If there is any one truth from the legacy of the Cayce readings that would be the most important to remember, it would be that there is a spiritual dimension to human beings, something beyond time and space boundaries. Another way of expressing this is to say that all human beings are interconnected, one with all other elements in creation. This spiritual oneness may be perceived not by the senses, which respond to events in the space/time materialized world, but by the faculty of intuition. We each have available a "sixth sense" that is attuned to the oneness dimension in life, providing a means for us to guide our lives in accord with our idea s. Since this sixth sense is so critical a faculty—able to perceive directly the reality of Cayce’s emphasis on the spiritual oneness of all life—it is reasonable to ask, "Just where can I find this sixth sense of mine?" To such a question, Cayce might reply, with a twinkle in his eye, "Well, you’re sleeping on it."

Such an answer is a good joke, because it’s really true. It’s true in that the talent is dormant, asleep. It’s true also in that sense suggested, "You’re sitting on it. . .it’s closer than you think, but you are hiding it from yourself." And it’s also true in the sense that during sleep the talent of the sixth sense becomes most active, aware or awake.

How can something be awake when we are asleep? That seems like a contradiction. But consider the story of Edgar Cayce himself, for his life gives credence to our tongue-in-cheek answer to the location of the sixth sense. Edgar Cayce was called "the sleeping prophet." Here was a man who very often was "asleep on the job." Did you know that he first discovered his talent for clairvoyance in his sleep? So Cayce would be speaking from direct experience should he answer our question concerning the location of our sixth sense by saying, "You’re sleeping on it."

Since such a profound fact seems camouflaged in such an ordinary event—sleep-—it is no wonder that, at some point, Edgar Cayce was specifically asked about this common mystery. In fact, in 1932 the sleeping prophet was asked to explain about the nature of sleep. This question resulted in the series of three readings numbered 5754. It was not a reading for a particular individual, but rather Edgar Cayce was asked to give a clear and comprehensive outline of what happens in sleep, a presentation that could be made available to the general public. So what Cayce answered in response to this question was meant for you and me to hear.

To put yourself in the mood for appreciating the answer, imagine first the extraordinary situation that is occurring—extraordinary, that is, from our usual viewpoint. It is easy to imagine someone about to depart to a foreign country, and our asking our friend to send us a postcard letting us know what it’s like over there. But can you imagine lying down to go to sleep and having someone at your bedside ask you, "When you get to sleep please tell me what it’s like." That’s what was being asked of Edgar Cayce.

Reflect for a moment. . .what is it like to fall asleep? What happens? Where do we go? Why don’t we remember? Since childhood most of us have at some point wondered about the mystery of sleep. We know that we lie down, our body relaxes, and we think about this and that as we "drift off." Sometimes something disturbs us just as we fall asleep, and these occasions show us that right before we were awakened, we were so caught up in what we were thinking about that we had lost awareness of our surroundings and had just about taken our thoughts for our reality. That much about sleep we have observed for ourselves. But not much more. When we awaken hours later, we cannot account for the time spent. We simply don’t remember. It feels as if we had "blanked out." About the only evidence we have of experiences while we were asleep is when we happen to remember a dream. Or perhaps we awaken in a particularly striking mood which makes us wonder what might have triggered such a feeling state.

Just what does happen while we are asleep? Edgar Cayce’s answer to this question begins by commenting upon our common-sense approach to researching sleep—that is, our science of studying the residues of sleep—dreams—in order to form ideas or theories about how such residues may have been created. Cayce is saying that such an approach may help prove one psychoanalyst’s theory over that of another theorist, but that it won’t tell us much about what is really happening during sleep.

To appreciate the significance of Cayce’s criticism of then-current sleep research and his amazing ability to predict what later scientific research would finally discover, consider for a moment the state of the art of sleep and dream research at the time of this reading. Freud had published his groundbreaking book, The Interpretation of Dreams, thirty years before, in 1900. It introduced the notion that there existed certain predictable and identifiable processes by which dreams were formed, psychological defense mechanisms that created symbolism out of mental residues arising during sleep. The process was thought to resemble the process of insanity. Freud’s theory prompted many experiments of the sort Cayce is criticizing. For example, a common type of experiment was exposing someone to an upsetting experience prior to going to sleep, or to disturbing physical sensations while the person slept. The person’s dreams would then be examined to see how the upsetting experience may have been symbolized in the dream. But it wasn’t until 30 years after Cayce gave this reading that laboratory scientists discovered that dreaming is a natural biological process, occurring in timely cycles during the night. And now, 50 years after this reading, sleep scientists are discovering what Cayce described for us—that the mind never sleeps.

In this reading, Cayce first describes sleep as a "shadow of, that intermission in earth’s experiences of, that state called death. . ." It is like death in two respects: first, because the physical aspect of consciousness becomes unaware of physical conditions surrounding the body; and second, because there awakens a larger awareness that transcends time and space, an awareness available after death.

Cayce discusses the nature of awareness itself and its relation to the senses. How do you know, right now, that you are aware of being aware, or conscious? Isn’t it because you can refer to information that your senses are providing you? "I know that I am aware because I see things, hear things and feel things." When falling asleep, Cayce points out, we become less aware, in that the senses we normally use to remind us of our awareness are shutting down. This shutting down corresponds to that experience we have all had, mentioned earlier, when a loud noise, for example, breaks into our drifting off to sleep and we realize that we were about to fall asleep. Or when someone is reading to us, and we realize we must have drifted off to sleep because we are suddenly aware that we haven’t been hearing what was being said.

Cayce qualifies his statement about the senses shutting down by pointing out that they do so to the extent necessary to remain on guard for the protection of the sleeping person. He says that it is as if we keep "an ear cocked," as the expression goes, remaining slightly on guard in case some event should happen that would require us to awaken and take action.

The physical consciousness is shutting down its response to physical information (except for what is needed for protection) but is not shutting out information from the imagination or from unconscious processes. That we are still aware of our imagination and of unconscious processes is another aspect of Cayce’s assertion that sleep is like death, for in both states do we interact with these dimensions. Cayce is also pointing ahead to the process of dream formation, as we shall see. For the purposes of an explanation to the general public, he is attempting to describe separately processes that must be understood as happening simultaneously and interactively. Describing the process of falling asleep as one in which the awareness based on physical sensations becomes dimmed, Cayce singles out the sense of hearing, but not simply in terms of our "keeping an ear cocked" as we fall asleep. In describing the effects in the body as we fall asleep, he discussed the auditory sense as being "subdivided" into all the other senses! What could he mean by that?

"Listen to what your body is trying to tell you!" Have you ever heard that advice? It is a suggestion to pay attention to subtle clues from your body so as to become more cooperative with its natural mode of operation. The suggestion makes sense, but why do we say "listen" rather than "look"? There is something very basic to the sense of listening. Cayce terms it the more "universal" of the senses, the first to develop in the evolutionary process. In human beings, at least, the sense of hearing is the only one that operates totally from vibrations, without the necessity of other physical or chemical reactions to help receive the sensations. Perhaps it is the pure vibrational quality of hearing that makes it the more universal sense.

Cayce is describing how we "listen" to our body while we sleep. Much of the physical body is at rest during sleep, yet there remain other functions of the body that continue to operate—the heart, the digestion, the breath. How the body maintains the regulation of its physical functioning is still being researched by science. Is Cayce suggesting that the auditory sense plays a role? He does say that the senses act not just through the brain, but through the lymph centers and throughout the sympathetic nervous system. Given our lack of understanding and our bias toward assuming that we think just with our brains, Cayce’s comment may seem bizarre. However, try to attune to what he is describing; imagine that he is describing a process in which awareness is becoming less active and localized in the brain and becoming more active and diffused throughout the entire body. This awareness during sleep Cayce would have us imagine as being _like "listening.

It is a listening, however, with the "third ear," for Cayce refers to it as "this sixth sense." He calls this awareness that awakens as we fall asleep the sixth sense—both because it is a manner of sensing and because our general use of the term, "the sixth sense," as referring to intuition or ESP is a good approximation to the nature of the ability Cayce wishes us to understand.

"Of what, then, does this sixth sense partake...?" Cayce says that it depends upon the activities, and he sets the stage for us to consider two sets of activities—the activities of our daily life and the activities of our spiritual self. Throughout the rest of the readings appear references to comparisons between these two sets of activities. For the moment, however, Cayce mentions that dreams are one _of the experiences of this sixth sense. Dreams, then, are a function of "listening" with the sixth sense. Listening to what? To the body, at least (but more, for sure) so that through dreams we hear about the condition of our body and can he warned about any impending difficulty.

The sixth sense also "partakes of the accompanying entity that is ever on guard before the throne of the Creator itself." Here Cayce is now specifically linking sleep, the sixth sense, the spiritual self and oneness with the Creator. The fact of our spiritual being—here it is that we sleep on it! And he says that it "may be trained or submerged," implying—as the word "sleeper" suggests—that the dormancy of the ability is dependent upon our attitudes and actions toward it; yet, though dormant, it is nevertheless active. He goes on to say that it may make itself known to us through disease or depression. Why would a spiritual process manifest itself to us in such a negative manner? Cayce doesn’t answer that question until the second part of the reading. Although he doesn’t explain here the "why" of that effect, he does conclude this section of the reading by explaining the "how."

He describes the brain as capable of resonance, like "a string tuned that vibrates to certain sound." Recall that during sleep, Cayce says that the senses all, and especially the sixth sense, function as an auditory—that is, vibratory— process. He says it again, specifically to explain the mechanism of effect that the sleep experiences have upon the waking self: ". . .there is a definite connection between that we have chosen to term the sixth sense, or acting through the auditory forces of the body-physical, and the other self within self." What we "hear" while we are asleep continues to resonate with us upon awakening. And since he has focused primarily on the physical effects, he concludes by noting that what e make our body with—what we eat—will have an impact on the nature of that resonance

The majority of the information given in the second part of the reading pertains to the nature of this awakening sense that for most of us is dormant except when we are asleep. What is particularly exciting about the concepts he tries to explain is that he suggests to us an alternative awareness, an alternative self, in fact, that lives within us, which is most active during sleep. He explains the nature of this "sleeping talent" in terms of the relationship of sensing to awareness, in terms of the "self" that is aware of sensing, and in terms of what is sensed.

Just as information in the physical world leaves an impression on our physical senses, so does information in the non-physical world leave an impression on this sixth sense while we are asleep. All during the night this sixth sense is receiving impressions. Some of these impressions are recalled as dreams. More generally, what happens while we sleep is that this sixth sense has access to all experiences ever had by the soul in its various incarnations and other sojourns, as well as to the daily experiences of the current personality.

There is a comparison made during sleep of the person’s daily life with all that the person’s soul has ever experienced and evaluations are made. This comparison of the particulars of a day’s life with the overall perspective of several lifetimes is somewhat like the comparison parents make when responding to an event in the life of their child— the child’s perspective seems particularly ironic, poignant, sad or hopeful from the wider perspective of the adult who has a lot more experience to provide a context for evaluating that particular experience. When we awaken from sleep in a particularly good mood or in a particularly bad mood, it is the result of such a comparison having been made. But who is doing all this comparing? It is being done via the ability of the sixth sense, but just who is using this ability?

This process of making companions, by the way, becomes the clue to the approach recommended by Cayce to the interpretation of dreams that are remembered from sleep. For those dreams are the impressions left of making such comparisons between the recent actions of the person and the ideals formed on the basis of many lifetimes.

When considering the subject of ideals formed over many lifetimes, Cayce is naturally moved to reflect upon certain of those ultimate, universal and timeless ideals as expressed by the Son—the Master. We are reminded of certain attributes— peace, the silence, harmony, trust, patience, love, joy and kindness—the fruits of the spirit that are very likely to have become in some way related to the ideals formed over many lifetimes and thus likely to be used by a person in sleep as a criterion for comparison with the experiences during the day.

And here is where Cayce answers the question of why our spiritual nature might manifest itself to us in the morning as a negative mood, or as in disease. Having formed over many lifetimes an ideal such as love or peace, when we compare during sleep this ideal (and our related understanding) to our activities and experiences from the day, we ache, we mourn, we yearn that we could but remember what we know! Like the functioning of a thermostat, such feelings of depression are the echoes of the call of the spiritual self, the residue of the tension we have experienced during sleep, attempting to pull us back to the mark. Then, in his remarks on the Son—"He sleeps"—Cayce asks us to ponder the parallels between the Death and Resurrection and our own sleeping soul self.

Cayce says that this other self has been given names, depending primarily on the function under consideration—soul, soul body, cosmic body, spirit body, dream body, etc.—but that what is really important to understand is that it is an awareness within us that is part of a universal awareness— we are sleeping giants!

The real sleeper in this reading is that in one of the most ordinary of all experiences, sleep, we actually enter into the oneness via universal awareness. If we would only ponder the relation between awareness and the senses, we could wake up within our sleep. For just as our awareness during the day is often hidden from us by being totally reflected by the sensory information given to it, so also at night is that other self reflected in the information coming through the sixth sense, which he also terms intuition.

Thus the sixth sense, as Cayce is so forcefully depicting it for us, is not an appendage, like the ears or the nose, but rather something very central, at the core of our experiences—almost to say that it is what makes experiences out of events. It is as if the intuitive sense acting through the soul is what makes the raw events into food for the soul.

"What, then has this to do—you ask—with the subject of Sleep? Sleep—that period when the soul takes stock of that is has acted upon during one rest period to another, making or drawing—as it were—the comparisons that make for Life itself in its essence. . ." As intuition—the sixth sense—is suppressed during the day, a weariness sets in as we are not operating with all our intelligence. The fatigue draws us to rest and sleep. When we fall asleep, we withdraw our awareness from its hypnotic fascination with physical sensation, thereby enabling us to listen with our now awakening sixth sense. As we abide in sleep, intuitively resonating with the sum of all our experiences—this life and beyond—we gain refreshing perspective on our efforts and have another opportunity to remember what we know. What will you do with your sleep tonight?

"In sleep all things become possible Cayce reminds us. Of all the possibilities, what would you have? It makes a difference what we choose to experience during sleep. Many of us think of sleep as a chance to get away from it all. But Cayce is informing us that sleep is a chance to return to the joys of our spiritual heritage—our universal awareness—and that which we might wish to explore with that endowment.

How can this be used? By applying the principle of "like attracting like." The things that concern us during the day are going to influence what we experience during the night. It is not so much a matter of giving ourselves suggestions or using some special technique upon falling asleep to direct our sleep time to a particular purpose. Rather, how we live during the day, what our affinities, likes and dislikes, goals and ideals we pursue during the day—these will determine what use we will make of our sleeping talent.