Blank/Pure Consciousness Experiences:
A reconceptualization of a set of waking experiences of Father X allows further interpretation and theoretical contextualization. Father X's experiences occurred during sleep (86%) and during waking (14%). This graph shows the relative incidence of each type of experience. Waking experiences were identified as one of two major types, comments and what Father X called blank experiences. These waking blank experiences are not necessarily mutually exclusive to sleep. For instance, waking blanks in a few cases evolved into what he called OBE's or lucid dreams further OBE's began from his perspective from waking. In any case the majority of the waking/commentary types of experiences were comments on OBE's and typically included descriptions of vibrations and other phenomena classically associated with the out-of-body experience. He identified the waking blank experiences as distinct. For instance from Jan. 14, 1983 he wrote:
I was just resting on my bed fully clothed. It was one of those strange (as if they all aren't strange!) experiences where I wasn't thinking of anything so my mind was completely blank and my eyes closed, then suddenly it seemed like a television set went on in my head ......
However as the blank experiences progressed they got increasingly complex and he was increasingly involved in them so that by the end of the diary entries they were full blown OBE's or lucid dreams. If these blank experiences are conceptualized as experiences of pure consciousness then their developmental relationship to the rest of Father X's experiences would be consistent with previous conceptual work I have done on these experiences.
My thinking (Gackenbach, 1991) parallels recent theoretical work in developmental and transpersonal psychology which posit stages of human growth beyond Piaget's endpoint of formal operations. Although most post-formal operational approaches continue to emphasize all of development as a function of the dynamic interaction between biology and environment a third potentially important domain has been suggested. This domain, consciousness, is the most appropriate for considering the role of "consciousness" in sleep. Due to the focus on the development of consciousness recent theorists in both developmental (Alexander, et al., 1990) as well as transpersonal psychology (Wilber, 1987) have postulated stages of development that are not only beyond the traditional Piagetian endpoint of formal operations but also see the next major shift in development as moving past representation to "post-representation". Such post-representational models characterize consciousness in sleep as an illustration of "the Self becoming de-embedded from and hierarchically integrated ("[that is] witnessing") all previous, representational levels of mind (Alexander et al., 1990; p. 33)," including dreaming. In other words, consciousness in sleep, as illustrated by the lucid dream, is an early manifestation of post-formal operational functioning in sleep. During the lucid dream the representational capacity is still dominant even though there seems to be a de-embedding from the normal orientation of the dream ego. After all although we know it is a dream, the dreamt representation remains and in fact the awareness of dreaming does not hinder the "felt reality" or "otherness" of the dream experience. Gackenbach argues this is but a starting point which with full development of the self moves past the dream ego actively engaged in the dream environment to a post-representational aspect where consciousness quiet and separate from the dream environment. This has been called witnessing sleep.
I have identified tentative stages in the movement from lucidity to witnessing. Initially the actor is dominant and the observer is minimal, it simply recognizes that the self is dreaming. Then a fuller awareness may emerge such that the observer may recognize that the dreamer can either engage the dream story or move to a separate, quiet position. The receptive stance moves one toward a witnessing form of consciousness and consequently the emotionally impactful quality of the dream fades. Awareness itself becomes the dominant feature. When you are completely absorbed in only the awareness it opens up again in forms that are often difficult to describe verbally; such as it is "visual but not visual, more like the light of being".
As can be seen in this graph when each experience was assigned a sequence number it was possible to look at the relative development of each type of experience over the course of the diary (F(5,307)=5.40, p<.001). OBE's developed first followed by lucid dreams, mixed lucid/OBE experiences, blank visions, blank OBE's and finally blank lucid dreams. The last two types of experiences developed quite late and primarily accounted for the statistical significance in the diary. In part because these blank experiences developed late in the diary they were quite infrequent in terms of the total types of experiences as can be see in this graph (X2(5)=344.80, p<.0001).
The degree of elaboration of each experience can be estimated from the number of lines per paragraph (a paragraph is a separate experience in all but 8.6% of the total cases). This next bar graph show that blank experiences emerging into lucid dreams were most detailed by Father X and all three types of blank experiences were more elaborated than the three type of sleep experiences (F(5,307) = 3.75, p<.003). This may in part be an artifact of the lack of blank experiences so that when they happened he took extra time and effort to record them. At the least one can imply that they represent something special to this monk. In sum blank type experiences were few, developed late and a lot of words were used to describe them.
For someone new to the experience of pure consciousness the contrast of "no sense of defined boundaries of physical body'" could also get confused with the OBE. But in pure consciousness there should be a sense of no fear or negativity with no sense of getting lost or trapped. The "world" gets constructed from pure consciousness so for instance in a content analysis of these experiences in sleep versus lucidity or witnessing dreams, there were more state transitions associated with it in deep sleep as only the constructions can fill in the blank of nothingness and thus become transitions. The point of the development of pure consciousness experiences is to integrate our bodies with higher states of consciousness not leave them behind. If in fact his "blank" experiences are experiences of pure consciousness this would imply, consistent with the rest of these findings, that in some way he was moving toward a healthier, if more painful, way of being in the world.