I wonder whether REM actually activates the dream state, rather than the other way round. Our sense of time is largely due to this optical metronome - the microsaccades - which also means that "conscious sleep" appears timeless because that optical timer is switched off. (It isn't the only temporal system.)
Coma patients appear not to exhibit microsaccades, so I wonder if they could be induced whether that would jump-start their "waking up".
I think the first Jung book I read was Alchemical Studies (as was also one of the very few available in full and in paperback at the time) - then read all the psycho-archetypal works, then went back to the start. lol.
What really struck me was the transformative processes, the energetic entities and the creation of a personal mandala of wholeness. That all struck me as far more useful than Freud's fairly superficial analysis - which may be correct for some people, just was a bit useless in my state of mind. I eventually saw rather similar processes in Tibetan Buddhism.
I remain unsure of how much Jung really understood of the Eastern processes, as I recall him being baffled by the concept of emptiness, as he would insist there had to be some atomic consciousness left as the experiencer. What I can say now is that the experience of emptiness can happen without a self during the experience, but that, yes, the moment of recognition would bring consciousness back in, and what is then left is the memory of that pure state. I find that interesting - that the experience does leave a memory trace. ;-) One cannot exist in that state, but the main training is to co-exist in both states.
off at a tangent too!
Well, not so much really, as it also informs the dream state - there is a book on Dream and Sleep Yoga, by one of my teachers, Tenzin Wangyal.
An interesting proposition.
This is a tricky topic, and one where even I'm unsure of how to proceed. I'm not sure if I've experienced it, although it sounds close to something I have experienced that I've seen called getsumei no michi. In my case it is hard to say one was empty because one is still acting (in a heightened efficient way despite being free to do so because one is empty of the normal baggage that is slowing us down). Even trying to describe it here is confusing. It almost seems to me that I haven't experienced it and what I underwent was some heightened awareness that was in perfect connection with the action necessary to take place, where thought on a level one thinks of thought doesn't take place, its faster and purer, and contains some innate knowing that is not limited by doubts that reside in ordinary thought/perception.
Is that the same state as when in danger? the hyper-awareness and speed? Being able to summon that state without it just being a reaction to danger?
You may have gathered, I quite enjoy attempting to articulate transcendence - I dislike so much waffle, as it strikes me as part of the problem of deliberate obfuscation. Not a ref to you, just a note to self of why I bother returning to this topic.
Is way too easy to just say "is beyond language" - find a better language, is my reply! It is beyond subject-object-predicate or possibly a self-referential paradox, eg. "this proposition is untrue."
The "sound of one hand clapping" remains the classic koan, I think because it is one of very few that translate without cultural references. The official response is to ejaculate something random! You are the hand clapping the universe - the clap is the union - there is no hand, nor a universe, just the clap. But the point is not to analyse it - as I just did - but to experience it. Hence need some new koans - Zen masters have, indeed, tried, then fell back on the trad ones as being superior. lol.
Yes, although in my experience it is just more easily accessible in moments of danger. It's the closest I can relate to what you are pointing at. It has been my experience that if one approaches a situation with a certain intent one can also enter that state. An intent that is super focused, which might be why so many believe in the law of attraction to the point they ignore the truth of others ability to have free will and act on the best laid plans fucking them up.
I prefer the
and think it can only be shared through a direct experience in many cases.
I suggested as much to a psychiatrist I spoke with many years ago. The topic was on extra-ordinary event encounters with beings who are more energetic in nature, or at least not detectable to us in our normal sense range. I wish to qualify that last part with one can certainly use their minds eye as well as often feel an electrical surge course through us to detect this many times. I qualify that to also acknowledge there are likely many times there might be no easily detection method, to possibly none.
Anyway, they have it all nice and neatly classified with their science on how its a delusion, even if multiple people all share the same experience. That in itself could be the impetus for a large body of writing and exploration.
One that I suggested to her. I got the topic stopped when I suggested to her that if she was open to the idea, I could take her out at night into nature and prove to her that the experiences are real. She of course refused using her approved classification cult-ure to explain to me on why multiple people can share the same delusional experience.
On that last part, and more off topic. If one concedes that groups can have a shared hallucination/delusion, then what does that suggest for all of these so called normal experiences we are all sharing? lol