The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Achieving Continuity of Consciousness

[ 1 ] Human life alternates between three states. These are: wakefulness, dream-filled sleep, and dreamless deep sleep. One can understand how to attain higher insights into the spiritual worlds by forming a conception of the changes that must take place in relation to these three states in a person who seeks such insight. Before a person has undergone training for this insight, their consciousness is constantly interrupted by the rest periods of sleep. During these intervals, the soul is unaware of the external world and also of itself. Only at certain times do dreams emerge from the general sea of unconsciousness, linking to events in the external world or to states of one’s own body. At first glance, dreams appear to be merely a special manifestation of the life of sleep, and one therefore tends to speak of only two states: sleeping and waking. For esoteric science, however, the dream has an independent significance alongside the other two states. The previous chapter described the transformation that takes place in the dream life of a person who undertakes the ascent to higher knowledge. Their dreams lose their meaningless, irregular, and disjointed character and increasingly become a world governed by order and coherence. With further development, this new world of external sensory reality—born of the dream world—not only is in no way inferior to inner truth, but within it are revealed facts that, in the fullest sense of the word, constitute a higher reality. For secrets and mysteries are hidden everywhere in the sensory world. This world does indeed reveal the effects of certain higher facts; yet the person who limits his perception solely to his senses cannot penetrate to the causes. To the initiate, these causes are partially revealed in the state described—a state that has developed out of the dream life but by no means remains confined to it. – He must not, however, regard these revelations as true knowledge as long as the same things do not reveal themselves to him during ordinary waking life. But he will reach that point as well. He develops the ability to carry over into waking consciousness the state he has first created for himself from his dream life. Then the sensory world is enriched for him with something entirely new. Just as a person who was born blind and, after undergoing surgery, comes to see the things around him enriched by all the perceptions of the eye, so too does the person who has become clairvoyant in the manner described above perceive the entire world around him with new qualities, things, beings, and so on. He no longer needs to wait for a dream to live in another world, but can always, whenever appropriate, place himself in the state described above to attain higher perception. For him, this state then has a significance similar to that which, in ordinary life, the perception of things through active senses has in contrast to that through inactive senses. One can truly say: the occult student opens the senses of his soul, and he beholds things that must remain hidden from the physical senses.

[ 2 ] This state is merely a transition to even higher levels of insight for the initiate. If the initiate continues the exercises that serve him in his secret training, he will find, after a reasonable amount of time, that not only does the profound change described above take place in his dream life, but that the transformation also extends to the deep, previously dreamless sleep. He notices that the complete unconsciousness in which he previously found himself during this sleep is interrupted by isolated conscious experiences. Out of the general darkness of sleep, perceptions of a kind he had not known before emerge. Of course, it is not easy to describe these perceptions, for our language is, after all, designed only for the sensory world, and one can therefore find only approximate words for what does not belong to this sensory world at all. Yet one must use words to describe the higher worlds for the time being. This can only be done by expressing much of it in parables. But since everything in the world is related to something else, this is indeed possible. The things and beings of the higher worlds are related to those of the sensory world at least to such an extent that, with good will, a conception of these higher worlds can be attained even through the words commonly used for the sensory world. One must simply remain constantly aware that much of what is said in such descriptions of supersensible worlds must be parables and symbols. — The secret training itself therefore takes place only in part through the words of ordinary language; for the rest, the student learns, as a natural consequence of his ascent, a symbolic mode of expression. One must acquire this mode of expression during the course of the secret training itself. This does not, however, prevent one from learning something about the nature of the higher worlds even through ordinary descriptions, such as those given here.

[ 3 ] If one wishes to convey an idea of the experiences mentioned above—which first emerge from the sea of unconsciousness during deep sleep—they can best be compared to a kind of hearing. One can speak of perceived sounds and words. Just as the experiences of dream sleep can accurately be described as a kind of seeing in comparison to sensory perceptions, so too can the phenomena of deep sleep be compared to auditory impressions. (As a side note, it should simply be said that seeing is also the higher form of perception in the spiritual worlds. Colors are also, in this world, something higher than sounds and words. But what the initiate first perceives of this world during his training is not yet the higher colors, but rather the lower sounds. It is only because, in terms of his general development, a person is already better suited to the world that reveals itself in dream sleep that he immediately perceives colors there. He is even less suited to the higher world that reveals itself in deep sleep. Therefore, this world initially reveals itself to him in sounds and words; later, he can also ascend to colors and forms here.)

[ 4 ] When the initiate realizes that he is having such experiences during deep sleep, his first task is to make them as clear and distinct as possible to himself. At first, this is very difficult, for the perception of what is experienced in this state is initially extremely limited. Upon waking, one knows full well that one has experienced something; but as to what it was, one remains completely in the dark. The most important thing during this initial stage is to remain calm and composed and not to succumb for a single moment to any restlessness or impatience. These would have only harmful effects under any circumstances. Above all, they can never accelerate further development; rather, they are bound to delay it. One must calmly surrender, so to speak, to what is given or bestowed upon one; any forced action must be avoided. If one is unable to become aware of sleep experiences at a given moment, one should wait patiently until this becomes possible. For that moment will certainly come. And if one has been patient and calm beforehand, the ability to perceive will remain a secure possession, whereas if one proceeds forcefully, it may occur once but can then be completely lost again for a long time.

[ 5 ] Once the ability to perceive has taken hold and the dream experiences stand before one’s consciousness with complete clarity, one must then direct one’s attention to the following. Among these experiences, a very clear distinction must be made between two types. One type will be entirely foreign to everything one has ever experienced before. At first, one may take pleasure in these experiences; one may be uplifted by them; but for the time being, one should leave them alone. They are the first harbingers of the higher spiritual world, in which one will only later find one’s bearings. The other type of experience, however, will reveal to the attentive observer a certain kinship with the ordinary world in which one lives. These sleep experiences shed light on what one ponders during life—what one wishes to comprehend about the things in one’s surroundings but cannot grasp with ordinary reason. In everyday life, a person reflects on what surrounds them. They form mental images to understand the connections between things. They seek to understand through concepts what their senses perceive. These sleep experiences relate to such mental images and concepts. What was once a vague, shadowy concept takes on a resonant, living quality that can only be compared to the sounds and words of the sensory world. It increasingly feels to the individual as if the solution to the riddles he must ponder were being whispered to him from a higher world in sounds and words. And he is then able to connect what comes to him from another world with his ordinary life. What previously could only be reached by his thoughts is now an experience for him, as vivid and rich in content as any experience of the sensory world can be. The things and beings of this sensory world are by no means merely what they appear to be to sensory perception. They are the expression and outflow of a spiritual world. This previously hidden spiritual world now resounds to the secret student from his entire surroundings.

[ 6 ] It is easy to see that this heightened capacity for perception can only be a blessing for human beings if everything is in order within the soul’s senses that have opened up to them—just as human beings can only use their ordinary sensory faculties to truly observe the world if they are properly attuned. Now, human beings develop these higher senses themselves through the exercises prescribed by the esoteric training. — Among these exercises is concentration, which is the directing of attention toward very specific ideas and concepts related to the mysteries of the world. It also includes meditation, which is living within such ideas, the complete immersion in them in a prescribed manner. Through concentration and meditation, a person works on their soul. In this way, they develop the soul’s organs of perception within it. While they are engaged in the tasks of concentration and meditation, their soul grows within their body, just as a child’s embryo grows within the mother’s womb. And when, during sleep, the individual experiences described above occur, then the moment of birth approaches for the liberated soul, which has thereby literally become a different being—one that the human being brings to germination and maturation within themselves. – The efforts involved in concentration and meditation must therefore be meticulous, and they must be strictly observed, for they are, after all, the laws governing the germination and maturation of the higher human soul-being described above. And this being must, at its birth, be a harmonious, properly structured organism. But if any of the guidelines are neglected, the result will not be such a lawful living being, but rather a spiritual miscarriage that is not viable.

[ 7 ] The fact that the birth of this higher spiritual being initially takes place during deep sleep will seem understandable when one considers that, were it to appear during ordinary sensory daily life, its delicate, still fragile organism would be completely overwhelmed by the intense, harsh processes of that life. Its activity would be negligible compared to that of the body. In sleep, when the body rests—insofar as its activity depends on sensory perception—the activity of the higher soul, so delicate and inconspicuous at first, can come to the fore. –However, it must again be noted that the initiate must not regard the experiences of sleep as fully valid insights as long as he is not able to carry the awakened higher soul over into waking consciousness. If he is capable of doing so, he will also be able to perceive the spiritual world according to its character both between and within his daytime experiences; that is, he can grasp the mysteries of his surroundings spiritually as sounds and words.

[ 8 ] At this stage of development, one must realize that one is initially dealing with individual, more or less disjointed spiritual experiences. One must therefore be careful not to attempt to construct from them any kind of complete or even coherent system of knowledge. All sorts of fantastical notions and ideas would then intrude into the inner world; and one could very easily construct a world that has absolutely nothing to do with the real spiritual world. The secret student must, of course, continually exercise the strictest self-control. The most correct approach is to gain ever greater clarity regarding the individual real experiences one has and to wait until new ones arise in a completely unforced manner, connecting of their own accord with those already present. – For through the power of the spiritual world into which the initiate has now entered—and through the practice of the appropriate exercises—an ever-expanding broadening of consciousness occurs during deep sleep. More and more experiences emerge from unconsciousness, and ever smaller portions of the sleep state will remain unconscious. In this way, the individual sleep experiences gradually come together of their own accord, without this true synthesis being disrupted by all manner of combinations and conclusions that would stem solely from a mind accustomed to the sensory world. However, the less the thought patterns of this sensory world are unjustifiably intermixed with the higher experiences, the better. If one behaves in this way, one approaches more and more closely that stage on the path to higher knowledge where states that were previously present only unconsciously in sleep life are transformed into fully conscious ones. One then lives, while the body rests, in a reality just as much as is the case when awake. It goes without saying that during sleep itself, one is initially dealing with a reality other than the sensory environment in which the body finds itself. Indeed, one learns—and must learn, in order to remain firmly grounded in the sensory world and not become a fantasist—to link the higher sleep experiences to the sensory environment. But at first, the world experienced in sleep is a completely new revelation. — In esoteric science, the important stage consisting of awareness of the life of sleep is called the continuity (uninterruptedness) of consciousness.^{1What is implied here is, for a certain stage of development, a kind of “ideal” that lies at the end of a long path. What the student of the occult first encounters are two states: consciousness in a mental state in which, previously, only chaotic dreams were possible, and in a state in which only unconscious, dreamless sleep was possible.}

[ 9 ] For a person who has reached this stage, the experience and perception do not cease during those times when the physical body is at rest and no impressions are conveyed to the soul through the sense organs.