2. Consciousness in Sleeping and Waking States

GA 163/1915-08-27/p018 ·1915-08-27 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
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What I've been telling you has been said not only—and please note the “not only” as well as a “partly”—to call your attention to the fact that we must try to get a proper perspective on the alternation between sleeping and waking. This means asking what sort of consciousness we have when we are awake. The answer is that the outer world rather than the human being is its object, that we forget ourselves and turn our attention to the surrounding world. Conversely, consciousness in sleep is such that we forget the world outside us and observe ourselves. But we return first to the state of consciousness we had on the sun; the fact that we enjoy ourselves is of secondary importance.

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Cite: GA 163/1915-08-27/p018 · edition English