What is the basic difference in meditation and sleep? Why don’t people sleep during meditation?

There’s a lot to unpack in this question.

The first is the fundamental difference between sleep and meditation. As someone who has experienced sleep paralysis chronically for many years, I have made the study of sleep part of my well-being practice. Not only this, my experiences have taught me the spiritual nature of sleep and all it contains.

Sleep serves several purposes. It is taken for granted and grossly underestimated. It does not simply help to rejuvenate the body and provide rest. Whilst these things do take place, the overwhelming purpose is the release of our ethereal or spiritual-energetic body, which is weighed down by our physical body and the various emotional blocks that we have. It is whilst we sleep that we can release resistance and bring the physical body back into balance.

Sleep also provides an opportunity to experience other activities:

Having prophetic dreams. These have been taking place consistently with me for several years now and provide an opportunity for your spiritual guides and loved ones to pass messages to you. You can also interact with future events.
Living out future events that you wish for. You may wish to buy a new car or have plenty of money and dream that you have it. Again, you are tapping into future events and preparing your physical body for the experience by removing your resistance and blocks so that it can enter your physical realm.
Astral travel. This is exciting. You can visit other places using your ethereal body. You can visit places in the physical realm or you can travel to other planets and galaxies.
Problem-solving. An opportunity to explore different perspectives and options. Sometimes you’ll wake up with the answer to a problem, not realising that you worked it out in your sleep.
Energy release. This is where you release energy related to certain people or situations. You’ll awaken feeling refreshed and rejuvenated as you let go of the blockage and negative energy.

With all of these, you are not alone. You are constantly surrounded by a team of spiritual energies; guides, angels and other persons who are interested in you.

Meditation, on the other hand, provides an opportunity for you to let go, release resistance and enter the same plane of existence or dimension that you enter when you sleep. When you fully immerse yourself within a meditative stance, you are no longer aware of your environment and time stands still. At this place the overlap between sleep and meditation takes place. A profound experience.

Whilst profound, consciousness is retained and the meditator is brought back to full awareness after a specific period of time. I have heard of some people who were able to maintain this state for a number of years.

On a more general note, many people fall asleep during meditation and enter the sleep state experiencing the points listed above, awakening with limited or no memory of them taking place. This generally happens due to fatigue or limited intention setting.

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About Sheila Pryce Brooks

Sheila Pryce Brooks is an expert in sleep paralysis and extraordinary spiritual experiences. She is passionate about illuminating the overlap between sleep paralysis, spirituality and science through research and education and she has since dedicated her life to helping others manage and transcend sleep paralysis and other extraordinary spiritual experiences.