#24: The State Akin to Sleep

The State Akin to Sleep

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

My friends, you who sit here tonight feeling the weight of circumstances that refuse to yield, know this: there is a state into which you can enter, a state so simple, so natural, and yet so powerful that it will rewrite the very fabric of your world. It is not some far-off mystery reserved for the few. It is the state akin to sleep.

You have lived your days believing that change comes through effort in the outer world, through struggle and striving. But I tell you, the real creative act occurs in a different realm entirely. It occurs in that drowsy, relaxed state where the body grows still and the mind, though not fully asleep, is free from the clamor of the senses. In this state, impressions are made upon the subconscious, and those impressions become the facts of your tomorrow. This is the state akin to sleep, and it is the doorway through which your desires pass from the invisible into visible expression.

Consider how naturally this state comes to you each night. Sleep itself occupies one-third of your life, and in that deep sleep the conscious mind turns inward to its lover, the subconscious. But there is a finer state, a state you can enter at will, a drowsy condition bordering on sleep yet remaining under your gentle control. In this state the conscious and the subconscious become one flesh. The male, your directed attention, meets the female, your receptive depths, and in their union creation is accomplished.

You do not need to force anything. You simply allow the body to grow heavy, to sink into complete immobility. The muscles relax. The breath grows quiet and even. A pleasant drowsiness steals over you, not the dullness of exhaustion but the soft, receptive warmth that invites impression. In this drowsy state you are still master of your attention. You are not drifting aimlessly. You are not lost in random reverie. You remain aware enough to direct your thoughts, yet relaxed enough that the outer world fades completely from view. The senses close their doors. The objective world vanishes. And in that stillness you stand at the threshold where the real work of life begins.

This state is the natural door into the subconscious. Here the subconscious does not resist. It does not argue. It does not question your right to be what you claim to be. It simply receives the impression you give it and faithfully reproduces it in the outer world of form. The conditions and events of your life are the children born from the molds of your subconscious impressions. They are made in the image and likeness of your innermost feeling, that they may reveal you to yourself. And nowhere is that impression more perfectly received than in the state akin to sleep.

You may ask, how do I enter this state? How do I make use of it? You enter it exactly as you would prepare for the most intimate of meetings. You find a comfortable place to lie or sit. You allow the body to become completely still. You do not tense or strain. You simply let go. Imagine that you are growing sleepy, deliciously sleepy, yet your attention remains clear. Your eyelids may feel heavy. A gentle numbness may spread through your limbs. But within this drowsiness you hold the direction of your thought. You do not fall into ordinary sleep. You hover in that exquisite borderland where imagination is king and the outer world has no claim upon you.

In this state you do not pray as most men pray, begging from a distant God. You do not visualize as one looking at a picture on a screen. You do not think of your desire. You think from the fulfillment of it. You feel yourself into the very situation you would occupy were your desire already realized. You construct in imagination a brief, vivid scene that implies the fulfillment of your wish. Not a long story, not a complicated drama, but one simple, natural event that would naturally follow the realization of your desire. Then, in the drowsy state, you enter that scene. You participate in it. You feel the reality of it as though it were happening here and now. You do not merely see it. You do not merely hear it. You make the imaginary sensation so real that it possesses all the vividness and distinctness of actual experience.

This is the secret. In the state akin to sleep the subconscious accepts your feeling as fact. It does not distinguish between the impression you give it in this drowsy condition and the impression given by sensory experience in the waking world. To it, both are equally real. And because it is the creative power behind all manifestation, it begins at once to externalize what you have impressed upon it. The conditions and events of your life are your children formed from the molds of these impressions. They come forth to reveal you to yourself.

You who feel stuck tonight, who feel that the walls of circumstance are closing in, know that those walls have no power in this state. In the state akin to sleep you are free. You are the master. You rise above every limitation of the outer world because you are no longer identified with it. The objective world vanishes when you turn your attention away from it. In this drowsy stillness you give your desire the right to become a visible concrete fact. You do not struggle to make it so. You do not coerce. You simply feel it to be so with such naturalness that the subconscious receives it without question.

Many of you have tried to change your world by effort alone. You have affirmed and struggled and strained. But I tell you, the greater energies of the mind seldom break forth save when the body is stilled and the door of the senses is closed to the objective world. In the state akin to sleep your attention is steadied. Your imagination is controlled. A minimum of effort keeps your consciousness filled with the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Physical immobility and mental quiet become powerful aids. They increase your power of concentration. They allow the impression to sink deep.

Let me speak to you plainly. You have within you right now the power to enter this state. You do not need special conditions. You do not need a particular hour or place. You can enter it tonight. You can enter it tomorrow morning when you first awaken and feel that pleasant reluctance to rise. You can enter it after a quiet meal when the body is naturally relaxed. The value of this physical stillness shows itself in the accumulation of mental force it brings. Be still, and know that in this stillness you are God in operation.

In this state you surrender completely to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. You do not think about it. You do not hope for it. You do not wonder if it will come. You become it. You feel it so completely that your whole being is possessed by it. This is not daydreaming. This is not uncontrolled reverie. This is the result of a controlled imagination and a steadied, concentrated attention. You remain the master throughout. You direct the play. And when you have dwelt in the feeling until it seems perfectly natural, you gently release it. You let the body return to its normal waking state, knowing that the work has been done.

The subconscious, your faithful lover, has received the impression. It loves your waking state just as it is and faithfully reproduces its likeness in the outer world of form. It does not change you by force. It does not argue. It simply molds the outer world into the image of your inner conviction. And because you have given it the impression in the state akin to sleep, where resistance is at its lowest, the reproduction is swift and certain.

You may find at first that it is not easy to hold your attention steady in this drowsy condition. The mind may wander. The body may twitch. But do not be discouraged. Practice entering the state. Practice the relaxation. Practice the gentle control of attention. You will learn. You will discover that gazing fixedly into some plain object of depth, such as a wall or a carpet, can help steady the mind. But do not look at its surface. Look into and beyond it until your attention is exclusively occupied by the imagined state. Soon you will find that the state comes easily. Soon you will be able to induce it at will.

And when you have entered it, when you have felt the wish fulfilled as a present reality, then know this: you have done all that is required. The how and the when are not your concern. The subconscious has its own ways, ways past finding out. It will arrange the outer circumstances in perfect harmony with your inner conviction. It will draw people, events, and conditions into your world that will objectify what you have impressed upon it. Your only task is to enter the state akin to sleep and give the impression with naturalness and feeling.

You who have struggled so long with problems that seem immovable, consider how simple this is. You do not fight the problem. You do not analyze it. You do not try to overcome it by outer means. You simply withdraw into the state akin to sleep and replace the feeling of the problem with the feeling of the solution. You feel yourself to be that which you desire to be. You feel the joy, the relief, the naturalness of the fulfilled desire. In that drowsy stillness the old pattern is dissolved and the new pattern is impressed. The subconscious accepts it and begins to externalize it.

This is the law. It is as changeless as the law of gravity. Consciousness is the only reality. In the state akin to sleep you are giving consciousness the impression that shapes all future expression. You are not coercing life. You are cooperating with its fundamental principle. You are using the creative power that has always been yours, but which you have misused through ignorance.

Night after night you can set out for this state as though keeping an appointment with your truest lover. Night after night you can enter this drowsy condition and impress upon the subconscious the feeling of the wish fulfilled. And night after night the subconscious will respond by reproducing those impressions in your waking world. The conditions and events of your life will become the living proof of what you have accepted in the state akin to sleep.

Do not be concerned if at first the outer world seems unchanged. Do not look for signs. Do not measure progress by the testimony of the senses. The senses are the last to know. The work is done in the invisible, in the depth of consciousness, and it will appear in its own perfect time. Your faith is not in the evidence of things seen. Your faith is in the reality of the impression made in the state akin to sleep. Remain faithful to that impression. Live in the quiet knowledge that what you have felt in the drowsy state is already so.

You are not the victim of circumstance. You are the creator of it. And the state akin to sleep is your creative workshop. Here you are free from every limitation of the outer world. Here you are free to assume any state you desire. Here you can feel yourself to be healthy when the body seems ill. Here you can feel yourself to be wealthy when the bank account seems empty. Here you can feel yourself to be loved when the world seems cold. And the subconscious, receiving these impressions in their purest form, will externalize them without fail.

This is not theory. This is not philosophy. This is the practical operation of the law. Sleep, the life that occupies one-third of your stay on earth, is the natural door into the subconscious. But the state akin to sleep, that controlled drowsy condition you enter at will, is the master key. In it you make your impressions and receive your instructions. In it the conscious and subconscious are creatively joined. In it you become one with your desire.

Tonight, when you retire, do not simply fall into ordinary sleep. Consciously enter the state akin to sleep. Relax the body completely. Allow the drowsiness to come. Then, in that quiet borderland, feel the fulfillment of your deepest desire. Feel it naturally. Feel it convincingly. Feel it until it possesses you completely. Then let yourself drift into normal sleep knowing that the impression has been made.

And tomorrow, when you awaken, you will carry with you the quiet certainty that something has already shifted. You will not need to repeat the process with anxiety. You will simply remember the feeling you accepted in the state akin to sleep and live from it. You will move through your day as one who knows that the outer world must conform to the inner impression.

My friends, this is the great secret that has been hidden in plain sight. It is the secret of the prophets and the mystics. It is the secret of every man who has ever changed his world. It is the secret now being revealed to you. The state akin to sleep is your doorway to freedom. Enter it. Use it. Live in it. And you will discover that there is no power in heaven or on earth that can prevent the fulfillment of that which you have accepted as true in this sacred, creative state.

You are not bound by the past. You are not limited by present appearances. In the state akin to sleep you are the operant power. You are the creator. You are the one who decrees, and it comes to pass. Feel this truth tonight. Enter the drowsy state and feel the wish fulfilled. Let the impression sink deep. And know, with unshakable certainty, that the subconscious is already at work reproducing it in your world.

This is the law. This is the promise. This is the reality of your being. In the state akin to sleep you have found the key. Use it tonight. Use it every night. And watch as your world rearranges itself in harmony with the impressions you have given it in that holy, receptive, drowsy state.

You are the God of your world. And in the state akin to sleep you exercise your divine creative power. Accept this. Live from this. And the evidence will come. It must come. For consciousness is the only reality, and in the state akin to sleep you have impressed upon it the exact pattern you wish to see externalized.

Go now in peace. Enter the state akin to sleep with the feeling of the wish fulfilled. And know that as you do, so shall it be done unto you according to your word in that drowsy, receptive state.

The outer world is but the shadow. The state akin to sleep is the substance. Impress the substance tonight, and the shadow will conform. This is the truth. This is the way. This is the life.

You have heard it. You have felt it. Now live it. In the state akin to sleep, you are already the one you wish to be. And because you are, the world will soon bear witness.