Sleep as a state of being

"My sleep was so heavy as completely to relax my consciousness; for then I lost all sense of the place in which I had gone to sleep..."

Read how he awakened

Sleep in ancient China. The Chinese philosopher Chuang-tzu (300 BC) wrote:

"Everything is one; during sleep the soul, undistracted, is absorbed into this unity; when awake, distracted, it sees the different beings."

The four states of being in ancient India. The ancient Indian Upanishads distinguish four states of being:

1. the waking state common to all men
2. the dreaming state
3. the deep-sleep state
4. the fourth (superconscious) state, "the very Self."