The Highest State of Consciousness (Life Before Matter)
In order to understand dreams, one must first understand how the state of sleep works, as it does not simply consist of closing one’s eyes and going to sleep. According to experts, in order to reach sleep -and with it the subsequent physical and mental recovery- one must pass through two main states: the non-REM phases, or slow-wave sleep, and the REM phase, or paradoxical sleep. Thus, during our rest, the non-REM phase alternates with paradoxical sleep. The non-REM or slow-wave sleep phases have been classified into four stages:
1. Stage one, or drowsiness: Entry into the world of dreams -or the failure to enter it- occurs in this stage. Do you know the famous sensation of falling into the void? 2. Stage two, or light sleep: Our body moves towards a state of complete relaxation. 3. Stage three, or transition: Everything that has caused you stress during the day begins to dissolve in this stage, which is why the first images may appear here. 4. Stage four, or delta sleep: The body remains in a total state of relaxation. Here, the quality of sleep is determined: whether it has been restorative or not.
There are no complete dreams; although the body remains relaxed, the mind continues to intervene by dissolving the stress of the day that has been lived. These images may not make sense, but they will be representing your fears, stress and insecurities. Upon waking, you may not remember what happened, as in theory it has been dissolved. The REM phase -rapid eye movement- or paradoxical sleep, involves an almost total disconnection between our brain and body -to prevent the sleeper from being injured- since the brain remains highly active. The dreams that occur in this state have been the subject of study by great scientists such as the Swiss Carl Gustav Jung, who develops an extensive body of work in which he states that, in this state, our being joins the collective consciousness in an individual manner. The vibration is so elevated that the body would not be able to withstand such an alteration. The well-known astral journeys occur in this REM state. The mind travels beyond the limits of the brain’s density. Most of these dreams are of a supernatural nature: cataclysms, labyrinths, buses or trains, wars… The dreams that occur in this REM state are utterly hallucinatory stories, worthy of any cinematic script. We are the protagonist or co-protagonists, yet we participate fully in that dream. We can feel fear, pain, love, excitement… to degrees identical to those of waking reality itself. It is a reality similar to the one you experience when you remember and when you live, yet you are aware that it is being projected. It is as if you were living inside a film. Thus, to the extent that you have worked on the recollection of your past memories, you will preserve that memory in your REM sleep states. There is a mental life that precedes the physical one, for it is mental reality that constructs physical reality. There is nothing that could be created physically if it had not first been projected mentally.
How many human beings have been influenced by their dreams and later defended them once they had succeeded? God appeared to Noah in a dream; there He told him that he must build the ark in order to save himself from an imminent flood that would destroy all living things. What did Noah do? He built the ark that saved him and his entire family, by means of a dream. Myths and stories are filled with cases such as these. Certain entities appear in dreams or hallucinations and illuminate the being, who retains the memory upon awakening. Yet this REM state does not occur only when we are asleep, for ancient shamans -and also more modern ones- claim that, through this state, they were in contact with their gods or ancestors while awake. They used peyote or certain synthetic substances that allowed them to reach this dream-conscious state, and also without them, simply by recreating the appropriate environmental conditions, when the mind leaves the body. Thus, the highest state of consciousness is a superior mental state: a dream that allows connection with the collective memory beyond physical projection or defined reality.
