Can you be aware of nothing? The rare sleep experience scientists are trying to understand

By Adriana Alcaraz-Sanchez, Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh

For some people, sleep brings a peculiar kind of wakefulness. Not a dream, but a quiet awareness with no content. This lesser-known state of consciousness may hold clues to one of science’s biggest mysteries: what it means to be conscious.

The state of conscious sleep has been widely described for centuries by different Eastern contemplative traditions. For instance, the Indian philosophical school of the Advaita Vedanta, grounded in the interpretation of the Vedas – one of the oldest…

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