Waking, Dreaming, Being by Evan Thompson
I have recently completed reading an excellent book on neuro-phenomenology, “Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy”. In author’s words “Whereas the Indian thinkers mapped consciousness and I-making in philosophical and phenomenological terms, I show how their insights can also help to advance the neuroscience of consciousness, by weaving together neuroscience and Indian philosophy in an exploration of wakefulness, falling asleep, dreaming, lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, deep and dreamless sleep, forms of meditative awareness, and the process of dying".
Evan Thompson is professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia. He writes about cognitive science, phenomenology, the philosophy of mind, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Buddhist philosophy in dialogue with Western philosophy of mind and cognitive science. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Below I have summarised Evan’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations, mostly in his own words. I have done some minor re-organisation to bring together topic under sub-headings that are mine. The summary points from the book are bulleted/numbered for ease of further discussion if any. I have included a list of references/bibliography selected from the book's reference/bibliography sections for those who may wish to explore further. I have included a brief last post highlighting the points that may be discussed or debated. But readers may take up any other point that they deem debatable.
Summary of Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy
Consciousness and Experiential States as per Vedanta and Buddhism
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I have recently completed reading an excellent book on neuro-phenomenology, “Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy”. In author’s words “Whereas the Indian thinkers mapped consciousness and I-making in philosophical and phenomenological terms, I show how their insights can also help to advance the neuroscience of consciousness, by weaving together neuroscience and Indian philosophy in an exploration of wakefulness, falling asleep, dreaming, lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, deep and dreamless sleep, forms of meditative awareness, and the process of dying".
Evan Thompson is professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia. He writes about cognitive science, phenomenology, the philosophy of mind, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Buddhist philosophy in dialogue with Western philosophy of mind and cognitive science. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Below I have summarised Evan’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations, mostly in his own words. I have done some minor re-organisation to bring together topic under sub-headings that are mine. The summary points from the book are bulleted/numbered for ease of further discussion if any. I have included a list of references/bibliography selected from the book's reference/bibliography sections for those who may wish to explore further. I have included a brief last post highlighting the points that may be discussed or debated. But readers may take up any other point that they deem debatable.
Summary of Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy
Consciousness and Experiential States as per Vedanta and Buddhism
- According to the Indian yogic traditions, which broadly constructed include Buddhism, consciousness is that which is luminous and has the capacity for knowing. “Luminous” means having the power to reveal, like a light.” Without consciousness, the world can’t appear to perception, the past can’t appear to memory, and the future can’t appear to hope or anticipation. Without consciousness, there’s no observation, and without observation, there are no data.
- “Knowing” means having the ability to apprehend whatever appears. “To say the world shows up or appears to us in these ways is to say that our consciousness reveals the world and apprehends it in these ways. The primary means or instruments by which consciousness accomplishes this are sense perception and conceptualization (we can’t apprehend what we see as a sunset unless we can conceptualize it as a sunset). An effect is how we experience some of these contents of awareness as “I” or “Me” or “Mine.” So, the Consciousness is that which is luminous, knowing, and reflexive — is self-appearing and pre-reflectively self-aware.
- To understand how we enact a self, therefore, we need to understand three things—the nature of awareness as distinct from its sensory and mental contents, the mind-body processes that produce these contents, and how some of these contents come to be experienced as the self.
- The Indian Hindu texts—dating from the sixth or seventh century B.C.E.—delineate three universal experiential states of the self—the waking state, the dream state, and the state of deep and dreamless sleep and a fourth linking pure awareness that runs through and knows all three states. Waking consciousness involves the operation of mind and senses and relates to the outer world and apprehends the physical body as the self. Dream consciousness involves the operation of the mind only and relates to mental images constructed from memories and apprehends the dream body as the self. In deep and dreamless sleep, consciousness rests in a dormant state not differentiated into subject and object.
- Whereas normal waking consciousness is ego-structured—we experience ourselves as bounded beings distinct from the outside world—this structure dissolves in the hypnagogic (pre-sleep) state. There’s no ego in the sense of an “I” who acts as a participant in a larger world, and there’s no larger world in which we feel immersed. Instead, there’s a play of images and sounds that holds consciousness spellbound.
- The ego structure of consciousness returns in the dream state. In the hypnagogic state, we look at images and they absorb us; in the dream state, we experience being in the dream world. Sometimes we experience it from an inside or first-person perspective; sometimes we see ourselves in it from an outside or third-person perspective. These two perspectives also occur in memory, where they’re known as “field memory” and “observer memory.” Yet even in the case of the observer perspective in a dream, we experience ourselves as a subject situated in relation to the dream world.
- This changes in a lucid dream. The defining feature of a lucid dream is being able to direct attention to the dreamlike quality of the state so that one can think about it as a dream. When this happens, the sense of self shifts, for one becomes aware of the self both as a dreamer—“I’m dreaming”—and as dreamed—“I’m flying in my dream.” Lucid dreamers can use eye movements to signal when they become lucid, and scientists can monitor what’s going on in the brain at the same time. In Tibetan Buddhism, “dream yoga” includes learning how to attain lucid dreams in order to practice meditation in the dream state. This kind of meditation is thought to help to recognize the basic nature of consciousness as pure awareness.
- Findings from sleep science that show that each state—the hypnagogic state, dreaming, and lucid dreaming—is associated with its own distinct kind of brain activity. The partnership between neuroscientists on one hand and meditators on the other has yielded extremely valuable data towards an understanding of human cognitive processes. There are, however, important critical differences between Western cognitive science and the Indian yogic philosophies, on the fundamental matter of definition of consciousness. For Western science, especially neuroscience and the rest of cognitive science, consciousness is a biological phenomenon wholly dependent on the brain. For Buddhism, especially Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, the fundamental nature of consciousness is not biological, and consciousness has an existence independent of the brain.
- Tibetan Buddhism presents a vivid account of the progressive breakdown of consciousness and the dissolution of the sense of self during the dying process. According to Tibetan Buddhism—as well as Yoga and Vedānta—great contemplatives can disengage from the sense of self as ego as they die. Resting in an experience of pure awareness, they can watch the dissolution of their everyday “I-Me-Mine” consciousness and witness their own death with equanimity.
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