Thoughts on Conquering Sleep/Attachment to Lethargy
Dimmesdale
Illinois Explorer
From a more Vedantic perspective, but I'm open to Buddhist reflections:
When you wake up, the seeds of problems that are embedded in sleep sprout up in full fruition the moment you cross the threshold of waking. You immediately shift from the consciousness of absence to the consciousness of problems: what are my obligations today? What will happen in three hours? Did I oversleep? Did I forget something? The fact you were conscious of absence meant also that you were self-situated and therefore at peace. This is because there was nothing besides you to distract away from you. You are conscious of absence in the waking state as well, though not as pronouncedly; you know you are above anxiety at least. You still engage with objects, but you are settled in your subjectivity. You are primed; you are ready.
The trauma of waking up is therefore simply due to an ill, abrupt transition where there is no self-situated rationality to weather all things.
So one's duty first thing when one crosses the threshold of waking, is to be aware of oneself and immediately shut down all worry. Do not let the weeds of thoughts sprout up instantaneously (or at least, any more than they already have). Remember that the Self cannot be grieved. Only apparently. One moves on right the next moment. Be attentive of That. Do not lose sight of yourself at the Threshold of Sleep/Waking. Know the Fourth, which is the One. Be the Turiyam. Associate and Finally Identify with It.
Remember that sleep is not the absence of consciousness but the consciousness of absence.... So be conscious of absence during waking, and you won't miss it in sleep....
Comments
The state of Sushupti is the Causal State. Sleep is Causative. It is the Negative
by which all things come into Being - Ex Nihilo. You need a blank, a Nothing, in
order to Form Something. If all you had was Indiscriminate Being/s, you would not
be able to derive anything - all would be Chaos, a Mass of stinking, absurd garbage even with the appearance of Form. But even for that heap to exist, it would have to
derive its being from not being anything else. Any Form derives from Emptiness. They
overlap. In order to create the elegant hieroglyph, or ballet dancer, you need to
set it, counterpoise it, with the simple humility, the delicacy, the sleekness
of Emptiness, of Nihil, of Void. Only when our minds are quiescent is when we
manage to Form the Deepest Concepts. Only upon the Barest, Clearest, Hardest, most
Unyielding Surface of the Nothing do we present ourselves with an Authentic
and Profound 'Something.' It cannot be other. Sushupti, deep sleep,imitates Turiya, imitates Samadhi, the ground of all potential, of all freedom, of all non-coerciveness. We long for sleep because we do not know we long for Samadhi. We seek illusory happiness in sleep because sleep bears the similitude of that profound absence of ego in true
self-surrender. Dreamless sleep is the Causal State because in it we seek to unite
with our First Cause. But since sleep is finite, this can never be done. We must
look elsewhere. We must Approximate our First Cause not through the one Medium.
Reality is too Rich.
It explains a certain feeling I used to have on waking…
… yawn!
On it!
https://wanderlust.com/journal/dream-yoga-how-to-start-a-practice/