R.Steiner: Imagine that the consciousness being extinguished. What is then still in activity? Then the physical body, the etheric double body and the astral body are still in activity. Now, this astral body can transform what it receives from without into pictures but not into mental pictures, as it is not taken up into the waking consciousness. Thus the astral body of the such human being transforms the astral impressions into pictures which surround him, either in irregular way or in regular way via intuition, if the ego is present, at this whole process. In such a contact with the outside world, the astral body, the soul of the person - is a dreamer. We only have to make a distinction between two kinds of dreams: -the irregular dreams which mostly penetrate the dream consciousness of the human beings, as the nice, dramatic, symbolic dreams. With the irregular dreams it will be the etheric double body which is above all active and conveys the contacts with the outside world. And the dreams, however, which run in symbolic, dramatic way, it is, then, the astral body of the person which symbolises the outer impressions, expresses them allegorically and transforms them into a quite dramatic dream. Only because in the present level of development our daytime ego is minded more realistically, because we rely in our daytime consciousness above all on our deducing, calculating reason, therefore, any single sensory sensation appears to us to be linked by mind with the others, just as is the case in the waking consciousness - and distort them. However, we can imagine other states of consciousness; we can imagine that the human being looks deeper into nature. Then this purely rational view also comes to an end. This is just again the case of the higher kinds of soul-life. It is not only necessary that we have eyes and ears, but it is necessary that we enliven our impressions. That we give life and presence to that, which eye and ear deliver to us; that we oppose it with the power of reasoning that transforms it into mental pictures and that is why it must be developed and reside in us.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:54:10 +0000
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