What happens to 'me' when I sleep? - Post 1

A few months ago I was corresponding with Prof. Robert Earlshaw (a name he suggested I use to keep his identity incognito) a Neuropsychologist known for his work on Cognitive Neuroscience. He happened to be visiting India and I knew him due to our common interest in the Cognitive Paradigm. He had read one of my articles on Education and the Brain and written to me. Thus began a very fruitful interaction. This time, to my surprise I found that he was deeply interested in Eastern Wisdom, not the one that is too often passed on by self-glorifying enthusiasts but that deeper genuine wisdom that has nothing to do with comparisons with Quantum Physics and the scientific paradigm but rather, has to do with inner psychological experience and development. For nearly two years I have known him, never had he betrayed any sign of such interest. So I asked him his reason for the same. What transpired was a dialogue that brought deep insights to both of us. As he himself expressed it,

"isn't it strange that we started out with a simple curiosity, I mean, you wanted to know of my interest in India. And that led to a whole host of insights. I had hardly expected that I could be drawn into a discussion especially after I had that unpleasant experience during my visit to India. But now I am glad I did, thanks to you for nudging me in that direction."I agreed and remarked, "the pleasure is all mine but you haven't told me of that experience. But of course, I wouldn't want to if you did not."

He said, "no, no, not anymore, I don't have any problem now. After the clarifications that have emerged, I am quite free of my past. In fact, I would like to share that. Perhaps...who knows, it may lead to another series of insights." I intervened, "Oh, in that case, let us do it some other time. I want to assimilate the present insights and moreover write them up." He put in, "I don't think you would find it that way. I am sure it would be helpful to you also. It may help you with the educational work you are engaged in, I mean that "Fifth Discipline Self Actualization" work you are doing. "I agreed, "well, let's talk about it then."

"But wait a minute, wait a minute", he said, "are you going to quote me on it?" "Yes of course," I replied, "I would certainly want to credit you for some of the insights." "No, no, I cannot do that," he lowered his voice. I cannot afford to go public with what we discussed. It could affect my research grant. Personally, I don't care much for it. I am tenured and the University pays me for my teaching. At Europe, unlike the United States, it is still possible, especially for a person like me to carry on research as a purely personal affair. But I happen to have two students who are funded by the grant. I cannot pay them from my pocket, ha , ha. I don't want to affect their careers."

"In that case," I went on, "it's better for me not to write about it.""But that would mean depriving other serious inquirers of our insights," he sighed. "No, here's what we do," he continued, "you write it up, but without making any references to our names and affiliation.""You mean, the names of yourself and your students?" I asked. "No, myself and yourself," he replied. "Oh, I have no such problem. I am not affiliated to any University. I am an entrepreneur and have no hesitation to use my name in this," I told him. "Even then, there is a problem," he said, "someone reading this could guess who I am from your contacts." "No, I will take care not to give even a hint about you," I assured him."In that case," he said, "please avoid reference to that single-photon emission tomography experiment I told you of. It received a lot of publicity and alluding to its details would easily give me away. 

"Certainly, I will write only of the content and remove the context," I reassured him. "Are you going to write this as an article?" He queried. "No, I am going to blog it first," I said. "Oh, that's much better," he agreed, "we would then have a measure of control over it. And we can take it off whenever we feel it no more necessary." "That's the idea," I nodded, "I will send you the draft and you can edit out what you want and send it back to me. I will publish it on my blog only after that. Writing it as an article demands too much work at present. I may never complete it if I begin. But in the blog, I can write out as much as I can when I can just for the sake of recording it." What follows is a transcript of our conversation and correspondence as approved by him.

"Oaky, this is what happened," he went on, "It is nearly seven years ago. But it looks just like yesterday. I woke up one morning with an uncanny feeling. It was still dark. I looked around in the room where I was sleeping. Everything around looked mysterious. I hate to use the term mystery. It smacks of religion or mysticism and very little of science. But believe me, that day, I had to use it. I could not think of any other term to describe it. I repeat, everything around me seemed mysterious. It looked as if it was a miracle I had woken up. I seemed possessed with a question, "what happens to me when I sleep?" I did not think those thoughts. I felt it, a deep, deep sensation within me and yet, so impalpable. I continued to lie down for half an hour more. I could not understand why I was having that strange feeling. After all I have written so much on Sleep and its neurochemistry. I of all people should not be so perturbed by the phenomenon. I have seen hundreds of PET scans and SPECT scans. I am an expert on the subject. But my gosh, the mystery! It was surging up through my spine. It remained till I got out of bed. And later during the day the feeling returned."

He paused a little, spoke something to one of his students and continued, "I could not look at the world in the same commonplace manner I was used to. I was obsessed with the why of all things around. As days passed, my entire perspective began to change. I became more and more conscious of my existence. How did I exist? What if I did not? What was I? Now, typical scientific tradition calls it moonshine. There are questions one may ask and find no answers. That's because the questions themselves are ill-posed. But I would say, the scientific thought that so limits itself is itself ill-formulated. Who cares for that. If I have a pain in my neck I am not going to listen to someone who says that is merely a nervous response to some stimuli, that is is just a burst of neurotransmitters. I would go get rid of the pain come what may. Well, at that moment I felt just like that. The mystery was real, very very real. I had to find out what to do. It was a pain in the mind if I could say it. And no less real than a pain in the neck. Now, how do you get rid of it? Rather, how to you address it? I did not want to get rid of it, I wanted to find out what was causing it and to resolve it. It was one of those moments when all my past knowledge failed me. But I could not voice out this to anyone. I was aware of the pitfalls."

Prof. Earlshaw waited to see if I had any queries and then resumed, "After all wasn't I getting hundreds of crank mails from so many crackpots who claimed so called experiences purporting to show evidence for the existence of the "soul" and related nonsense? Yes, I still hold that what most people call the "soul" for instance, is a mere belief. It is just a pet term for many who have nothing better to do in the world, a mere belief. But if you come to me with a genuine experience, and can find no better term than that to describe it, that's different. But how does one discern the true from the false. One has to be really really serious. So i did not speak of it to anyone. I began to investigate. I set up experiments for myself."

"Prof. Earlshaw, " I asked, "If I may ask, would you like to please clarify the term "experiments". I am aware what you mean by that but for the sake of our readers..."
"Yes, of course," he agreed, "I found a way to probe into my subconscious as never before. For that I had to first learn how to remember my dreams. In a couple of weeks I learned all about the preparations necessary, like keeping a pen and notepad by the bedside, calming down the thoughts before falling asleep, waking up without the help of external aids and so on." 

"I understand," I added, "I have myself gone through all that."

"Why don't you add your experience also. It would clarify things further," he said.

"No, not at the moment," I said, "there are too many parameters in it. It would be better for me to speak of my experiences after yours has served as a good background."

"Sure," he went on, "Nothing happened for some time. After around three weeks, however, I began to get results. One morning I suddenly recovered a whole string of memories. I found that in almost every dream there was a point at which a voice arose intensely at me, "who are you?" And invariably, I used to answer by my name. In a few dreams that continued. But after I began writing my dream notes, that changed. I could not answer by my name at all. I seemed to freeze. Then this too passed. I began to answer by words like, "I don't know. I don't know whether I will ever know." It was after this that that out-of-body experience began to occur." 

"Do you think the OBE was triggered by your experiments?" I queried.

"I should think so," he nodded, "actually, an OBE is not that exotic. As V. S. Ramachandran has shown, you could have it by using mirrors. I have experienced that and so have many of my students. But my OBE was not of that kind. It was an intense experience, a complete dissociation experience. And it was no doubt triggered by my experiments."

"Prof. Earlshaw," I wondered aloud, "What was different about the OBE you experienced?"

"Everything! Everything was different. It was not at all like those that we explain it off in the Neuroscience practice. I concretely felt the disassociation. I saw my body lying on the bed immovable. I knew, mark you, I knew that I was separate from it. If I did not return to the body it would remain inanimate. I knew that the life-principle was different from the physical being. The life principle I realized was a concrete thing, an energy or consciousness if you will but no less concrete than the physical. One could say it was of a different order, a subtle, fine substance, not to be quantified as a piece of gross matter. In fact I even steered myself near to the physical body almost entering it and then coming out. And suddenly I realized that in that state of disassociation I had thoughts! That meant my mind was different from the body. Now as a Neuroscientist, I had placed great importance to the physical structure of the brain. Here the brain remained inert with the body. The mind had detached itself from the brain! But in that same condition it dawned to me that this too was a fallacy. I perceived that the mind was in a sense not localized at all but extended beyond the confines of the physical body. I could stretch its reach right from the physical body to any distance I choose. Though I confess the term 'distance' may not be the same as what we call it normally, nevertheless it satisfied all that we know as distance."

"Mathematicians call it a metric," I pointed out.

"Oh, whatever, that's not important. I am sure a mathematician experiencing this would find much of his world being induced in the OBE perceptual world."