338. So what is night-consciousness? Is it nothing more than just a state of rest? In the opinion of an ordinary terrestrial person it is certainly just that and nothing more, for he does not have the ability to acquire any personally experienced knowledge in that area. He is only in a position to see it as a state of rest. In his mentality it is an "unconscious" state, pure and simple, for normally he cannot remember any of the details of what he has experienced while in that condition. However, it can happen that when he wakes from sleep he almost feels as if he had experienced something. Moreover, these experiences can stand out very distinctly and clearly in his memory even if, as in most cases, they are blurred and illogical. Such experiences are known as "dreams". "Dreams" are thus real thought-reactions in the individual's consciousness. But as thought-reactions, again, are the same as "experiences", then "dreams" are identical with actual experiences.
      But dreams differ from ordinary physical experiences in that they do not take place through the physical eyes, ears, hands, feet or other parts of the physical body which (with the exception of vital automatic functions such as blood circulation and breathing) are temporarily out of action. So these experiences are to a certain extent considered by terrestrial man as unreal, especially as they are not subject to the conscious control of his will, but appear apparently by chance and can express themselves as highly unexpected events. Thus "dreams" prove it to be a fact that there exist two kinds of realistic forms of "being awake", namely an awake day-conscious form of experiencing through the physical senses and another, equally "awake", form of experiencing in which the physical senses are out of action. Both these situations are experienced by the individual as functions of thought and both are equally realistic. In dreams the individual "sees" landscapes, towns and people, animals, flowers, substances and matter; he also "sees" sorrow, accidents, bodily mutilation, suffering, good fortune and happiness just as realistically as in his waking physical consciousness. Indeed, while dreaming he is absolutely unable to determine in which of the above two forms of existence he finds himself. From this "dream existence" the individual may be left with just as realistic memories of "green forests", "meadows", "fields", "animals", "people", "sorrows" and "joys" as his memories from waking physical existence. There are, however, certain things which sometimes show that in the "dream-existence" the individual is not so specifically subject to the law of gravity as he is in physical existence. A far greater state of freedom is revealed here than that which terrestrial man experiences through the physical body. In dreams, for example, one can feel one is "gliding" through space, just as one may sometimes achieve a total "bodily" transformation at the command of one's thought. One can be a child again, or young or old, all according to one's wish. Neither is one confined to one place to the same degree as in physical existence. There are thus many experiences here which are wholly divergent from what one can experience during awake, physical existence.
      Dreams, therefore, confirm the fact that there exists quite another form of experience than the physical one, and consequently quite another world than the purely material one. In this way terrestrial man lives in two worlds.