Hello,

I have read accounts from practitioners beyond first path, and/or second path, in which they report to have cessations/frutions during sleep. This can even happen multiple times a night. 

I have also seen recommendations from certain folks to meditate in the evening/night before bed, since a practitioner may be tired enough to truly let go and essentially fall into first path... the implication here being that any striving, or grasping, prevents the event from happening.

If a person is starting to fall asleep, or is in deep sleep, how can they determine a true cessation/fruition event from a dream or just regular deep sleep unconsciousness (especially new yogis who have not achieved first path and are not familiar with fruition/cessation yet)? What clues a person into differentiating between having a cessation/fruition during deep sleep, and just having a regular night of sleep in which they go unconscious?

What prompts the question from my side: The other day I was sitting in meditation, and was exploring resistance, which lead to some sense of acceptance/curiosity, and then relaxation. I started to get very tired and started to doze/enter a hypnogogic state. I started to have these auditory thoughts that were dreamlike. At some point, these auditory thoughts stopped making any sense (similar to being in a crowded room of people talking and not being able to follow a single strand of conversation), and I sat in this state of diffuse, mental mumbling. Then, my visual field lit up completely white and rapidly collapsed to a point, similar to an old TV shutting off (sorta like this I guess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jntnUWWkZlA). I woke up abruptly, almost rudely, on my cushion.

I've had similar events throughout the years with varying degrees of auditory and visual strobing/collapsing, etc. I am not claiming anything here, but I have been curious how people can tell the difference between random sensory events and a true insight experience when asleep or in a hypnogogic state.

Thank you. 

I'm curious as to whether there is an effect later. For example, is there a significant change in your experience after that point, or is it possible to understand something that could not be understood before? Or conversely, were you in one mode beforehand (such as being very equanimous) and then found that it fell apart after the experience?

I ask because cessations/frutions are often, but not always, associated with those sorts of changes.

Anything is possible.

My first path event/cessation had a definite "falling in" sense to it, but the runup to that took time (many minutes) and effort (noticing the object of attention and being present for the energetic transition that preceded the actual event). It wasn't something that would result from letting go. Quite the opposite. As time went on, however, it was possible to have many non-path cessations that could occur at any time. Everyone is different, though. So who knows?

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If it happens during deep sleep I'm not sure how someone would know except if it is not their first time they might recognize the afterglow / bliss wave when they wake up. I don't think this ever happened to me so I don't know from experience if it is possible to happen during deep sleep. 

But as far as light sleep / falling asleep I definitely agree relaxation helps. It happens to me many times lying in bed just relaxing not intentionally meditating I slip into it. When I meditate I start with  a relaxing type of meditation, and I think it makes it much easier.

Relaxation is a big part of my practice, and I think it's part of samatha (which should be cultivated along with vipassana as is seen in the anapanasati sutta) - some people interpret samatha as entirely concentration and I don't agree, cultivating relaxation requires and develops concentration, in my experience concentration alone without relaxation causes repression (and is incompatible with Shinzen Young's idea of "clarity") and it produces irritability so is counterproductive. Think about what it would be like if you practiced  relaxation the way you practiced meditation (ie a lot) and developed the habit of relaxing and staying relaxed so you were relaxed whatever happened. You would be non-attached. Nothing could upset you. You could not be attached to your self-image, you would see it's just an image not a self. To me this is so obvious and natural and has made such a huge improvement in my life (less suffering) I am sometimes puzzled that it is not more widely recognized.

How does one know anything at all?

Any sensory event is
content in my book. Concentration can produce all kinds of content, and what's important is not the content itself. I have had lots of wild content present itself, bliss, lights, hallucinations, distortions of reality, strange feelings that are good and bad, and neutral. All of it is content and is impermanent.
which is to say it arises and passes; it's temporary and transitory. 

insights seem to result in a fundamental change in the way we operate in the world. Sometimes subtle, sometimes not. 

that said, l Infrequently wake up during sleep into this experience that feels like the brain is sleeping, and there is awareness without thought or movement. As wonderful as it feels, I'm
pretty sure it's still content.
concentration causes all kinds of weird stuff and states. 

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I've had a handful of experiences during sleep that I could point to as probably cessation/fruitions.  There was a distinct lead-up/thing itself/after-effect.  The lead up was a bit different each time. 
The after effects were each somewhat unique, but all had similar qualities, which to summarize was sort of a reassurance of one's path, that things are going exactly as they should, confidence in one's self and one's place, etc.
The after-effect happened during sleep, not after waking up.  
That said, there was sort of a longer-term reflection period that lasted maybe for a couple of days after at least one of these events, where I reflected on the dream sequence as it was quite meaningful.

I won't get into the personal specifics of it but the lead up to some of these involved a buildup of ... 'anxious energy'(?) which included lots and lots of tingling sensations that moved upward from the forehead up to the crown, and the center of consciousness continued to move upward above my body, in fact I felt that my whole body was moving across the ground upwards.  Following that was a complete blackout, and a re-emergence into an extremely lucid and meaningful dream full of 'thisness'.  

In a couple of other cases, there was not this 'anxious energy' but there was a feeling of becoming smaller and smaller and smaller, the feeling of threading a needle, as the needle is thread, there is the weird strobing, slowmo, etc, and then I get to the 'other side' of it, again into a super lucid dream state.

And then another one that just came to mind, which was pretty different from these other two cases.  

I think it probably presents differently for different people, and again, not sure if these would even be classified as cessations in the traditional Buddhist sense, but definitely pretty out there and unforgettable experiences for me that seemed something beyond just 'weird A&P'... and I base that, again, on the after-effect more than anything, which was pretty powerful.

Thanks man! I'm gonna give that a try! 

"How does one know anything at all?"

I like the probabilistic model in which direct perception is considered a 100% knowing. Here, knowing as perceiving. And there is a distance to knowing, distance to perceiving. In absolute nonduality, what is the distance to perceiving? You just are what you are. No distance.

The future and past can be considered more-distant presents, whereas the past is further away than the future, in terms of a direct experience sense, rather than the sense of thoughts and remembering.

That is a great question to inquire, and to experiment with, if you're a practical scientist.
The typical conceptual answers are that you know through the senses, through consciousness, through the sense of mind, through the sense of vision. But the "how" implies a method, a path, a way. So, is there a path that leads to not-knowing? That will be your answer. If you were to blind yourself, to remove your eyes, your vision, would you stop knowing vision? Not that I'm suggesting this, but you can simply close your eyes for a moment. So, you know your environment with open eyes. If you have strong energy moving towards the past, thoughts, you might see your environment by memory, with closed eyes, as a memory of the environment. Although I don't know of that as a habitual thing.

About the post topic, here is some of my personal experience, which of course contains some uncertainty, as I was sleeping.

I woke up with a strong sense of difference. It was night-time, when I woke up. I had a strong feeling of a "difference", my consciousness being different. It had expanded, especially to areas of fear, which is a common theme for expansion in my consciousness. My whole childhood and early life experiences were shaped by fear, continuously, over and over. Strong problems arise when one lives in a fearful environment, especially as a child. I went online, immediately, as I had an urge to do so, went on Twitter, and i've had a radically different perception of the world, which is a common thing for me. Maybe it was this childhood fear, or "Asperger", which lead me to have a strong concentration, but a strong concentration was my default state and lead to some issues and weird life experiences, such as naturally occuring psychic powers, without intention to do so.

Another experience was that I closed my eyes and went for a nap, and my consciousness changed very suddenly. The greatest difference was a strange and strong sense of love, a feeling that I never really experience. It might have been the first time in my life that I experienced that feeling. It did, however, not occupy "all" of my consciousness. That never happens to me.

What matters is that not every fruition/cessation is the same, but they all have things in common.
I think there are mainly 2 types of these experiences, or 2 types of consequences, 2 ways to categorize them.

There are expansive cessations and contractive cessations. That is based on your resulting consciousness.
My perception is very strange, so I don't have a normal baseline, but I used to have a typical baseline.

The time I had an intentional cessation in private, in my room, I had an expansive experience. Those can be divided into two cessations. Subtle expansive cessation or Path cessation. I do think that people can get "fully enlightened" without path cessations, by simply living, considering that arahantship is not "the end", but only a strong change in consciousness and its functioning. Path cessations happen when you have strong friction which is overcome. Subtle cessations happen when you expand gradually, more and more. That is a more natural way of living and learning.

Another time, that was in public, I've had a fruition which was strongly contractive and made further progress more difficult. "dying in public"... that's a very odd experience. it opened the paths to lots of fear and created strong chemical obstacles. I think sleep tends to do more work in the chemical pathways. At least for people who have such problems. The second death in public was rather related to sudden unintended psychic powers. That had no fear involved and was a very natural and smooth experience.

When people think of knowing, what are the benefits? You know life without benefit. Life itself is the reward. To see, to feel, to touch, to smell, to breathe. You know those things. Without reward. So, how is this conceptual knowledge going to benefit you? Just knowing to know it? In that case, you should know that you don't know. The difference between direct knowledge and conceptual knowledge. Knowing to know further implications and consequences? What would those be? I think it would make more sense to look at yourself, at how you are, in the present.

There is a question, not rhetorical, from Feynman. What do you care what other people think?
It can be changed a little bit, into "what do you care whether you had that kind of experience?".

Sense knowledge, Conceptual knowledge, Classification of sense knowledge and Classification of conceptual knowledge.
As you move away from the present, there is a great deal of uncertainty involved. That means, you have to find out for yourself.

Scientists observe way too little, guess just enough, and interpret way too much.

Yes, I could see this being easier for an experienced practitioner to pick up on when waking up, since they already know how the "after glow" feels. I would assume it feels different than waking up from a good night of rest, even if both have similar relaxing effects. 

Maybe a person pre-streamentry would already be in equanimity for a while and be familiar with the territory, have a suspected cessation event during sleep, and  then wake up feeling "different". They might then sit to meditate and have access to jhanas which they may not have previously had. From that stand point, I could see how someone without a cessation experience in the past could perhaps guess that they had a legitimate experience... 

Thank you Chris. The experiences of cessation you described on your practice log have been helpful pointers.

Daniel Ingram has talked about the idea of cessation being the result of the mind finally "synching up" perfectly with reality, but just for a moment. Is this description similar to the event based on your own experience? Would you describe the energetic transition as this sense of synching up?​​​​​​​

Hello Jim, I agree with you. A big part of my practice, both formally, and and in daily life, is to recognize physical or mental contraction/reactivity, to take a breath or two, to release, and to relax. Big inspirations for this have been teachers such as Michael Singer (Yogic background), Dhammarato (Thai/Theravadan Buddhism), and Andrew Holecek (Tibetan Buddhism). The idea or "practice" of relaxation is also an important component to schools that discuss nondual realization.

If we consider the Buddha's teachings on the "two arrows", then this process of unlearning our habitual tendency to contract into a self/belief (second arrow) in order to avoid the unfolding of reality (the first arrow) is a necessary part of the path. The second arrow is the suffering that we create ourselves since we are in misalignment with the reality of things. We react based on our behavioral patterns (defense mechanisms). This is our Karma. Life is hard, but we make it harder on ourselves, and others, by falling into contraction/reactivity. We can recognize this, and when it happens, we can at least try to learn to relax so that these patterns of contraction are unlearned over time. We learn to relax even when the ride is bumpy

I only asked here, because I got into meditation in a commited way due to Daniel's book. I am/was a huge fan the fact that "awakening/enlightenment/spiritual development" is possible. There is a path, it has milestones, there is a recognizable territory. My experience didn't quite align with MCTB in a predicatable way, and I lost motivation. That said, I found some lovely inspiration in Zen and Tibetan Buddhist teachings. I would consider these to be "ultimate teachings" though: we can drop the story of there being a path, of a "Progress of Insight", and yet, I have experiences now and again that seem to match descriptions of what I have read about in the past, so I swing back here to ask about them because I still think these are legitimate. These may be relative questions, but I find them interesting and worthy of discussion regardless  

Hey Papa! As stated above to Jim:
Anyway, I'd consider your response to be an ultimate question if that's fair...

I also know that you worked with Kenneth Folk for a while, that you worked through the Progress of Insight, and that you had a cessation event while walking across a room while spending time with your son (if my memory serves correctly). As much as I appreciate and work with the ultimate teachings at the moment, I asked a relative question which you would actually be equiped to answer Much of your early practice seems to have been steeped in the relative, after all...

So what was cessation like for you? Have you had cessations beyond first or second path? Do you have them now? Have you ever had any during sleep? If so, how did you know? Personally, how did you know? No need for koans in this thread  

Hi Brian, I agree with you: Daniel Ingram defines a cessation as an "event" where there are frames missing from reality. A few other longer term practitioners here would probably agree with that. Even "blackness" would be content, in your terms. It's sorta like when discussing the experience of blind people: do they see a field of black (or maybe a field of white) or nothing at all? I personally had an experience 12ish years ago where the focal point of my vision disappeared and I couldn't see what I was directly looking at for a few minutes, but there was not a black or white spot/dot there. I could still see the periphery crystal clear though. It's hard to describe... Imagine trying to read, but you can't see the word your currently looking at, but you can see the words directly to the left and right of the word you are currently focused on... and yet there is no black nor white spot... 

That said, most practitoners describe a "lead up" and a certain "after event" or "after glow" to a cessation which clues them into the fact that they had a non-event.

Additionally, check out this thread: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/17356555

There are seasoned practitoners on there who described various forms of cessations, some of which seem to have content. Very interestng read!

Hey J W, I appreciate your reply! I have no notes, fortunately or unfortunately enough. I appreciate hearing about your first-hand experience and maybe pitching a theory or two about what might answer my original question. Some of what you describe matches my experience too, but I also don't but into it all too much. Spiritual dreams are awesome, but I still have to go to work in the morning and answer emails and such  

"Daniel Ingram has talked about the idea of cessation being the result of the mind finally "synching up" perfectly with reality, but just for a moment. Is this description similar to the event based on your own experience? Would you describe the energetic transition as this sense of synching up?​​​​​​​"

i think there must be free flow of energy.

for example, i can concentrate on a piece of wood until it disappears. so, that creates more paths towards it, within the brain. more energy flows towards that object. if it becomes expansive, if this concentration makes me more sensitive as a whole, that can become associated with the object. so, if it uncovers fear within me, that fear can spread out to that object, and the cessation of that object.

so there's two ways to look at this. 1) you are "clinging" to that object and thus the energy cannot leave, move away from it, in order to observe its disappearence. or 2) there is a mental obstacle, like fear, or anger, some emotional issue and that prevents energy flowing from appearing to disappearing. so you can observe the appearing, the activation but not the inhibition/disabling/empyting of it.

i've had two types of experiences (in terms of overconcentration)
1) i stared at the object until it disappeared. it was vibrating faster and faster (appearing, disappearing) which actually led me to think (or model) that there is some ratio like 99% appearing and 1% disappearing which can shift to something like 50/50 or 100% disappearing being totally gone. and after sleep, my brain did some rewiring to prevent this from happening again. and i've noticed that sleep does this quite often: if there is too much attention on an object, after sleep it will be easier to notice its disappearing. if it disappears too much, after sleep it will be more stable.
2) either approaching total cessation or a specific object, that uncovers some emotions from the past, that creates a repulsion and shoots you back from noticing disappearing to noticing more appearing.

as solution to 2, you can practice high energy noting like Daniel describes. you might experienced the repulsion, but with high energy you have a great force. but i won't recommend that, because one time i was literally in bed for 10 or so hours and my emotions were moving from equanimity to pain to equanimity to pain.

as solution to 1, you can practice rapid cycling (like 6 seconds of concentration, 2 second of relaxation) or practice with a specific structure so there can be energy movements from memory. e.g. energy moving from chair to ball until ball disappears and then energy comes back to chair. otherwise, that can create an energy overload on your object and i think that is the cause of feeling strong warmth, sweating a lot, feeling tension in your head, and i think that creates these... BDNF things... to "repair" your neurons. ultimately, you don't want concentration to be "concentration" and relaxation to be "relaxation", but just to have a free energy flow, so the energy can flow in exactly the right way, at any time.

if you mess up with these cycles, you can experience things like being unable to sleep because there's tension and too much focus, or you feel too tired and have to sleep/rest like 12 hours. (the latter happened to me when i practiced 5 minutes of concentration and 10 minutes of relaxation cycles. it first lead to a very strange experience, with an almost-fruition and very strange visual experience, very very deep relaxation, different sense of time, and then there was rather little energy for a long time. similar after-effects to smoking too much weed, which i never did, but heard a lot of stories about. lol)

That's one way to describe it, I suppose. For me, the defining characteristic is the absolute loss of consciousness. So it's much more "dropping out" than "syncing up." Syncing up implies a connection between things. I'd say it's more of a disconnection.