What is the state akin to sleep?
The state akin to sleep is a term coined by spiritual teacher Neville Goddard to describe a state of deep relaxation where the mind is highly suggestible as during sleep, though unlike sleep, one is still in control of will and so can still direct thinking — thus it is used as a tool of conscious creation (manifestation).
Is The State Akin to Sleep Synonymous with Hypnosis, Trance, Gnosis and the Like?
Hypnosis, trance and so on are all descriptions of the brain in different states depending on the amount of activity in the brain. In normal waking conscious, much of the brain is active. Beta state is normal waking consciousness, when the brain is engaged in thinking, living life, being awake and doing your stuff. The next state is alpha, which is a state of relaxation, daydreaming, being engrossed. There is less overall activity in the brain. Theta state is deep relaxation bordering on sleep, the mind is likely to start to see hypnogogia (visual stimuli like lights under the eyelids etc.). Delta is deep sleep, with the conscious mind no longer operating.
Previously, people thought that the capacity of the brain is infinite and hugely underused. This is why you see the completely false claim, even now, that ‘humans only use 5% of their brain’. This incorrect belief was prevalent for so long because the way to study the brain involved looking at electrical activity. Modern ways to view the brain in real-time involve looking at the amount of glucose being used, and the findings were that, rather than being underused, the brain is not only often at full capacity, using more energy that any other organ in the human body, but has a number of capabilities to reduce the amount of data being processed (a good example is the cocktail effect, where you are surrounded by conversations at a cocktail party but tune out of them, then suddenly pay attention when you hear your name mentioned).
The different states of the brain aren’t discrete and definite. They are analogue and there is some cross over, as the brain oscillates between full waking consciousness, taking up full resources, to deep sleep with much of the brain shut down and only automatic, unconscious areas operating.
Why is The State Akin to Sleep Important in Manifestation Practice, or: Why Should I Care About Trance and the Like?
Life manifests according to our habits of thought. This is, in other words, our personality. To change our world, we change our thinking, or as Neville Goddard would probably put it, our ‘I AM’, that is, our self-concept, or we could just say our beliefs. Of course, we can consciously choose to think what we want. A poor person can just sit and think how rich they are, but if it was as simple as that, there simply wouldn’t be any poor people, nor sick, nor lonely, nor anything bad. Clearly there is a missing ingredient (actually there are two) because our fantasies and daydreams don’t (generally) manifest into our lives (thank God for that in some instances!).
What are the two missing ingredients (for most people) which stops their intentions from manifesting?
Frequency and naturalness. Simple as that. So the first one is fairly easy to remedy. You keep bringing to mind an intention, to create a habit of mind. To always think of yourself in a certain way. If I say to you, ‘Do you have more or less than a million dollars in the bank right now?’, then before you answer there will be a mental movement, perhaps an emotion or energetic sensation in the body, lightening fast. So fast it might not even be perceptible, there might be a brief visual picture, perhaps of your last bank statement, and then you would answer, yes or no — depending on how you are doing financially. So all the things that go on in consciousness there before you answer are the habits of thought.
If you don’t have a million dollars right now, but that is the goal, then you could just say, ‘Yes, I do’, but it’s lying. You don’t believe it, you ‘know’ that isn’t true. So that habit of thought correlates with your current reality (pushed out reality as Neville Goddard would say).
Now perhaps you practice conscious creation, you have a mental diet (control all your thoughts and feelings) and change the habit of thought. So when asked the question, you first have thoughts and feeling and pictures of your abundance, and the feeling of excitement that you have it, and you answer ‘Yes’, but there is no ‘naturalness’, it feels like a lie, like a daydream. You daydream all the time, we all do, without belief, nor fear or excitement that each one is going to come true.
That’s because, in waking consciousness, the part of the brain, that is responsible for distinguishing between real and imagined is still active. In dreams, it’s completely inactive, which is why you are rarely aware you are dreaming in a dream world and doing ‘impossible’ things. This is the key. When you learn to put yourself in one of the states between waking and dreaming (a mix of alpha and theta) and then visualise a new belief (yourself in a desired situation) with feeling and emotion (of joy and gratitude) the part of the brain which distinguishes this as unreal is inactive, and so there is a feeling of ‘naturalness’. It feels like a real thing.
So techniques like trance are to practice new beliefs and focusing on the feeling of naturalness, and to use these thoughts to create new habits of mind, ways you think about yourself, what thoughts and feelings come up when you are making self concepts, and they can be transformed to your conscious intentions by practicing visualizing desired scenarios in the mind with naturalness during altered states of consciousness. Then recalling them throughout the day, to make them the new habits of mind, the way you always think about yourself automatically, which will cross over into the dream world as the way you dream about yourself, and then manifest out into the observed world, as your new life.