Hello dear friend Stu, and thank-you for posting your inquiry into remaining conscious during the sleep cycle. I believe the reference in the suttas for amatta, which means the "deathless" directly relates to someone who has attained the superior fruitful (maha-phala) rewards and attainments of the contemplative life. This means one who remains conscious during the sleep cycle has attained the deathless (amatta), which is a synonym for enlightenment.
Now we are going to have to explore the deathless (amatta). How do we get from remaining conscious during the sleep cycle, to achieving the deathless (amatta), when the deathless (amatta), in a Buddhist context, is a synonym for enlightenment? As many of you know I have not only been a rigorous, self- aware, ethical, contemplative for 39 years, but during that time I have also been a rigorous scholar of contemplative literature, and along the way I had to realize that most religious literature, and most contemplative literature, has been improperly translated and interpreted fort thousands of years.
I am also an anthropologist, and anthropology is about studying cultures in past and present. Therefore to understand the contemplative literature of the past we need to understand the cultures of the past authors of that contemplative literature. When we do that we find that the dream-scape of the peoples of the periods in which much of that contemplative literature was originally composed thousands of years ago, believed that the dream-scape was the spiritual dimension of demons in hells and angels in heavens. Therefore, it was the understanding of the mystics of the past that the dream-scape was the same as the spiritual dimension, and understanding that when one dies one leaves the material existence and enters a spiritual existence, and thus enters the dream-scape, then by remaining conscious during the sleep cycle one has thus entered the deathless (amatta).
I have been remaining conscious during the sleep cycle for nearly 40 years. How I got there was by first leading a rigorous, self- aware, ethical, contemplative life, which was focused upon cultivating the altered states of consciousness that are the 8 stages of samdahi, as described in the suttas. This is essentially a description of the Noble Eightfold (step) Path to liberation and enlightenment.
I practice meditation every day, several times a day, and have done so for 39 years. I start and end every day with meditation, and I find as many opportunities to meditate during the day that I can arrange. The practice of meditation and self-awareness is a definition of the 7th fold of the Noble Eightfold (step) Path to liberation and enlightenment, which is called in the suttas 'sati' not vipassana. I have also done my best to lead a sober, and ethical life, which I believe is described by the first 5 folds, or steps, of the Noble Eightfold (step) Path to liberation and enlightenment.
I know you understand this about myself, and from what I understand, you (Stu) have been leading such a life; however, I feel like if I do not state the above, then the naive are going to think that if they just count rosary beads, or do prostrations, 5 minutes a day (or whatever devotional practice), then they will reap the same fruitful (phala) rewards that you, Michael, Sam, and I have reaped. Which is simply not true.
We, therefore, also have to realize (and this has to be stated) that all mainstream religions have totally corrupted the enlightened teachings (dharma, dhamma) of their enlightened progenitor, and they have been aggressively marketing a deeply flawed version of the philosophy and lifestyle (dharma, dhamma) of their progenitor.
Once we realize the above and adopt the lifestyle as described above, which I believe you have, then we have a foundation upon which we can hone that lifestyle and philosophy (dharma, dhamma) to enhance our superior fruitful (maha-phala) rewards and attainments.
With the above as a foundation, then I also took up a few more practices to remaining conscious during the sleep cycle and thus attain the deathless (amatta).
1) Through daily sitting meditation practice I developed the 4 stages of the religious experience that are defined as the eightfold (step) of the Noble Eightfold (step) Path to liberation and enlightened, and are defines as samadhi and jhana in the suttas.
2) It was being able to meditate every day to the depth of the fourth stage of the religious experience (4th jhana) that brought me up to the threshold of the immaterial domains.
3) Just prior to sleep I meditate sitting down to the fourth stage of the religious experience (4th jhana) that brought me up to the threshold of the immaterial domains.
4) When I was ready for sleep, then I meditated lying down for the rest of the night.
5) At the point at which the body would normally fall asleep, I would then leave the body and fully enter the immaterial domains, which is the same as becoming lucid in the sleep state.
6) When i recognized that I was ready to become lucid in the sleep state I also enhanced my lucidity in the sleep state by keeping a journal near my bed, with a flashlight, and a pen, and I said to myself as I lay down at night, "I wish to recall a dream." When I began to awake after these lucid dreams I made sure that I wrote the "dream" down, or otherwise I would lose the lucidity that I had gained. I have nearly 40 years of such dream journals store somewhere, if they have not been lost.
7) Once I had become lucid in the sleep state, then by the coincidence of becoming a mendicant in 1974 I ended up sleeping outside every night for one year. I found then, that the stars are intimately connected to the immaterial domains. So I recommend anyone who wishes to remaining conscious during the sleep cycle, and thus enter the deathless (amatta), should then sleep every night under the stars.
