Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
5. On Three Works of the Mother
Fragment ID: 20239
In the chapter on dream in the Conversations, I came across the following passage: “In sleep you fell into the grip of these subconscient1 regions and they opened and swallowed all that you had laboriously built up in your conscious hours” [p. 15]. If these regions swallow all one has achieved during the day, is it not necessary to be conscious at night as well as in the day?
At night, when one sinks into the subconscient after being in a good state of consciousness, we find that state gone and we have to labour to get it back again. On the other hand, if the sleep is of the better kind, one may wake up in a good condition. Of course, it is better to be conscious in sleep, if one can.
25 June 1933
1 In the text of “Conversations”, the word used is “unconscious”, not “subconscient”. – Ed.