My educated guess is that I reach Somnambulism when I meditate. I notice that I experience 3 to 10 second moments of experiencing "no identity"; pure silence of mind, but with a heightened awareness to all my senses.
Would the Esdaile State perhaps be the level that many supposed "Spiritually Enlightened" people achieve (and maintain throughout most, or all, of their waking existence)?
I've always trusted my intuition on using deepened states of awareness to heal myself and it has seemed to work wonders on me over the years. Within the first one or two months of starting my self-hypnosis and "silent meditation" therapies I noticed that my skin really cleared up (I had bad acne at the time) and my skin became noticeably radiant (I even got several compliments about it, which really motivated me to continue with my practices). I have since that time (about 6 or 7 years ago) been sick with only minor colds, perhaps only three times (I used to average getting 2 or 3, much more severe colds/ flu, per year). In other words, I'm convinced that hypnosis and meditation are very effective at treating health and immunity.
To answer your question, I don't know, I think everyone is different and some may reach deeper states of consciousness than others, but I wouldn't know without performing tests and the person meditating would have to use the critical factor in the brain to perform the test on themselves which would bring them out of somnambulism and that would defeat the purpose. So I wouldn't know if you are reaching the same levels, but I wouldn't rule it out.
All of them. (Except the waking state because that is our normal state)
Can all of these states be self-induced?
My educated guess is that I reach Somnambulism when I meditate. I notice that I experience 3 to 10 second moments of experiencing "no identity"; pure silence of mind, but with a heightened awareness to all my senses.
Would the Esdaile State perhaps be the level that many supposed "Spiritually Enlightened" people achieve (and maintain throughout most, or all, of their waking existence)?
I've always trusted my intuition on using deepened states of awareness to heal myself and it has seemed to work wonders on me over the years. Within the first one or two months of starting my self-hypnosis and "silent meditation" therapies I noticed that my skin really cleared up (I had bad acne at the time) and my skin became noticeably radiant (I even got several compliments about it, which really motivated me to continue with my practices). I have since that time (about 6 or 7 years ago) been sick with only minor colds, perhaps only three times (I used to average getting 2 or 3, much more severe colds/ flu, per year). In other words, I'm convinced that hypnosis and meditation are very effective at treating health and immunity.
To answer your question, I don't know, I think everyone is different and some may reach deeper states of consciousness than others, but I wouldn't know without performing tests and the person meditating would have to use the critical factor in the brain to perform the test on themselves which would bring them out of somnambulism and that would defeat the purpose. So I wouldn't know if you are reaching the same levels, but I wouldn't rule it out.