed at the end of the hallway was the county jail. I looked at the space outside the building, and it was an open park, with a small library.

Shortly before I moved away from Delta in 1986, a new jail was built in that space. Although I never actually observed the transfer of the prisoners, it surely must have happened at some point.

I don't know what the dream "meant", other than that there was some connection between the two experiences. Did it merely signify for me that I was indeed on a path that I'd already seen some years earlier?

I continue to learn about sleep and dreams. "Consider thy state when asleep..."