Meditation and sleep studies suggest being 'awake' isn't an on-off switch—there are these weird 'gaps' where you're neither conscious nor unconscious.
PsyArXiv · March 16, 2026 · c32au_v1
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Why it matters
The study challenges the standard medical view that you are either conscious or not. By looking at 'clear light sleep' and meditative 'cessations,' researchers found evidence for a spectrum of awareness that persists even when the brain is technically in a state traditionally defined as unconscious.
From the abstract
Consciousness can persist, transform, and dissolve across wakefulness, sleep, and advanced meditation. Despite empirical and theoretical advances within each domain, these states are rarely examined within an integrated scientific framework. An interdisciplinary perspective reveals converging phenomena that challenge binary accounts of consciousness and highlight its graded, dynamic, and trainable nature. Here, we argue that the interface of advanced meditation, sleep, and consciousness science