Vemuri Ramesam, Wednesday, August 19, 2015 8:25 am

The Enigma of Deep Sleep – 5

Our own incontrovertible evidence tells us that we have a clearly visible touchy feely body and an intangible mind. The body and mind can be either at rest or in an active state. The two entities (the body and the mind) and the two states (at rest or in activity) can give raise together to only four outcomes by combination.  There is no scope for a fifth outcome mathematically.

We know well the three states of Awake, Dream and Deep Sleep but we feel that the fourth possible outcome when the body is active but mind at rest (or absent) is apparently unknown to us. Could this be what the ancient Indian scriptures hint us about being in a liberated state? Does the fourth quadrant provide us any clues about the living condition of a jIvanmukta (one who is liberated right in this life)?

A clear understanding of the fourth quadrant would then be very critical to knowing what Liberation (jIvanmukti) is. This in turn will necessitate that the validity of the Model be established first by revisiting what we know about the other three states so that we can be confident of our approach in analyzing the fourth state.

Our normal experience is that the different states of being awake, dreaming and deep sleep are exclusive, that is to say that two or more states cannot be experienced simultaneously. In other words I am not in more than one state at any given time. I exist as a ‘waker’ in the wakeful state, as a ‘dreamer’ in the dream state and as a ‘sleeper’ during deep sleep.

Another important aspect common to the different states is something that we usually miss to take notice of.  We seem to slide from one state to the other without any effort consciously by us. Even though we may take some enabling actions to fall asleep, the actual sleep mostly comes on its own, the dreaming and so also waking up happen when they will. You cannot predict or pre-decide using an alarm clock or some other device that you are going to dream or enter into deep sleep at a preset time.* Nor do you make any conscious effort in going from one state to the other, say from deep sleep to dreams or from dreaming to waking up.  As you wake up, the eye lids open by themselves and there is no special effort made to pry them open. That being the case, an important question that will arise is whether the fourth state we described earlier could also happen as easily as the other three?  Could it be possible that we do slip into it effortlessly but we do not consciously know it!?

The common belief is that we cycle through the states of wakefulness and sleep every twenty four hours. However, a closer examination would reveal that there are more than just these two states in our experience. Every one of us is familiar with the Awake state when the mind and body are active. We are also very familiar with the dream state when the body is at rest but mind continues to be active. Vedantins speak of sushupti, the dreamless deep sleep, the third outcome (in our Model) where both the mind and body are inactive.

Hypnologists (scientists who study sleep and dream patterns) tell us that several stages can be deciphered in the architecture of our sleep between the time we hit the pillow and wake up next morning. The dream stage is usually associated with rapid eye movement (REM) as if we are visually following the activity and movement going on in the dream scenes that we witness during dreaming.  No such eye movement is seen during deep sleep. Nevertheless, scientists find that dreams are sometimes reported during deep sleep stage also. There are four or five substages in deep sleep.  Recent research shows that the activity level in the brain is about the same during the dream and awake states. However, it is found that intercommunication between the brain cells located in different parts of the brain is reduced and only a few parts of the brain function as isolated islands during deep sleep.

The Vedantins consider two more states viz., i) Fainting and ii) Death in their deliberations. They fit all the remaining conditions within the total of five states (at least as far as the discussions on liberation are concerned). In addition to awake, dream and deep sleep, we come across conditions like: sleepwalking, anesthetic state, coma, vegetative state, catatonia, trance, fainting, death etc. Science distinguishes these diverse sates of the mind based on how awake a person is and how much aware of the surroundings he/she is in.  “Awareness typically tracks with wakefulness — especially in normal states of consciousness. People in coma or under general anesthesia score low on both measures, appearing asleep with no signs of awareness. Sometimes, wakefulness and awareness become uncoupled, such as among people in a persistent vegetative state. In this case, a person seems awake and is sometimes able to move but is unaware of the surroundings.” An in depth discussion on the scientific studies of sleep is beyond the scope of our current interest.

However, it may be mentioned that the simple model based on the two entities of mind and body and their activity levels presented here is quite robust to explain the different varieties of mental states. In way of illustrating the validity of the model, we shall discuss two cases:  i) Trance and ii) Sleepwalking.

Trance state:  This example is based on real situations.  The incidents were described by Dr. H.K.N. Trivedi, who happened to witness two individuals – one in Kashi, India during the early 1960s and another in Lucknow, India in 1971. These men, who were spiritually accomplished (having obtained some siddhi-s), used to go into a trance for short durations while being in the midst of conversing with friends.  Their eyes would become sleepy with reduced shine and their body would stay motionless. On “return” from the trance, they would narrate about some happenings going on at some distant place or predict what would happen in a future time. Their narration or prediction would prove to be correct on verification later. Where does their state fit in the Model?

The body of the spiritual person was said to be motionless and the alertness in the eyes was reportedly reduced when he went into a trance. But he could narrate about the things which he witnessed at some other place or time after coming back to the normal wakeful state. From these observations, we can conclude that he was witnessing some activity with the mind and carried a memory of it in order to be able to recapitulate and talk about it a little later. Now applying the model, we can see that their BODY is at REST but MIND is ACTIVE. Hence the state of the people in such a trance is not deep sleep and it would not fall in the fourth quadrant. It would fit into the second quadrant of the Model – the Dream State.

Sleepwalking:  Some people amble around in sleep and even hurt themselves.  A few persons could commit heinous crimes in the state of somnambulism.  A well-known case is that of Kenneth Park in 1987 when he strangulated his father-in-law and killed his mother-in-law. Apparently the body of the sleepwalkers is active but the mind seems to be asleep. Actually, in the case of sleepwalkers, the part of the mind that propels the body to act (the motor cortex of the brain) is functional whereas the frontal lobe vested with executive functions is at rest. This means that only their mental faculty responsible for reasoning and self-control is asleep.

Taking the case of Mr. Park, we can see that the faculties of mentation (he was thinking of action), memory (he remembered the driving directions etc.) and ego (he knew his relationship with the in-laws) are active but the intellect for discrimination was dysfunctional or non-functional.  Three of the four faculties (thinking, memory, decision-making and ego) of the mind were in “active” mode and so also was the body during sleepwalking.  Therefore, it falls in the top left quadrant of the Model, but not in the IV Block.

*****

The Upper Quadrants:

The two upper quadrants represent the state when mind is present and active. We get a sense of “experiencing” objects if the mind is active.  Therefore, experiencing happens only in either the awake state or the dream world.  Presence of an active mind implies necessarily the presence of time. So all actions in the two upper quadrants happen in ‘time.’

(To Continue …..  Part 6)

____________________

* Note: We may get up from sleep using an alarm sound. But this is a special case and we do not have to discuss it here when we are considering the natural cycles of sleep.

 

Recent Blogs