Reincarnation | Page 5

impresses on returning to the physical body (if it has been far
away) or impresses directly when, whilst acting in the finer vehicle, the
latter has not left the body.[4]
In other words, the brain, by reason of its functional inactivity, vibrates
little or not at all in its higher centres; it plays the part of a
sounding-board at rest, capable of vibrating sympathetically under the
influence of a similar board placed by its side.
The necessity of cerebral quiet, if the higher consciousness is to make
an impression, is now easy to understand; the finer vibration of the
astral body cannot be impressed upon the brain when the latter is
already strongly vibrating under the action of normal consciousness.
For this reason also, the deeper the sleep of the physical body the better

the higher consciousness manifests itself.
In ordinary man, organic quiet is scarcely ever complete during sleep;
the brain, as we shall see shortly, automatically repeats the vibrations
which normal consciousness has called forth during the waking state;
this, together with an habitual density of the nervous elements, too
great to respond to the higher vibration, explains the rarity and the
confused state of the impression of astral consciousness on the brain.
The facts relating to the higher consciousness are as numerous as they
are varied. We shall not enter into full details, but choose only a few
phenomena quoted in well-known works.
MANIFESTATIONS OF THE HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS
DURING THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF SLEEP.
Normal dream. During normal sleep there exists a special
consciousness which must not be confounded either with waking
consciousness or with that of the astral body. It is due to the automatic,
cerebral vibration which continues during sleep, and which the soul
examines on its return to the body--when awake. This dream is
generally an absurd one, and the reason the dreamer notices it only on
awaking is that he is absent from the visible body during sleep.
The proof of the departure of the astral body during sleep has been
ascertained by a certain number of seers, but the absurdity of the
commonplace dream is a rational proof thereof, one which must here be
mentioned. As another rational proof of the existence of a second
vehicle of consciousness, we must also notice the regular registering of
the commonplace dream, because it takes place in the brain, and the
habitual non-registering of the true dream experience, because this
latter takes place in the externalised astral body.
Why does the astral body leave the physical during sleep? This
question is beyond our power to answer, though a few considerations
on this point may be advanced.
Sleep is characterised by the transfer of consciousness from the

physical to the astral body; this transfer seems to take place normally
under the influence of bodily fatigue. After the day's activity, the senses
no longer afford keen sensations, and as it is the energy of these
sensations that keeps the consciousness "centred" in the brain[5]; this
consciousness, when the senses are lulled to sleep, centres in the finer
body, which then leaves the physical body with a slight shock.
It is, however, of the real dream--which is at times so intelligent that it
has been called lucid, and at all events is reasonable, logical, and
co-ordinate--that we wish to speak. In most cases this dream consists of
a series of thoughts due to the soul in action in the astral body; it is
sometimes the result of seeing mental pictures of the future[6] or else it
represents quite another form of animistic activity, as circumstances
and the degree of the dreamer's development permit.
It is in the lucid dream--whether belonging to normal or to abnormal
sleep--that occur those numerous and well-known cases of visions past
or future to be found in so many of the books dealing with this special
subject.
To these same states of higher consciousness are due such productions
as Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. The author, suffering from fever, wrote this
work whilst in a kind of delirious condition; Ivanhoe was printed
before the recovery of the author, who, on reading it at a later date, had
not the slightest recollection that it was his own production. (Ribot's
Maladies de la Mémoire, p. 41.)
Walter Scott remembered nothing, because Ivanhoe was the fruit of the
astral consciousness impressed upon a brain which fever had rendered
temporarily receptive to the higher vibrations.
There are certain peculiarities of the real dream which prove almost
mathematically the superior nature of the vehicle which gives
expression to it. This dream, for instance, is never of a fatiguing nature,
however long it may appear to last, because it is only an instantaneous
impression made upon the brain by the astral body, when the latter
returns to the physical body, on awaking. On the