In A Waking State Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of In A Waking State book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.
A renowned philosopher of the mind, also known for his groundbreaking work on Buddhism and cognitive science, Evan Thompson combines the latest neuroscience research on sleep, dreaming, and meditation with Indian and Western philosophy of mind, casting new light on the self and its relation to the brain. Thompson shows how the self is a changing process, not a static thing. When we are awake we identify with our body, but if we let our mind wander or daydream, we project a mentally imagined self into the remembered past or anticipated future. As we fall asleep, the impression of being a bounded self distinct from the world dissolves, but the self reappears in the dream state. If we have a lucid dream, we no longer identify only with the self within the dream. Our sense of self now includes our dreaming self, the "I" as dreamer. Finally, as we meditate—either in the waking state or in a lucid dream—we can observe whatever images or thoughts arise and how we tend to identify with them as "me." We can also experience sheer awareness itself, distinct from the changing contents that make up our image of the self. Contemplative traditions say that we can learn to let go of the self, so that when we die we can witness its dissolution with equanimity. Thompson weaves together neuroscience, philosophy, and personal narrative to depict these transformations, adding uncommon depth to life's profound questions. Contemplative experience comes to illuminate scientific findings, and scientific evidence enriches the vast knowledge acquired by contemplatives.
States of Consciousness by Dean Cvetkovic,Irena Cosic Pdf
In this accessible overview of current knowledge, an expert team of editors and authors describe experimental approaches to consciousness. These approaches are shedding light on some of the hitherto unknown aspects of the distinct states of human consciousness, including the waking state, different states of sleep and dreaming, meditation and more. The book presents the latest research studies by the contributing authors, whose specialities span neuroscience, neurology, biomedical engineering, clinical psychology and psychophysiology, psychosocial medicine and anthropology. Overall this anthology provides the reader with a clear picture of how different states of consciousness can be defined, experimentally measured and analysed. A future byproduct of this knowledge may be anticipated in the development of systematic corrective treatments for many disorders and pathological problems of consciousness.
Edgar Cayce has often been called "the sleeping prophet", because his unique information came through while he was in a sleeplike state. But Cayce also lectured while he was conscious. This book is a collection of most of those lectures. Along with Cayce's fascinating insights, editor Richard Peterson provides a perspective on what was happening in Cayce's life as well as in the world at the time f the lecture.
Institute of Medicine,Board on Health Sciences Policy,Committee on Sleep Medicine and Research
Author : Institute of Medicine,Board on Health Sciences Policy,Committee on Sleep Medicine and Research Publisher : National Academies Press Page : 425 pages File Size : 43,5 Mb Release : 2006-10-13 Category : Medical ISBN : 9780309101110
Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation by Institute of Medicine,Board on Health Sciences Policy,Committee on Sleep Medicine and Research Pdf
Clinical practice related to sleep problems and sleep disorders has been expanding rapidly in the last few years, but scientific research is not keeping pace. Sleep apnea, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome are three examples of very common disorders for which we have little biological information. This new book cuts across a variety of medical disciplines such as neurology, pulmonology, pediatrics, internal medicine, psychiatry, psychology, otolaryngology, and nursing, as well as other medical practices with an interest in the management of sleep pathology. This area of research is not limited to very young and old patientsâ€"sleep disorders reach across all ages and ethnicities. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation presents a structured analysis that explores the following: Improving awareness among the general public and health care professionals. Increasing investment in interdisciplinary somnology and sleep medicine research training and mentoring activities. Validating and developing new and existing technologies for diagnosis and treatment. This book will be of interest to those looking to learn more about the enormous public health burden of sleep disorders and sleep deprivation and the strikingly limited capacity of the health care enterprise to identify and treat the majority of individuals suffering from sleep problems.
Author : Mircea M. Steriade,Robert W. McCarley Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media Page : 504 pages File Size : 54,7 Mb Release : 2013-03-09 Category : Medical ISBN : 9781475746693
Brainstem Control of Wakefulness and Sleep by Mircea M. Steriade,Robert W. McCarley Pdf
This book is part of an ongoing history of efforts to understand the nature of waking and sleeping states from a biological point of view. We believe the recent technological revolutions in anatomy and physiology make the present moment especially propitious for this effort. In planning this book we had the choices of producing an edited volume with invited chapter authors or of writing the book ourselves. Edited volumes offer the opportunity for expression of expertise in each chapter but, we felt, would not allow the development of our ideas on the potential and actual unity of the field and would not allow the expression of coherence that can be obtained only with one or two voices, but which may be quite difficult with a chorus assembled and performing together for the first time. (Unlike musical works, there is very little precedent for rehearsals and repeated performances for authors of edited volumes or even for the existence of conductors able to induce a single rhythm and vision of the composition. ) We thus decided on a monograph. The primary goal was to communicate the current realities and the future possibilities of unifying basic studies on anatomy and cellular physiology with investigations of the behavioral and physi ological events of waking and sleep. In keeping with this goal we cross-reference the basic cellular physiology in the latter chapters, and, in the last chapter, we take up possible links to relevant clinical phenomenology.
For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s latest New York Times bestseller is a guide to meditation as a rational practice informed by neuroscience and psychology. From Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of numerous New York Times bestselling books, Waking Up is for the twenty percent of Americans who follow no religion but who suspect that important truths can be found in the experiences of such figures as Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history. Throughout this book, Harris argues that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow, and that how we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the quality of our lives. Waking Up is part memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris—a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic—could write it.
How much of your waking time are you fully awake? On the other hand, how often do you stumble through the day on autopilot, half-asleep and out of contact with yourself, instead of feeling connected and alive? In this astounding book, Steve Taylor suggests that our normal consciousness is really a kind of "sleep" from which we sometimes "wake up" into a more intense and complete reality. He provides what is perhaps the first-ever clear explanation of higher states of consciousness, or "awakening experiences." This work delves into: • the methods we human beings have used throughout history to induce awakening experiences, including meditation, sex, sports, psychedelic drugs, and sleep deprivation • how higher states of consciousness were normal and natural to some of the world’s peoples (and still are, in some cases) • and how we can make "wakefulness" our normal state again. By fully explaining awakening experiences, the author makes them much more accessible, which may lead to a revolution in our psychological development as human beings!
“I’ve gained deeper understanding listening to Rupert Spira than I have from any other exponent of modern spirituality. Reality is sending us a message we desperately need to hear, and at this moment no messenger surpasses Spira and the transformative words in his essays.” —Deepak Chopra, author of You Are the Universe, Spiritual Solutions, and Super Brain Our world culture is founded on the assumption that the Big Bang gave rise to matter, which in time evolved into the world, into which the body was born, inside which a brain appeared, out of which consciousness at some late stage developed. As a result of this “matter model,” most of us believe that consciousness is a property of the body. We feel that it is “I,” this body, that knows or is aware of the world. We believe and feel that the knowing with which we are aware of our experience is located in and shares the limits and destiny of the body. This is the fundamental presumption of mind and matter that underpins almost all our thoughts and feelings and is expressed in our activities and relationships. The Nature of Consciousness suggests that the matter model has outlived its function and is now destroying the very values it once sought to promote. For many people, the debate as to the ultimate reality of the universe is an academic one, far removed from the concerns and demands of everyday life. After all, life happens independently of our models of it. However, The Nature of Consciousness will clearly show that the materialist paradigm is a philosophy of despair and, as such, the root cause of unhappiness in individuals. It is a philosophy of conflict and, as such, the root cause of hostilities between families, communities, and nations. Far from being abstract and philosophical, its implications touch each one of us directly and intimately. An exploration of the nature of consciousness has the power to reveal the peace and happiness that truly lie at the heart of experience. Our experience never ceases to change, but the knowing element in all experience—consciousness, or what we call “I”—itself never changes. The knowing with which all experience is known is always the same knowing. Being the common, unchanging element in all experience, consciousness does not share the qualities of any particular experience: it is not qualified, conditioned, or limited by experience. The knowing with which a feeling of loneliness or sorrow is known is the same knowing with which the thought of a friend, the sight of a sunset, or the taste of ice cream is known. Just as a screen is never disturbed by the action in a movie, so consciousness is never disturbed by experience; thus it is inherently peaceful. The peace that is inherent in us—indeed that is us—is not dependent on the situations or conditions we find ourselves in. In a series of essays that draw you, through your own direct experience, into an exploration of the nature of this knowing element that each of us calls “I,” The Nature of Consciousness posits that consciousness is the fundamental reality of the apparent duality of mind and matter. It shows that the overlooking or ignoring of this reality is the root cause of the existential unhappiness that pervades and motivates most people’s lives, as well as the wider conflicts that exist between communities and nations. Conversely, the book suggests that the recognition of the fundamental reality of consciousness is the first step in the quest for lasting happiness and the foundation for world peace.
Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction by J. Allan Hobson Pdf
What is dreaming, and what causes it? Why are dreams so strange and why are they so hard to remember? Replacing dream mystique with modern dream science, J. Allan Hobson provides a new and increasingly complete picture of how dreaming is created by the brain. Focusing on dreaming to explain the mechanisms of sleep, this book explores how the new science of dreaming is affecting theories in psychoanalysis, and how it is helping our understanding of the causes of mental illness. J. Allan Hobson investigates his own dreams to illustrate and explain some of the fascinating discoveries of modern sleep science, while challenging some of the traditionally accepted theories about the meaning of dreams. He reveals how dreaming maintains and develops the mind, why we go crazy in our dreams in order to avoid doing so when we are awake, and why sleep is not just good for health but essential for life. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Author : Alan Moffitt,Milton Kramer,Robert Hoffmann Publisher : State University of New York Press Page : 624 pages File Size : 40,9 Mb Release : 1993-02-11 Category : Psychology ISBN : 9781438413396
The Functions of Dreaming by Alan Moffitt,Milton Kramer,Robert Hoffmann Pdf
Many contemporary neuroscientists are skeptical about the belief that dreaming accomplishes anything in the context of human adaptation and this skepticism is widely accepted in the popular press. This book provides answers to that skepticism from experimental and clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, and anthropologists. Ranging across the human and life sciences, the authors provide provocative insights into the enduring question of dreaming from the point of view of the brain, the individual, and culture. The Functions of Dreaming contains both new theory and research on the functions of dreaming as well as revisions of older theories dating back to the founder of modern dream psychology, Sigmund Freud. Also explored are the many roles dreaming plays in adaptation to daily living, in human development, and in the context of different cultures: search, integration, identity formation, memory consolidation, the creation of new knowledge, and social communication.
Lucid dreaming, the skill of recognizing that you're dreaming within a dream, has a vast potential to not only improve the content of your dreams but also to quell anxiety and improve confidence during your waking life. Leveraging both scientific research and two decades of personal experimentation, this book provides everything readers need to know in order to begin lucid dreaming for the first time and to improve the frequency, control, and clarity of existing lucid dream experiences. Personal anecdotes and dream journal entries from the author help clarify points of confusion and motivate readers. This book focuses heavily on the connections between lucid dreaming, mindfulness, and anxiety, and on the myriad benefits lucid dreaming can have while you are awake. Whether you have never had a lucid dream before, or you want to improve the quality and frequency of your lucid dreams, the techniques provided here will make the process simple. With the skill of lucid dreaming, your dreams will become your own personal playground, laboratory, artist studio, or spiritual center. What you gain from such a journey is up to you.
The Bardo of Waking Life by Richard Grossinger Pdf
An avant garde set of improvisational essays, Richard Grossinger’s The Bardo of Waking Life is a meditation on the Tibetan Buddhist bardo realm which, in popular culture, is viewed as the bridge between lives, the state people enter after death and before rebirth. This book examines waking life and its history and language as if it were a bardo state rather than ultimate reality, and thus seeks a context for life (and dreams), even as it addresses more "mundane issues" including genetic theory, the war in Iraq and George W. Bush's presidency, North Korea, advertising, global warming, Prison Industrial Culture, childhood trauma, even country western music. Written with playfulness and precision, Bardo takes a new, probing approach to all the important questions of creation, destruction, and existence. In these intellectual field notes, Grossinger proves thematically fearless as he crosses quantum mechanics with totemic hexes and draws transcendental insight from the ephemeral space-time we call daily life. If, as Tibetan cosmology holds true, all conditional realms are bardos, then the state we all share is nothing less than the bardo of waking life.
2022 Foreword INDIES Award Winner | Silver: Body, Mind Spirit 2023 IPPY Award Winner | Bronze: New Age/Mind, Body, Spirit Hidden in the darkness is an ancient secret suppressed by every aspect of our light-drunk modern world—there is a Great Mother from the bottom of time who has always guided us through perils and calamities. Now is the hour of Her return. “An exigent, affecting summons to rediscover the night.”—Kirkus Reviews Is darkness synonymous with ignorance and evil? Or is it the original matrix from which all life emerges, and the Mother to whom it returns? Higher and higher levels of artificial illumination have suppressed our contact with the numinous since the Industrial Revolution, with dire consequences for society, our planetary ecology, and our souls. This mystical testament weaves together paleobiology, memoir, history, science, and spiritual archaeology to lead readers back into the lost mysteries of the dark. Not since The Teachings of Don Juan or Ishmael has a book diagnosed with such urgency and cultural coherence the problems at the heart of modern life. In Waking Up to the Dark, Clark Strand offers penetrating insight into the spiritual enrichment that can be found when we pull the plug on our billion-watt culture. He argues that the insomnia so many of us experience as “the Hour of the Wolf” is really “the Hour of God”—a wellspring of rest and renewal, and an ancient reservoir of ancestral wisdom and inspiration. And in a powerful yet surprising turn, he shares with us an urgent message for the world, received through a mysterious young woman he calls Our Lady of Climate Change (aka THE VIRGIN MARY), about the challenges we all know are coming.
Author : Arvind Sharma Publisher : State University of New York Press Page : 192 pages File Size : 42,7 Mb Release : 2012-02-01 Category : Religion ISBN : 9780791484302
Sleep as a State of Consciousness in Advaita Vedānta by Arvind Sharma Pdf
Indian philosophy bases itself on three states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. Deep sleep, or susupti, plays an important role in Advaita Vedanta, the major philosophical school that advocates a doctrine of pure consciousness. Explaining and savoring this paradox, this book shows how the concept of deep sleep can be used in Advaita Vedanta to reveal a philosophical insight, validate an argument, illustrate a moral, or adorn a tale. Arvind Sharma explores why sleep is a phenomenon that philosophers should be interested in and examines it in classical Hindu religious texts, including the Upanisads, and in foundational, early, and modern Advaita Vedanta.