5. Natural Death and Spiritual Life

And indeed, this dream world, that which resonates and vibrates from the time we spend between falling asleep and waking up into the waking consciousness, contains something that can indeed be further developed. And this further development happens precisely through the higher knowledge of the human being, through the attainment of a third state of consciousness. Through the intensification of thinking, feeling and willing, something is achieved that is, on the one hand, similar to the world of sleep, out of which dreaming arises, and, on the other hand, is completely opposed to it. When we say we fall asleep, we let the dream sound from the world of sleep; so we have to say: in the world of supersensible consciousness, into which anthroposophical research wants to penetrate, there is not a falling asleep, but on the contrary a higher awakening. There is an experience in a world that is similar to and yet very different from the world of dreams; similar in that it ceases when we submerge into the full physical life with the dream world, which, after all, flits past us in moments, say, of waking up, and immediately gives way to the life that permeates the thoughts imbued with will. The life in consciousness that is attained in the manner indicated can and must likewise cease when it submerges into ordinary human corporeality. Just as the dream fades away, so the higher consciousness ceases when it submerges into corporeality. This waking up, this higher state of consciousness, if I may use the much-debated term, hovers, I would like to say, in a lightness just like that of the dream world – but on the other hand it is opposed to it because it is interspersed with certain thoughts in just as strict a sense as waking daytime cognition.