What happens to your conscious awareness when you are asleep

[hayley2003]

when you are awake, you know who you are and what you are doing. So what happens to your consciousness when you go to sleep; does it just turn off?

[lliam]

I don't think that our conscious really knows exactly what or who it is. It beliefs to be John Do or whoever. Many decisions, are made on subconscious levels long before, which we consciously perceive and put then into actions.

What we really are may be too complex to be understand by our consciousness. For me, the conscious is just an interface that connects our whole being with the reality that surrounds us.

So, when we (our conscious) sleep, we still rest or slow down and may be get updatet by subconscious-levels, ~processes etc, what's called dreaming.


btw: to me, a turn off just means you'll be dead.

[NewLeafsFan]

I don't think that it turns off or goes away. When you are dreaming, you know the difference from right and wrong. So a part of it is still working.

Also, during sexual activity, females minds enter an almost sleep like state.

[Stanley02]

when you are awake, you know who you are and what you are doing. So what happens to your consciousness when you go to sleep; does it just turn off?

It makes me pee myself... hate you brain!

[Tom_theflash]

Probably people have varying levels of consciousness while sleeping..someone can just walk into my room and I'll instantly wake from the miniscule amount of noise but I can kick another person in the chest and he keeps sleeping..While your consciousness may be in question for how much each person retains you still react to the world while asleep like how you can wake with goosebumps during a cold night. A difference between being "knocked out" and sleeping is that you cannot be awoken from a knock out..you brain or spinal column had suffered a hard enough blow to render you unconscious so you cease all mental activity, but you can still congregate work functions with your organs, very different from when you are sleeping..So, you are still conscious while sleeping, because your body and brain are still reacting to the outside world at full capacity. In fact, some people can even wake themselves from the rem movement the projected images from their memories and come back into the world.

[PlasmaHam]

Consciousness, in my opinion, is almost always engaged in the human mind, but to varying levels. For instance, while you are dreaming your consciousness is clearly working, since dream you is still you. However, it is in a less-active state, so it is more susceptible to the imaginary stimuli that is generated by REM sleep, and thus having you dream. And studies have indicated that even without dreams, there is still an underlying consciousness deep within the brain during sleep.

This of course varies by the person. People who have the ability to lucid dream or are very light sleepers, likely have a greater degree of consciousness than one who rarely dreams or sleeps heavily. But overall, I don't believe that the consciousness "shuts down" during sleep, it just becomes less active.

[Danieldv77]

The consciousness is in a bit of a limbo; you are not aware of what's truly going on around you, your physical body, but you are aware of what's going on inside of your dream. Whether you remember said dream or not is meaningless; your brain contemplates it, even if that contemplation isn't 'saved to memory'.
Thus, in a way, consciousness is retained, if only toward your thoughts, not your surroundings.

[ska8er]

I suppose ur subconscious turns
on and u start dreaming.

[Uniquemind]

when you are awake, you know who you are and what you are doing. So what happens to your consciousness when you go to sleep; does it just turn off?

Different states of consciousness (Sleep, sexual arousal, mediation/prayer) are different ratios of the melding point in which the soul is bonded to the physical body; or more specifically the brain.

The soul has no on or off button it is eternal and is always connected to the source, the physical body is usually the opposing limiting factor of past spiritual memories not being able to be recalled from previous lives. In some cases there are spillover affects and these would be your psychic sensitives, prodigies, and medical phenomena that are otherwise not explained by science. During life, new experiences and memories are gained, good or bad, and upon death those experiences are added to the collective real version of you, which has no inherent gender, hence it gets to choose it's expression of gender.


The concept of reincarnation also occurs at this apex point and in pregnancy and in miscarriage or abortion, the spirit is bonding in ratio to the brains development of an embryo. If death occurs the physical connection is severed the soul returns to the source to await a new vessel to bond too at the instruction or request of the higher spiritual order, known commonly as God.

But upon death consciousness exists behind the passing of the body, and the two are both connected but diametrically opposed as well.

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You will also discover creepy overlaps between sexual identity disorder and certain reincarnation phenomena.

I have gone to some parenting blogs where parents share creepy things their young children have told them about still being able to recall past lives including their own murders or previous mommy's and daddy's.

Also sometimes they remember a miscarried twin that didn't make it, that their parents never told them about, and other times they fuse with their twin or admit to outright killing them in the womb. Medically this is known as twin-vanishing syndrome, in which one embryo canabalizes the other by hogging all the necessary nutrients required for developing, and the secondary vessel dissipates.

We also know that there is a TON of brain activity in baby's brains when they're in the womb, this process is part of the ensoulment process.


Some also question why they return as a boy, when before they were a girl or vice-versa. This has led me to believe an interesting POV in gender-related discussions on these forums, to which I have held my tongue.



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Sleep is a refresh point between the nexus of the spiritual and physical. The physical reason is the brain must rid-toxins and make new mental pathways for development so as to maximize the expression the soul seeks from life, and to cope with life's stressors. If this does not occur after a prolonged period of time then damage to the body or even death will occur, and medically we see this as death from exhaustion via sleep deprivation. Special meditation methods (which military personel do learn and practice, can suffice long enough as a substitute for sleep for a while and even survival rushes of adrenaline can do the same to a more novice degree.


Those who learn to mentally train to lucid dream, do essentially have a super-power which they can utilize to great benefit but also open themselves up to great harm too if done dangerously it is a type of ESP in the hypothetical sense.


Also for these reasons that's why ghosts of formerly living people retain the memories of their life, the information is copied over from the brain into the soul and when the soul separates upon death, the knowledge remains and can be passed down.


Please PM me if you'd like more of my perspective.

[blitkrieg]

happened to me once

[Spooky_Eli]

some say your conscious dies, and is then reborn if you will, when you wake up