# Where's our immortal soul when we sleep? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 29, 2011, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177 "2011-10-29T13:30:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/1 "2011-10-29T13:30:11Z")
This has to be an old and settled issue given the obviousness of it, but I’ve never heard the answer. When we sleep without dreaming we effectively don’t exist- no conciousness, no memory, no self. Other than the fact that we still can wake up, it’s equivalent to annihilation. So how do theologians reconcile this with the idea that we have an immortal soul? ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/2 "2011-10-29T13:36:35Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > This has to be an old and settled issue given the obviousness of it, but I’ve never heard the answer. When we sleep without dreaming we effectively don’t exist- no conciousness, no memory, no self. Other than the fact that we still can wake up, it’s equivalent to annihilation. So how do theologians reconcile this with the idea that we have an immortal soul? Because they don’t subscribe to that notion. **You** are a living soul. The fact that you’re sleeping doesn’t mean you don’t exist, and it is not tantamount to annihilation. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Consensus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3be4f8/32.png) [@Consensus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Consensus)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/3 "2011-10-29T13:44:15Z")
An immortal soul obviously doesn’t need a physical body to exist, else it would be mortal. So why would it be affected by any state the body is currently in? So if we had an immortal soul you’d think it would be unaffected by a little nap. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/4 "2011-10-29T14:10:56Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > This has to be an old and settled issue given the obviousness of it, but I’ve never heard the answer. When we sleep without dreaming we effectively don’t exist- no conciousness, no memory, no self. Other than the fact that we still can wake up, it’s equivalent to annihilation. So how do theologians reconcile this with the idea that we have an immortal soul? Does your computer still exist if you turn it off for a while? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/5 "2011-10-29T14:15:29Z")
Jewish tradition says the soul joins with G-d while we sleep. [http://www.torah.org/features/spirfocus/sleep.html#](http://www.torah.org/features/spirfocus/sleep.html#) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/6 "2011-10-29T14:32:38Z")
Mine goes to Borders and has a quiet read in the Myths & Religions section. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/7 "2011-10-29T14:40:08Z")
_I don’t know, but I’ve been told A big legged woman ain’t got no soul_ ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/8 "2011-10-29T15:25:23Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Mine goes to Borders and has a quiet read in the Myths & Religions section. Is that the Borders up in heaven? Cause there ain’t no more Borders here on Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/9 "2011-10-29T15:29:01Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Cause there ain’t no more Borders here on Earth. Damn globalists! ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/10 "2011-10-29T17:49:58Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Is that the Borders up in heaven? Cause there ain’t no more Borders here on Earth. Yes. The Great Borders In The Sky, where they have every book ever dreamed; super comfy sofas; everflowing hot cocoa dispensers and no pestering staff. Pretty chill place, despite the poor state of the Science section. Actually that would make for a pretty tolerable afterlife. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/11 "2011-10-29T21:14:01Z")
Well if our immortal soul isn’t our conciousness, memory or identity, none of which exist while we’re asleep without dreaming, then what it it? Or to put it another way, what changes when a dreamless sleeper suddenly dies in their sleep? ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/12 "2011-10-29T21:38:44Z")
It goes in your imaginary pocket. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/13 "2011-10-29T22:06:05Z")
Even in dreamless sleep, we certainly have at least some consciousness, since we can be wakened by appropriate stimuli. And I don’t know about you, but when I wake up, my memory’s still intact, so it must have still been there when I was sleeping, too. “Identity” I don’t know about; you’ll have to define what you mean by that. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/14 "2011-10-29T22:10:47Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Does your computer still exist if you turn it off for a while? The hardware does. Does software exist when it’s not being run? That’s a slightly tricker question. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/15 "2011-10-29T22:10:58Z")
> [@Consensus](#): > > An immortal soul obviously doesn’t need a physical body to exist, else it would be mortal. For traditional Christian theology — at least of the Aristotelian(/Thomistic) sort — that’s not necessarily true. Aquinas held the soul to be the form of the body, what makes _this_ parcel of matter human (or a cat, or a tree) rather than anything else. Considered in this way one’s soul cannot be disentangled from the body any more than roundness could be disentangled from a baseball; squash a baseball and its roundness ceases to exist; it doesn’t shuffle off to baseball heaven. However, for Aquinas (though not, probably, for Aristotle), humanity has an out. Because the human intellect is immaterial (so it is held) the human soul can exist in an incomplete way apart from the body, although it can’t really _do_ much until such a time as God joins it back to its bodily material. If this sounds a bit like a copout to you, [you’re not alone](http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2011/08/a-problem-for-the-hylomorphic-dualist.html), although that’s another discussion entirely. In any event, from the Thomistic perspective there’s not necessarily anything surprising or confounding about (say) sleep. The soul provides form to the event of which brain activity is the physical cause; if we’re sleeping then I suppose the soul just isn’t doing very much. ---
**Author:** ![Xenocrates](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/f14d63/32.png) [@Xenocrates](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xenocrates)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/16 "2011-10-29T23:37:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Even in dreamless sleep, we certainly have at least some consciousness, since we can be wakened by appropriate stimuli. And I don’t know about you, but when I wake up, my memory’s still intact, so it must have still been there when I was sleeping, too. “Identity” I don’t know about; you’ll have to define what you mean by that. These are both invalid arguments. Virtually everyone who actually studies the brain believes that there is some kind of correspondence between brain activity and consciousness but it is also well-known that certain kinds of activity or activity in certain regions are not responsible for consciousness (at least to a significant degree). Just because external stimulation can result in activity which underlies consciousness (i.e., can wake you up) does not mean that the activity prior to the stimulation was correlated with any consciousness at all, nor that the external stimulation was consciously perceived. The link below is a cite for my claim that certain areas of the brain are known to not be significantly linked with consciousness, but it is an extremely interesting paper for anybody interested in consciousness to check out. It is written by a sleep psychiatrist presenting the view that consciousness is directly correlated with the level of integration of information in a system (which is measurable). [http://www.biolbull.org/content/215/3/216.full](http://www.biolbull.org/content/215/3/216.full) Remembering something is an active process, like imagining something. The fact that you have a memory of something now does not entail that you consciously experienced it (which is why memory implantation is not logically impossible). But the larger point is that you do not have have memories of your dreamless sleep, and the OP dealt with dreamless sleep only. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/17 "2011-10-30T00:00:58Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > The hardware does. > > Does software exist when it’s not being run? That’s a slightly tricker question. 😃 Well I turn it back on, and my settings and porn remain. It survived. Just temporarily stored in a not active configuration. ---
**Author:** ![ricksummon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ricksummon/32/3333_2.png) [@ricksummon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricksummon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/18 "2011-10-30T16:16:41Z")
H.P. Lovecraft explained this in _Beyond the Wall of Sleep:_ > [@](#): > > I am an entity like that which you yourself become in the freedom of dreamless sleep. I am your brother of light, and have floated with you in the effulgent valleys. It is not permitted me to tell your waking earth-self of your real self, but we are all roamers of vast spaces and travelers in many ages. Next year I may be dwelling in the Egypt which you call ancient, or in the cruel empire of Tsan Chan which is to come three thousand years hence. You and I have drifted to the worlds that reel about the red Arcturus, and dwelt in the bodies of the insect-philosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon of Jupiter. How little does the earth self know life and its extent! How little, indeed, ought it to know for its own tranquility! Next time you wake up, roll a SAN check. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2011, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/19 "2011-10-30T19:09:35Z")
> [@](#): > > These are both invalid arguments. Virtually everyone who actually studies the brain believes that there is some kind of correspondence between brain activity and consciousness but it is also well-known that certain kinds of activity or activity in certain regions are not responsible for consciousness (at least to a significant degree). Just because external stimulation can result in activity which underlies consciousness (i.e., can wake you up) does not mean that the activity prior to the stimulation was correlated with any consciousness at all, nor that the external stimulation was consciously perceived. Please define “consciousness”, then, because if it doesn’t mean “awareness of surroundings”, then I’m not sure what it means. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177/20 "2011-10-30T22:11:55Z")
The question is addressed in “[Be As You Are, The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi](http://www.beasyouare.info/beasyouare.html).” The guy doesn’t preach a religion so much as answer questions after having entered into an apparently permanent transcendental experience. As a result we don’t get a book by the subject but instead transcriptions of interviews: > [@](#): > > _Q: Is one nearer to pure consciousness in deep sleep than in the waking state?_ > A: The sleep, dream and waking states are mere phenomena apprearing on the Self which is itself stationary. It is also a state of simple awareness. Can anyone remain away from the Self at any moment? This question can arise only if that were possible. > > _Q: Is it not often said that one is nearer pure consciousness in deep sleep than in the waking state?_ > A: The question may as well be ‘Am I nearer to myself in my sleep than in my waking state?’ > The Self is pure consciousness. No one can ever be away from the Self. The question is possible only if there is duality. But there is no duality in the state of pure consciousness. > The same person sleeps, dreams and wakes up. The waking state is considered to be full of beatiful and interesting things. The absence of such experience makes one say that the sleep state is dull. Before we proceed further let us make this point clear. Do you not admit that you exist in your sleep? > > _Q: Yes, I do._ > A: You are the same person that is now awake. Is it not so? > > _Q: Yes._ > A: So there is a continuity in the sleep and the waking states. What is that continuity? It is only the state of pure being. > There is a difference in the two states. What is that difference? The incidents, namely, the body, the world and objects appear in the waking state but they disappear in sleep. > > _Q: But I am not aware in my sleep._ > A: True, there is no awareness of the body or of the world. But you must exist in your sleep in order to say now ‘I was not aware in my sleep’. Who says so now? It is the wakeful person. The sleeper cannot say so. That is to say, the individual who is now identifying the Self with the body says that such awareness did not exist in sleep. > Because you identify yourself with the body, you see the world anround you and say that the waking state is filled with beautiful and interesting things. The sleep state appears dull because you were not there as an individual and therefore these things were not. But what is the fact? There is the continuity of being in all the three states, but no continuity of the individual and the objects. > > _Q: Yes._ > A: That which is continuous is also enduring, that is permanent. That which is discontinuous is transitory. > > _Q: Yes._ > A: Therefore the state of being is permanent and the body and the world are not. They are fleeting phenomena passing on the screen of being-consciousness which is eternal and stationary. > > _Q: Relatively speaking, is not the sleep state nearer to pure consciousness that the waking state?_ > A: Yes, in this sense: when passing from sleep to waking the ‘I’-thought [individual self] must start and the mind must come into play. Then thoughts arise and the functions of the body come into operation. All these together make us say that we are awake. The absence of all this evolution is the characteristic of sleep and therefore it is nearer to pure consciousness than the waking state. > But one should not therefore desire to be always in sleep. In the first place it is impossible, for it will necessarily alternate with the other states. Secondly it cannot be thte state of bliss in which the _jnann_i is, for his state is permanent and not alternating. Moreover, the sleep state is not recognized to be one of awareness by people, but the sage is always aware. Thus the sleep state differs from the state in which the sage is established. > Still more, the sleep state is free from thoughts and their impression on the individual. It canot be altered by one’s will because effort is impossible in that condition. Although nearer to pure consciousness, it is not fit for efforts to realize the Self.[sup]4[/sup] [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-our-immortal-soul-when-we-sleep/601177.md?page=2)