General anesthesia and Advaita Vedanta

It is sometimes said that Advaita Vedanta began with Gaudapada’s commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad. It is from this Upanishad and commentary that we get the doctrine of the three states (waking, dream, and sleep) and turiya, the fourth. Whether Advaita really began with Gaudapada’s commentary, I don’t know. I’m not an intellectual historian. But […]

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Conscious Sleep

Last summer I experienced conscious sleep for the first time. I mean conscious deep sleep, not lucid dreaming. In this article I’ll describe what it felt like. Conscious sleep is mentioned in some of the upanishads, especially the Mandukya Upanishad, which says that the three states of consciousness — waking, dreaming, and deep sleep — […]

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