It is even possible to become wholly conscious in sleep
from beginning to end
or over long stretches of our dream experience;
then we are aware of ourselves
passing from state after state of consciousness
to a brief period of dreamless rest,
which is the true restorer of the energies of the waking nature,
and then returning by the same way to the waking consciousness.
It is true that for a long time
I have not slept in the usual sense of the word.
That is to say,
at no time do I fall into the inconscience
which is the sign of ordinary sleep.
But I do give my body the rest it needs, that is,
two or three hours of lying down in a condition of absolute immobility
in which the whole being, mental, psychic, vital and physical,
enters into a complete state of rest
made of perfect peace, absolute silence and total immobility
while the conscience remains perfectly awake;
or else I enter into an internal activity of one or more states of being,
an activity which constitutes the occult work
and which, needless to say, is also perfectly conscious.
So I can say, in all truth,
that I never lose consciousness throughout the twenty-four hours,
which thus form an unbroken sequence,
and that I no longer experience ordinary sleep,
while I still give my body the rest that it needs.
Sleep changes into an inner mode of consciousness
in which the sadhana (spiritual practice)
can continue as much as in the waking state,
and at the same time one is able to enter
into other planes of consciousness than the physical
and command an immense range of informative and utilisable experience.
