Watching the (un)awareness zone

This morning I became aware of my dream activity. It is a strange experience when you are the witness and the participant as well. I do not know when I became aware of my watching, but the sense of I became exponentially greater and the dream merged, as it were, into what man calls 'reality'. Speaking analogically, it was like a 'fade- in- fade- out in cinema editing. I was aware of these empty forms, like on the cinema screen; real because you empathise, unreal because you KNOW they are unreal. The transition was seamless; I had to 'think' in order to understand where the dream ended and wakefulness commenced. At first the chirping of birds outside seemed like the soundtrack of the film, but the gradual increment in the sense of I brought me the awareness of chirping being from 'outside' the experience.

Ah! It was so wonderful.

***

Talking about sleep, I am one of those whom the spiritual-moralists would call sensual, in a very uncomplimentary way. I sleep deep - as good as dead deep sleep - and I used to be a bit uneasy about the fact in the past. But then I read Ramana Maharshi. He has referred to his sleeping habit in the early years. I kind of identify with him on the habit of deep sleep. I remember two instances of my deep sleep:- A classmate of mine, Harindran, was to wake me one afternoon from my room of our hostel in Baroda, for we had decided to go out somewhere. At the appointed time (he told me later), he came and tried to wake me up by shouting & hooting & clapping. I had latched the door, therefore he could not enter my room, but he hit stones at me, those little pebbles you find everywhere. According to Harindran he tried "for hours" but could not wake me up. Wonder why he did not think that I was dead? Perhaps I was snoring, which I often do.

Other instance is when I returned one day after a particularly hectic bus journey from Madurai, where I had gone to see a shrink. I arrived in Pondi at about 4 p.m. I woke up at around seven p.m., fresh and ready to take on the world. Three hours of rest was good I thought without realising that it was seven p.m. on the following day! That is 27 hours of non stop sleep!

***

There have been occasions in the past when just on waking (or just before waking) I have experienced a sheer state of being. I was aware of being, watching or experiencing a state of awareness without any reference to anything at all. It must be the ego element in me, with its need to be this or that or here or there that caused ripples on that absolutely muted state of experiencing. Along with that came fear. Along with fear came the mind, and I was pulled into the muck of ordinariness.

These experiences were more frequent in the years between 1995 - 98. In 1998 I came to live in Auroville.