Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
12. Experiences of the Inner and the Cosmic Consciousness
As to the dream, it was not a dream but an experience of the inner being in a conscious dream-state, svapna-samādhi. The 
numbness and the feeling of being about to lose consciousness are always due to the pressure or descent of a Force to which the body is not accustomed but feels strongly. Here it was not the physical body that was being directly pressed, but the subtle body, sūkṣma śarīra, in which the inner being more intimately dwells and in which it goes out in sleep or trance or at the moment of death. But the physical body in these vivid experiences feels as if it was itself that was having the experience; the numbness was the effect in it of the pressure. The pressure on the whole body would mean a pressure on the whole inner consciousness, perhaps for some modification or change which would make it more ready for knowledge or experience; the third or fourth rib would indicate a region which belongs to the vital nature, the domain of the life-force, some pressure for a change there.