Sleeping, Dreaming and Dying: an exploration of consciousness with the Dalai Lama

This is an absorbing account of a dialogue between leading Western scientists and the foremost representative of Buddhism today, the Dalai Lama of Tibet.

For modern science, the transitional states of consciousness lie at the forefront of research in many fields. For a Buddhist practitioner these same states present crucial opportunities to explore and transform consciousness itself. This book is the account of a historic dialogue between leading Western scientists and the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Revolving around three key moments of consciousness—sleep, dreams, and death—the conversations recorded here are both engrossing and highly readable. Whether the topic is lucid dreaming, near-death experiences, or the very structure of consciousness itself, the reader is continually surprised and delighted.

Narrated by Francisco Varela, an internationally recognized neuroscientist, the book begins with insightful remarks on the notion of personal identity by noted philosopher Charles Taylor, author of the acclaimed Sources of Self. This sets the stage for Dr. Jerome Engel, Dr. Joyce MacDougal, and others to engage in extraordinary exchanges with the Dalai Lama on topics ranging from the neurology of sleep to the yoga of dreams.

Remarkable convergences between the Western scientific tradition and the Buddhist contemplative sciences are revealed. Dr. Jayne Gackenbach's discussion of lucid dreaming, for example, prompts a detailed and fascinating response from the Dalai Lama on the manipulation of dreams by Buddhist meditators. The conversations also reveal provocative divergences of opinion, as when the Dalai Lama expresses skepticism about "Near-Death Experiences" as presented by Joan Halifax. The conversations are engrossing and highly readable. Any reader interested in psychology, neuroscience, Buddhism, or the alternative worlds of dreams will surely enjoy Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

A Prelude to the Journey
Charting Ego’s Shadow Zones
Cross-Cultural Dialogue and the Mind and Life Conferences

Chapter 1: What’s in a Self ?

A History of the Concept of Self
Self-Exploration and Modernity
Science and the Self
The Self and Humanism
Non-Self in the West

Chapter 2: Brain’s Sleep

Sleep in Neuroscience
Early Ideas
The Basics of the EEG
Sleep Patterns
Characterizing REM Sleep
Dreaming and REM
Sleep in Evolutionary Perspective
Why Do We Sleep?
Dreams in the Tibetan Tradition
Dissolution in Sleep and Death
Are There Correlates of Subtle Mind?
Intention and Effort in Practice
Sleep, Orgasm, and Death
Awareness and Discontinuities

Chapter 3: Dreams and the Unconscious

Psychoanalysis in Western Culture
Freud and Company
A Topography of the Mind
Dreaming and the Unconscious
Narcissism
Dreams, the Royal Road to the Unconscious
Marie-Josée’s Story
Beyond Freud
Is There an Unconscious in Buddhist Teaching?
On the Complex Inheritance of Mental Tendencies
Foundation Consciousness and the Unconscious
Imprints and the “Mere-I”
More on Mere Identities
Gross and Subtle Mind
Conventional Designation
Psychoanalysis as Science?

Chapter 4: Lucid Dreaming

Evidence for Lucidity
How Common Is Lucidity?
Traits of Lucid Dreamers
Inducing Lucid Dreaming
Lucidity and Witnessing

Chapter 5: Levels of Consciousness and Dream Yoga

The Notion of a Self
Self and Action
Motivation for Action Is Mental
Levels of Consciousness
Types of Causal Connections
Foundation Consciousness
Continuity of Levels
Mental Factors and Sleep
Clear Light, Subtle Self
The Cycle of Embodiments
Dream Yoga

Chapter 6: Death and Christianity

Christianity and the Love of God
Death in the Christian Tradition
Attitudes Toward Death in the West
Secular Attitudes Toward Death

Chapter 7: What Is Bodily Death?

The Western Medical Definition of Death
A Buddhist Definition of Death
Interlude: A Conversation on Body Transplants
Brain Death
Brain Correlates of Consciousness
Alterations of Consciousness
Epilepsies
Epilepsy and Tibetan Medicine
Indications of Death in the Tibetan Tradition
Stages of Death
Gross and Subtle Levels of Mind
Gross and Subtle Sexual Intercourse
Transference of Consciousness
Experimental Occasions for Subtle Mind

Chapter 8: Near-Death Experiences

Death as Rite of Passage
Exploring the Edge of Death
Archaeology of Death Rituals
Western Discovery of the Afterlife
Testimonies and Their Patterns
Detailed Nature of Near-Death Experiences
Feelings and Sensations
Core Experiences
Company and Well-Being
Some Materialistic Perspectives
Possession and Epilepsy
Near-Death Experiences and Buddhist Teachings
Near-Death Experiences and the Clear Light

Coda: Reflections on the Journey

Winding Down
What We Learned
Return

Appendix: About the Mind and Life Institute, Acknowledgments
Notes
Glossary
Contributors
Index