V. Spiritual Conditions of Evolution Leading Up to the Anthroposophical Movement

This again was not so in the times of which I am now speaking. The Ego did not at once absorb the astral body; the astral body continued to exist, independently in its own substance, even after the human being had fallen asleep. And to a certain extent, it remained so through the whole night. Thus in the morning the human being awakened not from utter darkness of unconsciousness, but with the feeling:—“I have been living in a world filled with light, in which all manner of things were happening.” Albeit they were only pictures, something was taking place there. It was so indeed: the man of that time had an intermediate feeling, an intermediate sensation between sleeping and waking. It was delicate, it was light and intimate, but it was there. It was only with the beginning of the 14th century that this condition ceased completely in civilised mankind.