2. Sleeping and Waking Life in Relation to the Planets

By considering certain familiar experiences and facts we will now explore the different influences which are exerted upon the sleeping human being. A man has only to be more attentive to what happens to him when he goes to sleep and he will notice how the inner activity through which, during the day, he moves his limbs and brings his body into movement with the help of his soul, begins to flag. Anyone who practises a little self-observation at the time when he is about to go to sleep will feel that he can now no longer exercise the same control over his body. A kind of lethargy begins to overpower him. First of all he will feel incapable of directing the movement of his limbs by the will; control of speech is then lost. Then he feels that the possibility of entering into any connection with the outer world is slipping away from him, and all the impressions of the day gradually disappear. What disappears first is the ability to use the limbs and especially the instruments of speech, then the faculties of taste and smell, and finally of hearing. In this gradual cessation of the inner activity of the soul, man experiences the emergence from his bodily sheaths.