Sleep - the natural portal to the next dimension?

[Venus_Goddess_of_Love]

hey guys

I have been thinking about this for a few days now.  Do you think one of the purposes of sleep was to serve as a transition to the other dimension?  That is, in addition to resting the body? 

Because if we can put our bodies to sleep and instantly become conscious on the other side - every night and every single time, which some people are able to do, then that is our natural portal to the astral, and we were always meant to do this, all of us and not a select few...

what do you think?

Venus

[DH]

Hi Venus,

I think that sleep is a link to the other side, or inner states of consciousness, or however you want to see it.  A number of respectable writers think that the dream state is a time when we go out of the body naturally even though we don't usually remember it.

I have had some interesting experiences with lucid dreaming and OBE that lead me to think that sleep is a natural portal to the other side, such as visitations with deceased loved ones.

DH

[Awakened_Mind]

Well I think sleep would need some biological cause for occurance as well. I don't see the 'layers' of reality where one is more important than the other. Somehow they are all important for a common goal. If the question is 'Is there non-physical reason?' I'd say yes. Likewise if the question were directed toward the physical importance.

However, if you asked me if it were solely for one or the other, I'd say no.

-AM

[thenoob]

I think so, OP, as much as we can understand it, every night we are connected to a lower level of the greater reality, I think it is the connection to the divine which created the physical universe. Passive dreaming is probably the lowest part of the outer realm, followed by lucid dreaming, followed by the astral

[thenoob]

also that is why I feel much more awake in dreams than reality could ever provide

[Eliza]

then how do we explain how dreams are sometimes made up of people that are so real but the situations are so unbelievably ridiculous?

are we generating our own universe in thoughts in our sleep?

eliza

[Stookie]

Rudolph Steiner's explanation of sleep:

When the physical body falls asleep, the etheric body slips out and hovers a foot or 2 over the physical. Our (un)consiousness then becomes centered in our astral body, where it in a way soaks in vital "astral energy". I believe this is also the REM state. Then, we enter DEEP sleep, where our (un)consciousness is centered "above" the astral in the "spiritual world". We are completely unconscious during this process, as we're not quite evolved enough to consciously experience this state. There, we also unconsciously soak in vital energy and experiences to bring down into the astral, etheric, & physical bodies. As we re-enter the astral, our experiences from "above" which are impossible for us to comprehend are translated into dreams through our astral body, and remembered as such in the physical. Steiner says that since our entire being is made up of several bodies, each body must go through these series of experiences every night. Neglect of one impacts the others.

He says there was a time in human evolution when humans consciously experienced this process every night, and slowly over time became more and more centered in the physical. What were conscious, living experiences were turned into what we know as dreams. And he says we've made our trip as humanity into the physical, and now we're starting to work our way back. And slowly over the next eon we'll start to become conscious of our nightly experiences again.

So, there's a whole new belief system to learn and toss!

[Venus_Goddess_of_Love]

Stookie, very useful insight - thanks for sharing.  It makes a lot of sense to me.

best wishes
venus

[Alan McDougall]

Venus dear love,

I concur with stooky but there is a biological reason as well, sleep is like mental digestion, where you process and hopefull eliminate the previous days negative energy. People who don't do this become insomniacs and make the whole thing worse by taking sleeping pills preventing the brain from healing itself while sleeping in this unnatural way. Depression then follows and the spiral of addiction can get out of control. Countless people are trapped by these pills and artificial sleep and the brain gets more and more unhealthy the longer a person relies of drugs to sleep.

Alan