Awareness and the Experience of Deep Sleep

"You say that deep sleep is not the absence of awareness but the awareness of absence. Can you explain this further, because it seems like I’m not aware of anything in deep sleep? Rupert says: ‘The object-knowing mind refers to deep sleep as an absence only in reference to its memory of objects – like noticing your favourite painting is missing from the wall. But being experiences deep sleep without any reference to memory. From being’s perspective, deep sleep is simply the shining of its own presence alone. It’s not the absence of awareness; it’s awareness free of all objects. When you wake up and say “I slept deeply”, who is making that report? Awareness is. If awareness were truly absent in deep sleep, you couldn’t report on it. What’s absent in deep sleep is the content of experience – thoughts, sensations, perceptions – but awareness itself remains, knowing its own being directly.’"

From event 21 - 28 November, 2025 Seven-Day Retreat at The Vedanta, 21–28 November 2025

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