One of the side effects of practice is a subtle shift in our relation to the sleep and awake states.
A third state gradually draws more attention: a liminal line, a track between waking and sleeping.
In sleep, we are not fully awake: another part of our being steps forward.
Upon waking, we may feel we’ve visited different places, embodied different characters.
This same state can arise during practice - for ex. while standing for extended periods or lying still, as in the “yoga of psychic sleep,” where the body remains immobile (not rigid) by choice. Most rush out of that position when the class ends!
Spontaneous physical movements may still occur, yet we attend more to the inner movements, growing steadier in this territory.
Stability here calls for certain qualities, two of which are patience and stamina: the conditioning to remain prolonged in these states.
This demands a calm mind - the capacity to observe oneself often throughout the day, for long stretches, as if watching another.
It is a gentle disidentification, though not dissociation: collecting data on one’s own behavior without being constantly pushed and pulled by inner contents - passive thoughts, urges, desires, instincts, tastes, dislikes.
Cultivating this calmness, this ability to withdraw from daily duties, future plans, and all of it, builds an inner stability that transfers to the line between awake and asleep - often called the hypnagogic or hypnopompic state. (Andreas Mavromatis is thé resource for this!)
Here, insight arrives through metaphor, imagery, the pre-verbal language of consciousness. It reveals what’s going on in one’s life: what blocks, what pulls back, what intrigues. This language of images can become a companion, even a new way of thinking - imaginative thinking.
Calvino called it “thinking in images”, and dubbed it a quality we’re losing because of bombaring our mind’s with images - note that he said this pre-social media.
To circle back to why I began writing this yesterday: some professional athletes asked, “How can I begin with this work you propose?”
My answer was simple - start by sitting, taking time in stillness with yourself, observing for a few minutes at a time, slowly building duration.
From there, we can layer awareness of breath, thoughts, sensations, gaining an organic sense of oneself, etc.
The base is being to sit with yourself (or “stand… yourself”).
In essence, it means stopping the world for a moment, stepping out of ordinary reality, allowing it and trusting it will continue without you.
It does not mean abandoning responsibility upon return, but learning to step aside and observe oneself as if from the point of view of another.
IN SEARCH OF ...
Rudolf Steiner on qualities of practice:
Patience and perseverance are absolute essentials. Unless the practitioner evokes these qualities within him, going through his exercises so quietly and so regularly that patience and perseverance may be said to constitute the fundamental mood of his soul, he will make little progress.
Arthur Koestler on the Act of Creation
The capacity to regress, more or less at will, to the games of the underground, without losing contact with the surface, seems to be the essence of the poetic, and of any other form of creativity.
Gaston Bachelard on The Poetics of Space:
The mind is able to relax, but in poetic revery the soul keeps watch, with no tension, calmed and active.
Writer Edgar Allan Poe on hypnagogic experience:
I am aware of these 'fancies' only when I am on the very bring of sleep, with the consciousness that I am so.
THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU TRY
P.S. This liminal territory - where patience builds stamina and non-judgmental self-observation supports equanimity - begins with the choice to sit, lie (or stand) with yourself a little longer each time. Not willpower'ing it. Just frequent return.
The Start Here practices (36 days of simple physical, observational and introspective practices) are a quiet door - of many. Small daily returns that slowly make the hypnagogic whisper throughout ordinary hours.
Your body already knows the way. It's signals are doors you can enter.
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