Sleep Patterns

I had recently read a passage from ‘Seth Speaks’ a Seth book by Jane Roberts (well, chanelled through Jane Roberts to be more precise, the real author is Seth himself). It ‘jarred’ my consciousness, so to speak, and i wish to record it. But what better way to record knowledge than to share it openly with friends… :smile:

After just taking a nap, refreshed (for it is a long passage to type out), i will post it here (what better place?)…

Sleep, Dreams, and Consciousness

Persons vary in the amount of sleep they need, and no pill will ever allow them to dispense with sleep entirely, for too much work is done in that state. However, this could be done far more effectively with two, rather than one, sleep periods of lesser duration.

Two periods of three hours apiece would be quite sufficient for most people, if the proper suggestions were given before sleep-suggestions that would insure the body’s complete recuperation. In many cases ten hours sleep, for example, is actually disadvantageous, resulting in a slugishness both of mind and body. In this case the spirit has simply been away from the body for too long a time, resulting in a loss of muscular flexibility.

As many light snacks would actually be much better than three large meals a day, so short naps rather than such an extended period would also be more effective. There would be other benefits. The conscious self would recall more of its dream adventures as a matter of course, and gradually these would be added to the totality of experience as the ego thinks of it.

As a result of more frequent, briefer sleep periods, there would also be higher peaks of conscious focus, and a more steady renewal of both physical and psychic activity. There would not be such a definite division between the various areas or levels of the self. A more economical use of energy would result, and also a more effective use of nutrients. Consciousness as you know it would also become more flexible and mobile.

This would not lead to a blurring of consciousness or focus. Instead the greater flexibility would result in a perfection of conscious focus. The seeming great division between the waking and the sleeping self is largely a result of the division in function, the two being largely seperated - a block of time being alloted to the one, and a larger block of time to the other. They are kept apart then, because of your use of time.
Initially, your conscious life followed the light of day. Now with artificial light this need not be the case. There are opportunities here, then, to be gained from your technology that you are not personally taking advantage of. To sleep all day and work all night is hardly the answer; it is simply the inversion of your present habits. But it would be far more effective and efficient to divide the twenty-four-hour period in a different way.

There are many variations, in fact, that would be better than your present system. Ideally, sleeping five hours at a time, you gain the maximum benefit, and anything else over this time is not nearly as helpful. Those who require more sleep would then take, say, a two-hour nap. For others a four hour block sleep session and two naps would be highly beneficial. With suggestion properly given, the body can recuperate in half the time now given to sleep. In any case it is much more bracing and efficient to have the physical body active rather than inactive for, say, eight to ten hours.

You have trained your consciousness to follow certain patterns that are not necessarily natural for it, and these patterns increase the sense of alienation between the waking and dreaming self. To some extent you drug the body with suggestion, so that it believes it must sleep away a certain amount of hours in one block. Animals sleep when they are tired, and awaken in a much more natural fashion.

You would retain a far greater memory of your subjective experiences, and your body would be healthier, if these sleeping patterns were changed. Six to eight hours of sleep in all would be sufficient with the nap patterns outlined. And even those who think they now need more sleep than this would find that they did not, if all the time was not spent in one block. The entire system, physical, mental, and psychic, would benefit.
The devisions between the self would not be nearly as severe. Physical and mental work would be easier, and the body itself would gain steady periods of refreshment and rest. Now, as a rule, it must wait, regardless of its condition, at least for some sixteen hours. For other reasons having to do with the chemical reactions during the dream state, bodily health would be improved; and this particular schedule would also be of help in schizophrenia, and generally aid persons with problems of depression, or those with mental instability.

Your sense of time would also be less rigorous and rigid. Creative abilities would be quickened, and the great problem of insomnia that exists for many people would be largely conquered - for what they fear is often the long period of time in which consciousness, as they think of it, seems to be extinguished.

Small meals or snacks would be taken upon rising. This method of eating and sleeping would generally help various metabolic difficulties, and also aid in the development of spiritual and psychic abilities. For many reasons, physical activity at night has a different effect upon the body than physical activity during the day, and ideally, both effects are necessary.

At certain times during the night the negative ions in the air are much stronger, or numerous, than in the daytime, for example; and activity during this time, particularly a walk or outside activity, would be highly beneficial from a health standpoint.

Now the period just before dawn often represents a crisis point for persons severely ill. Consciousness has been away from the body for too long a period, and such a returning consciousness then has difficulty dealing with the sick body mechanism. The practice in hospitals of giving drugs to patients so that they will sleep entirely through the night is detrimental for this reason. In many cases it is too great a strain on the part of the returning consciousness to take over again the ailing mechanism.

Such medications also often prevent certain necessary dream cycles that can help the body recuperate, and the consciousness then becomes highly disorientated. Some of the divisions between different portions of the self, therefore, are not basically necessary but are the result of custom and convienience.

In earlier periods of time, even though there were no electric lights for example, sleep was not long and continuous at night, for sleeping quarters were not as secure. The caveman, for example, while sleeping was on the alert for predators. The mysterious aspects of the natural night in outside surroundings kept him partially alert. He awakened often, and surveyed the nearby land and his own place of shelter.
He did not sleep in long blocks as you do. His sleeping periods were instead for two or three hours, stretched through the nightime from dusk to dawn, but alternated by periods of high wakefulness and alert activity. He also crept out to seek food when he hoped his predators were sleeping.
This resulted in a mobility of consciousness that indeed insured his physical survival, and those intuitions that appeared to him in the dream state were remembered and taken advantage of in the waking state.
Now, many diseases are simply caused by this division of yours and the long period of bodily inactivity, and this extended focus of attention in either waking or dreaming reality. Your normal consciousness can benefit by excursions and rest in those other fields of actuality that are entered when you sleep, and the so-called sleeping consciousness will also benefit by frequent excursions into the waking state.

Now: I bring up these matters here because such changes in habitual patterns would definitely result in greater understanding of the nature of the self. The inner dreaming portions of the personality seem strange to you not only because of a basic difference of focus, but because you clearly devote opposite portions of a twenty-four cycle to these areas of the self.

You seperate them as much as possible. In doing so you divide your intuitive, creative, and psychic abilities quite neatly from your physical, manipulative, objective abilities. It makes no difference how many hours of sleep you think you need. You would be much better off sleeping in several shorter periods, and you would actually then require less time. The largest sleep unit should be at night. But again, the efficiency of sleep is lessened and disadvantages set in after six to eight hours of physical inactivity.

The functions of hormones and chemicals, and of adrenal processes in particular, would function with far greater effectiveness with these alternating periods of activities as i have mentioned. The wear and tear upon the body would be minimized, while at the same time all regenerative powers would be used to the maximum. Both those with a high and low metabolism would benefit.

The psychic centres would be activated more frequently, and the entire identity of the personality would be better strengthened and maintained. The resulting mobility and flexibility of consciousness would cause an added dividend in increased conscious concentration, and fatigue levels would always remain below danger points. A greater equalization, both physical and mental, would result.

Now such schedules could be adopted quite easily. Those who work the American working hours, for example, could sleep between four to six hours an evening, according to individual variations, and nap after supper. I want to make it plain, however, that anything over a six- to eight-hour continuous sleeping period works against you, and a ten-hour period for example can be quite disadvantageous. On awakening often then you do not feel rested, but drained of energy. You have not been minding the store.

If you do not understand that in periods of sleep your consciousness does actually leave your body, then what i have said will be meaningless. Now your consciousness does return at times, to check upon the physical mechanisms, and the simple consciousness of atom and cell - the body consciousness - is always with the body, so it is not vacant. But the largely creative portions of the self do leave the body, and for large periods of time when you sleep.

Some cases of strong neurotic behaviour result from your present sleeping habits. Sleepwalking to some degree is also connected here. Consciousness wants to return to the body, but it has been hypnotized into the idea that the body must not awaken. Excess nervous energy takes over, and rouses the muscles to activity, because the body knows it has been inactive for too long and otherwise severe muscular cramps would result.

The same applies to your eating habits. By turn you overstuff and then starve the tissues. This has definite effects upon the nature of your consciousness, your creativity, your degree of concentration. Along these lines, for example, you do literally starve your bodies at night, and add to the aging of your bodies by denying them food throughout those long hours. All of this reflects upon the strength and nature of your consciousness.

Your food should be divided within the twenty-four hour period, and not just during the times of wakefulness-that is, if the sleep patterns were changed as i suggest, you would also be eating during some night hours. You would eat far less at any given ‘mealtime,’ however. Small amounts of food much more frequently taken would be much more beneficial than your present practice in physical, mental, and psychic terms.
Changing the sleep patterns would automatically change the eating patterns. You would find you were a much more united identity. You would become aware of your clairvoyant and telepathic abilities, for example, to a far greater degree, and you would not feel the deep seperation that you now feel between the dreaming and waking self. To a large degree this sense of alienation would vanish.

Your enjoyment of nature would also increase, for as a rule you are largely unacquainted with the nighttime. You could take much better advantage of the intuitional knowledge that occurs in the dream state, and the cycle of your moods would not swing so definitely as it often does. You would feel much safer and more secure in all areas of existence.

The problems of senility would also be reduced, for stimuli would not be minimized for so long a time. And consciousness, with a greater flexibility, would know more of its own sense of joy.

Onagar :smile:

Yes, there are some very interesting ideas here. I wonder if scientists ever experimented on this (dividing the day/night in shorter blocks of sleeping/waking). Perhaps she’s right about the numerous advantages and it would be nice to try it out. But doesn’t this affect the melatonin production for instance? Because this hormone is only being during the night, and it’s vital for the health of one’s sleep.

Consciousness leaves the body during sleep?? This is even against the OBE theory… Correct me if I’m wrong, but OBE theory suggests the human consciousness splits when we fall asleep: one part leaves the body, travelling around in its OBE body, while the other part stays behind; this explains certain mind-split observation which occur during the transition. If consciousness fully leaves the body during sleep, then we would be all dead, simply because the underlying building blocks of the body itself, consciousness, have been removed (as I think Jane Robert believes, right?).

Oh and what does she mean by this:

:eh:

My chemistry teacher probably get a heart attack when he reads this :tongue:

Mystic

read the line “the body consciousness - is always with the body, so it is not vacant.” again!

So it would seem when Seth/Jane Roberts mentions ‘consciousness’ at the beginning of the above paragraph he/she is refering to the ‘spirit’ consciousness not the ‘body’ consciousness. So it would seem the OBE theory you mention is correct, and Seth/Jane Roberts agrees with you.

Admittedly i do not know much about science, but i am so glad you raised those questions! With the ‘melatonin’ question Seth does advise the longest sleep period to be at night, up to 5 hrs. You could take a nap perhaps early evening when it is getting dark if you are overly concerned i suppose.

With regards to the increase of negative ions at night, i have perused websites on the internet and all that i have seen suggest this is so. On this website…
utd500.utdallas.edu/www_root/doc … sphere.htm
…the chart at the bottom suggests negative ions increase in the nighttime. Of-course your biology teacher, perhaps, is a better source of knowledge than ‘Seth’

He, Seth, may also be wrong about these issues like you suggest. My search on the internet may be rather nieve of me…lol…i still don’t fully understand what an ion is yet, but boy thank you for making me curious and opening up a whole new world for me.

Remember, Life is not a competition. It is not about you proving me wrong then me proving you wrong and so forth and so forth. WE ARE ALL ONE.

love
Onagar

Just wanted to raise anothe rpoint about the article

If this is true where do the super creative dreams and any really awesome ones you get come from?

Onagars…here are the results from a search of this forum for information on the benefits of using negative ion generators.
An accidental discovery for dream recalls
Negative Ion Generators Dangerous??

Lucidity_Master…of course, just because part of your consciousness leaves your body during sleep, this doesn’t mean you lose the information gathered when it returns to your body. This information is retained and can be recalled at any time using dream recall methods or perhaps other types of memory retrieval.
I personally believe the dream world is another realm, filled with many spirits. The meeting with these spirits in this other realm which can be manipulated more easily than your conscious realm, is then remembered as dreams. When I talk about spirits, I mean other dreamers, the deceased, other entities, from the past, future or our current level of awareness.

I’m sure others will have their own theories about what happens when your consciosness leaves your body, this is just mine…for the moment.

Fey~ :angel_fly:

Wow! Thankyou Fey! That was great. If indeed ‘Seth’ is correct and negative ions do increase at nighttime, then a nighttime walk before going to sleep will be most beneficial for lucid dreaming and dream recall. This is the exact information I needed.

With regards to your question Lucidity_Master I will share with you my theory at this time. On the belief that there is ‘spirit’ consciousness and ‘body’ consciousness, the ‘spirit’ consciousness leaves the body in sleep and dreaming. Now: there are different ‘levels’ in this and i want to further quote from ‘Seth’ so it can be more understood.

“At certain depths of sleep the soul’s (spirit’s) perception operates relatively unhampered. You drink from the pure well of perception. You communicate with the depths of your own being, and the source of your creativity. These experiences, not being translated physically, do not remain in the morning. You do not remember them as dreams. Dreams, however, may later the same (when he is saying same he is talking from the perspective of the morning, remember) evening be formed from the information gained during the depth experience

So in effect we could be dreaming from the night before, so to speak. Now: look at the first line in this passage: “At certain depths of sleep the soul’s (spirit’s) perception operates relatively unhampered.” At other depths the spirit and your body consciousness may still have a ‘connection’. I think where people get confused with this is the belief that when ‘Seth’ talks about spirit consciousness leaveing the body, he is not talking in physical terms. The consciousness does not go to another ‘physical’ locale. If you work on the basis that the universe is a ‘hologram’ perhaps this will be easlier understood. So in effect in one way the spirit does leave the body physically and in another way it does not. Highly metaphysical, i know, and perhaps a hard ‘nut’ to swallow. If you work on the concept that ‘we create our own reality’ or as a friend said to me recently ‘we create our PERCEPTION of our own reality’ you start seeing the ‘bigger picture’ or the ‘bigger hologram’…lol

The nature of reality is a beautiful subject Lucidity_Master! I believe delving into ‘Seth Speaks’ would be most beneficial for you at this time.

love
Onagar

After reading your reply Onagar, I came to think, what if…

…instead of thinking of your soul/consciousness as ‘living within the confines of your body’ you thought of it as something seperate from your body altogether. Look at it as a much bigger part of your existance. Instead of it leaving your body while you sleep, it may be wiser and more accurate to assume that it visits your body during your waking hours to experience what we regard as living.

Hmm…have you read ‘Holographic Universe’ by Michael Talbot yet Onagar? I think you will find some, if not all of the theories contained within are very relevant to the Seth material you have been reading.

Hi Fey :smile:

You’ve possibly actually explained better what i was trying to explain in my last post…lol.

Seth goes on to say that the ‘dreaming body’ consciousness, the ‘bigger’ consciousness you are refering to ‘thinks’ it is dreaming us!!

I will definitely read the ‘holographic universe’, but you know me i have all the fingers in the pies at the moment…lol

love
Onagar

I must have overlooked that sentence :smile: Thx for pointing it out.

Considering those higher levels of ions in the air during the night, I have some serious doubt about its possible effects on the human body. Ions are atoms or molecules with a certain charge (atoms normally are neutral elements). This charge is a result of a lack or a surplus of electrons.
Now, many ionizations in the atmosphere happen on a great height (for instance ozon depletion) and as the article suggests, it can only happen at lower heights, when there’s heavy solar activity with solar flares and such. If O2 (oxygen) really gets ionized to some extent on ground level, then the level of O2 in the air would drop a bit, and I don’t think this is very beneficial for the human body. But perhaps there are some other mechanisms at work here that I don’t know off, which are beneficial. Who knows :smile:

I shall be looking deeper into this article as you sggested Onager

I am grateful you brought this topic up Onagar. So much of what Seth says seems true from my own experiences. WBTB method is the easiest example of how to “find yourself as alert, responsive, and intellectually in the dream state as you are in waking life” just by breaking your sleep schedule in two. Starvation is quite obvious (were the body not conditioned to wait for breakfast or lunch, more so). Long sleep does leave me exhausted all day. Often with 6 hours of sleep I feel very refreshed all day. I remember dreams easily with many awakenings during the night. “The long period of continuous waking conscious activity” is quite obvious at 4 pm, from which meditation or hemi-sync (TV or ‘rest’ for many, I assume) helps me refresh for the rest of the day.

Problems: How would a powerful bioclock (like mine) deal with such sleeping patterns? How long until your body becomes accustomed to such ‘schedule’, if ever? Are all sleep stages covered, and is REM cycle not forced?

Here is more from Seth on the topic to add or supplement what Onagar put (since it is so interesting). The most important parts have been highlighted in blue.

Quote: Seth/Jane from “The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book,” Jane Roberts. 1974, pages 259 - 266.

An attempt must be made to correlate seemingly diverse aspects of experience, to combine ideas of light and dark, consciousness and unconsciousness, and so forth, not only in private but mass experience.

As mentioned in Seth Speaks, my earlier book, great distinctions are made between your waking and sleeping states. They are neatly divided, with little effort really made to relate the two. Many of you will not find it practical to alter your sleeping hour because of work commitments. Some of you will be able to do so, however, and those of you who are really interested in this endeavour can at least achieve some variation, on occasion, that will allow you to connect your sleeping and waking activities with far greater effectiveness.

Those of you who are able will discover that a somewhat altered arrangement will work greatly to your advantage. I suggest a six-hour sleeping block of time at one session, and no more. If you still feel the need for a greater amount of rest, then a two-hour-at-the-most nap can be added.

Many will find that a five-hour steady sleeping period is quite sufficient, with a nap as required. A four-hour block is ideal, however, reinforced by whatever nap feels natural.

If such circumstances, there are not the great artificial divisions created between the two states of consciousness. The conscious mind is better able to remember and assimilate its dreaming experience, and in dreams the self can use its waking experience more efficiently.

Often in the aged you find such frameworks coming into being naturally, but those who awaken spontaneously after four hours considered themselves insomniacs because of their beliefs, and so cannot utilize their experience properly. Both the conscious and unconscious would operate far more effectively, however, under an abbreviated sleeping program, and for those involved in “creative” endeavours this kind of schedule would bring greater intuition and applied knowledge.

Individuals following such natural behaviours would feel much greater stability in themselves. Within the general patterns I have mentioned, each will, of course, find his of her own particular rhythm, and some experimentation might be necessary until you learn the maximum balance. But the flow of vitality would be heightened.

It is true that the patterns will have their own flow at certain points in your life. Following your own rhythm, longer or shorter periods will naturally ensue. Your consciousness as you think of it will be expanded through such practices. Generally speaking, eight-hour sleep periods, or longer ones, are not beneficial, nor in larger terms are they natural for the race.

There is a give-and-take chemical reaction, or rather chemical rhythms of reactions, that are far more effective in the shorter sleep periods. Many of you sleep though periods that should be those of your greatest creativity and alertness, in which the conscious and unconscious are most beautifully focused and at one. The conscious mind is often drugged with sleep just when it could be deriving its greatest benefits from the unconscious, and be able to poise most meaningfully in the reality that you know. In these instances the beauty and illumination of your dream state can be clear in the conscious mind, and use to enrich your physical life. Contrasts in your experience will appear to you in their united clarity.

Such change in your waking and sleeping patterns very nicely helps cut through your habitual ways of looking at the nature of your own personal world, and so alters your conception of reality in general.

To some extent, there is a natural and spontaneous merging of what you would think of as conscious and unconscious activity. This in itself brings about a greater understanding of the give-and-take that exists between the ego and other portions of the self…

When you find yourself as alert, responsive, and intellectually in the dream state as you are in waking life, it becomes impossible to operate within the old framework. This does not mean that in all dreams that particular kind of awareness is achieved, but it is often accomplished within the suggested wake-sleep pattern….

The body itself can be physically refreshed and rested in much less than eight hours, and after five hours the muscles themselves yearn for activity. This need is also a signal to awaken so that unconscious material and dream information can be consciously assimilated….

Now: The long period of continuous waking conscious activity is to some extent at variance with your natural inclinations.

It cuts you off from the spontaneous give-and-take of conscious and unconscious material mentioned earlier, and of itself you see necessitates certain changes that then make your prolonged sleep period necessary. The body is denied the frequent rests it requires. Conscious stimuli is over-applied, making assimilation difficult and placing a strain upon the mind-body relationship…

I find this very interesting. I have very bad sleeping habits myself. During the week, on schooldays, I average 5 to 8 hours of sleep, depending on my daytime schedule. But 5 hours of sleep usually leaves me tired and dozing off during the day. Now I wonder if this is because I’m simply used to the idea of sleeping 8 hours non-stop. But then, during the weekend, I stay up late at night and sleep from 3 am to noon, sometimes 1 pm. That’s 9 to 10 hours… and it actually does make me feel more tired and drowsy during the day, like the article said:

I also find I’m more awake and active during the mornings when I’ve slept 6 to 7 hours. I also often nap on my long train ride between home and school, which takes about an hour…

A very interesting subject, and I’ve never heard of Seth before. I did a quick Google search and found some links; so if I find the time I’m definitely looking into this!

At least I’ll try not to sleep past noon tomorrow. :smile: