Doctors and
scientists probing the regions of the brain found out that for the most part
the activity detected was composed of many different frequencies of rhythmic
and non-rhythmic waves or pulsations.
These pulsations were broken down into individual categories for easier
study and for their particular properties.
These categories are Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta waves. Alpha waves were first recorded by Dr. Hans
Berger, who published his recordings in 1929.
The most widely
known and publicized is the Alpha wave which is prominent during relaxation
mostly with eyes closed, day dreaming and self-introspection. Beta waves are prominent during the active
awareness state that we experience from day to day at work and at play. The Theta wave is associated with light
sleep, REM dreams and hallucinations.
The Delta wave is prominent only during dreamless sleep and coma where
the outward appearance is dead to the world.
The sages of the
Upanishads showed a unique preoccupation with the different states of
consciousness. They observed dreams and
the state of dreamless sleep and asked what is known in each, and what faculty
could be said to be the knower. What
exactly is the difference between a dream and a waking experience? What
happens to the sense of ”I” in dreamless sleep? In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, there is a
long exposition on the states of the mind; the sages who explored called them
waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep.
They concluded that
these were not merely states of mind that a person slips in and out of several
times during the day, but each state represented a layer of awareness at
different depths of the conscious, sub-conscious and the unconscious mind. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad observes "In that dream world, there are no chariots,
no animals to draw them, no roads to ride on, but one makes chariots and
animals and roads oneself from the impressions of past experience."
When we dream, we
enter another world, another reality. As
long as you are dreaming, your experience seems real. When you wake up, you realise it was just a
dream. Now, that you are awake, you know
you are not dreaming and that what you are now experiencing is real. What
makes you think it is real?
A leap of insight
from the Upanishads "Everyone
experiences this, but no one knows the experiencer." It cannot be the body which is the
experiencer, for in a dream, it detaches itself from the body and the senses,
and creates its own experiences - experiences which are as real as those of the
waking state. One even goes through the
entire gamut of emotions in a dream.
Dreaming and waking are made up of the same stuff and as far as the
central nervous system is concerned, both are real.
Says Havelock
Ellis, "Dreams are real as long as
they last. Can we say more of life?"
Dr. John Bigelow, a famous research authority on sleep says that the main
reason we sleep is because "the
nobler part of the soul is united by abstraction to our higher nature and
becomes a participant in the wisdom and foreknowledge of the Gods."
How does one
achieve this? By meditation. Meditate then
and progress on a path which is by no means easy. To quote the Katha Upanishad "Sharp like a razor's edge, the sages say, is
the path to Reality, difficult to traverse." This ascent is so fraught with challenges
that it is certainly not for the meek.
But for those who dare to accept this challenge, can there ever be a
greater one? This would be the ultimate
discovery, to discover who we are, what the universe is, and what is the
significance of the brief drams of life and death.
The Katha Upanishad
further states "The Ultimate Reality
cannot be known through speech or through eyes.
Who but the one who says 'it is'
can know it?" Neither logic
nor words nor any of the senses would help in the ultimate journey. Only silence, deep everlasting silence, from
the depths of the heart will get us there.
Meditation is the gate that opens that door to us. Cermonials create the attitude in the mind,
but that attitude in always resident in the soul. People are doing it all the time, but doing
it unknowingly. Do it knowingly; that is
the power of meditation.
The Maitrayana
Upanishad puts it thus "When, having
freed his mind from sloth, distraction and vacillation, becomes as it were
delivered from his mind, that is the highest point. The mind must be restrained in the heart till
it comes to an end; that is knowledge; that is liberty; all the rest are
extensions of the ties which bind us to this life."
To quote Van
Ruysbroeck "We contemplate what we
are and we are what we contemplate.
Contemplation of the Super-essential passes into communion. Words cannot tell it, silence has no power to
hold it within its bound, intelligence, reason, the creature itself, all are
transcended. This simple possession by
God is life eternal enjoyed in fathomless abyss. It is here, beyond reason, that we await the
peace of the Divine changelessness."
Note again that as
far as the Central Nervous System is concerned, Dreaming and Waking are made up
of the same stuff and both are real. It
is only in the dreamless state therefore, that the Self becomes the experiencer
and the experiencer is pure awareness. Almost
each one of us is lost for most part of our life in an internal space of
constant thinking, memory and visualizing / dreaming. When this imagined space and dream space both
go away, what is left is the Void. The
Void is absent of any image or thought and there can only be Formless Oneness,
yet we function as a human being. The
experience is one of absolute quiet, absolute emptiness, total peace.
Yet the sages of
the past and most other spiritual thinkers were correct that one can never
experience any of this except in the human form. The body it is which has the states of
consciousness as part of its imagined existence in this world. So this form is necessary to experience the
dreamless state and yet be alive.
We already know
that the normal waking state is not useful for the spiritual seeker, except for
intellectual deliberations. So that
leaves us with the sleep state. Every
night, we pass through four stages of sleep.
Each stage takes approximately 90 minutes to a couple of hours so
sleeping for six to eight hours on an average marks one full sleep cycle.
Stage 1 is a light
sleep where you can be easily woken up.
It marks a loss of self-awareness and most sensory attachment to the
physical world. The brainwave
frequencies descend from Alpha through Theta.
Stage 2 is where your physical body loses nearly all muscle tone but
although the brainwaves have slowed further, they show brief spikes of higher
brainwave activity. In Stage 3, the
sleeper is non-responsive to the environment and most stimuli cause no
reaction. It is a dreamless stage of
sleep but surprisingly one where sleepwalking (or somnabulism) is most likely
to occur. Stage 4 is the REM stage,
which marks the onset of dreaming.
Contrarily, although the brain waves are more active, the sleeper is
harder to awaken. It has been said that REM
deprivation impairs our ability to learn complex tasks and form long term
memories.
So it is obvious
that the aim of meditation as a tool should be to access a state similar to Stage
3 of sleep. The REM state is equivalent
to dreaming and is as useless as the waking state for spiritual adventures. The most common brain waves whilst practising
meditation are alpha waves relating to Stage 1 of sleep. They calm the autonomic nervous system by
allowing the parasympathetic nervous system to dominate the sympathetic nervous
system. This lower blood pressure and
the heart rate and the amount of stress hormones in the body apart from calming
the mind.
Finally, delta
brain waves in meditation are the slowest of all. Everyone experiences delta
waves in deep sleep, but delta brain waves in meditation are said to help experienced
practitioners access the unconscious mind. This then is the state of dreamless sleep,
where one can use techniques to access the unconscious mind. Wake
up in Dreamless Sleep!
Rajesh Seshadri is the founder/creator of Nirmiti Nidra, evolved after
a lengthy period of intermittent practice and experimentation with various
techniques and an endeavor to combine the easiest and the best and derive
maximum advantage. Unparalleled in its approach, simplicity and effectiveness,
the basic Nirmiti Nidra program is offered free of cost to schools,
institutions, communities and organizations.
Over the past two
decades, he has continued to don multiple hats including a corporate
professional who has risen to the highest levels, trainer, facilitator,
motivator, educator, speaker, hypnotist, therapist and life coach. In addition
to multiple Master's degrees in diverse fields and being a fellow member of the
ICAI, he is a certified hypnotherapist, advanced LOA practitioner, master
practitioner in NLP and a Silva Ultra graduate. Having been trained by some of
the best national and international trainers on various professional and
self-development modalities, he is also a voracious reader and an enthusiastic
practitioner. He is also a firm believer in alternate therapies and spiritual
healing. He loves working with and for people both professionally and
personally and derives satisfaction from the smallest improvement that he can
help people bring into their own lives.
To know more visit
http://www.rajeshseshadri.com or write to nirmiti.nidra@gmail.com
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